Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1894 edition. Excerpt: ... were deemed the lower classes; laws were passed similar to those which had been enforced in England by the English kings and queens, especially the dress-loving Elizabeth. But these statutes proved a dire failure in the new land, and universal freedom and much diversity of attire became a part of the universal liberty. Through the various records of colonial days which have been preserved to us, and through the interesting, though ofttimes crude portraits of our ancestors which still exist, it is possible to trace with considerable precision the variations in dress in the different settlements; to note how quickly in some localities the thrifty simplicity of the attire of the early planters was abandoned, and to picture the succession of modes. The earliest Virginia planters were many of them Cavaliers and had no Puritanical horror of fine dress; hence small attempt was made at restriction of extravagance in attire in that colony. Wealth was great, and if the tobacco crop were large and factors prompt, doubtless the gowns and doublets which were sent from England were correspondingly rich. Some mild sumptuary edicts were sent forth "to suppress excess in cloaths," such as the orders to Sir Francis Wyatt in 1621. He was enjoined "not to permit any but the council and the heads of hundreds to wear gold in their cloaths or to wear silk till they make it themselves.' This order was probably intended not so much to discourage the wearing of silk as to encourage its manufacture (as silk culture was for many years a bee in the colonial bonnet), and the law must have been a dead letter. John Pory, Secretary of the Virginia colony, wrote about that time to a friend in England, Our cowekeeper here of James citty on Sundays goes accoutred alPin...