What did the settlers in Massachusetts wear? The items of Colonial Clothing worn by Puritan
Puritans
The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and needed to become more Protestant. Puritanism played a significant role in English history, especially during the Protectorate.
Full Answer
What were the clothes of the 17th century?
What did women wear in the winter?
What were the laws of Massachusetts in 1634?
Why did the Puritans flee England?
Why was the Massachusetts Bay colony different from the rest of the colonies?
Why did farmers wear frocks?
What was the Monmouth cap?
See 2 more
What did the Massachusetts colony wear?
Colonial men wore clothes of wool and linen with some leather accessories. Their long linen shirts were worn with breeches, short pants that fasten just below the knee. Woolen socks came up over the knees, and a leather jerkin, a type of vest, was often worn over the shirt.
What did the Puritans wear for clothing?
Puritan dress Puritans advocated a conservative form of fashionable attire, characterized by sadd colors and modest cuts. Gowns with low necklines were filled in with high-necked smocks and wide collars. Married women covered their hair with a linen cap, over which they might wear a tall black hat.
What did men wear in the Massachusetts colony?
Men wore a long shirt, stockings, garters, doublet, breeches, points (a tie used to join the doublet and hose), a waistcoat, a neckcloth, a knee-length coat, a great coat for colder months, and shoes. The broad-rimmed hat came into fashion about 1670.
What were Puritans not allowed to wear?
The Massachusetts Bay Colony passed its first law limiting the excesses of dress in 1634, when it prohibited citizens from wearing “new fashions, or long hair, or anything of the like nature.” That meant no silver or gold hatbands, girdles, or belts, and no cloth woven with gold thread or lace.
Did Puritans wear red?
While Puritans did feel that plain, dark clothing made from wool or cotton reflected their plain style ideals (Rubinstein 286), Puritan clothing could be brightly colored and included the use of yellow, green, red, and even purple, and for wealthy Puritans ornamentation was not unusual, as the painting of Elizabeth and ...
Did Puritans wear colorful clothes?
Such ostentation was anathema to the Puritans. Though the Puritans didn't always dress in black – they did wear many colors – they found the wasteful and unseemly clothing of England's high society immodest.
How did colonial people dress?
Working class clothing Country women wore short hooded cloaks, most often red. Both sexes wore handkerchiefs or neckerchiefs. Men's felt hats were worn with the brims flat rather than cocked or turned up. Men and women wore shoes with shoe buckles—when they could afford them.
What did Pilgrim girls wear?
One or more ankle-length, waist-fastened petticoats were worn. The dress, or gown, consisted of two parts, a bodice and a skirt. Sometimes the sleeves were a separate part as well, being tied to the bodice. The bodice or the skirt could be the same or different colors, and were often made of wool.
How did boys dress in colonial days?
When a boy began to wear breeches, this meant that he was not a baby anymore, and the family often celebrated this day. Along with breeches, boys wore button-up shirts that were sometimes ruffled around the collar and cuffs. A coat completed the outfit. Shoes were normally dark brown and made of leather.
Do Puritans still exist?
Puritanical thinking has arisen, zombie-like, until it is now a bedrock of modern life. Puritans live and thrive in every area of society — in our churches, our governments, and our homes.
Did the Puritans wear jewelry?
But the pilgrims did not believe in adornment of any kind. They had a stricter admonishment against jewelry than even the Puritans. Puritan women were allowed to wear strings of pearls in their hair and other adornments on special occasions.
Why did Puritans have weird names?
But by the late 16th century many Puritan communities in Southern Britain saw common names as too worldly, and opted instead to name children after virtues or with religious slogans as a way of setting the community apart from non-Puritan neighbors.
How do you dress like a Puritan?
Puritan Clothing trend in association with religion"Long-length, loose linen shirts""Breeches which were short length pants that were fastened at the knee""Socks - long woolen socks were worn""A jerkin which was a sleeveless jacket which could be made of cloth or leather"More items...•
How did Puritan children dress?
In the 1600s, baby boys and girls dressed in the same way. Boys and girls wore gowns (one piece garments covering the whole body) with long sleeves and long skirts. When babies were learning to walk, long strips of fabric called “leading strings” were sewn into the shoulders of their gowns.
Did Puritans wear corsets?
The corset, commonly known as a 'stay', was made of linen with boning and stiffened with paste. Women were then 'straight-laced' into them, and the term became synonymous with the pious Puritan women of the 17th century.
Did the Puritans wear jewelry?
But the pilgrims did not believe in adornment of any kind. They had a stricter admonishment against jewelry than even the Puritans. Puritan women were allowed to wear strings of pearls in their hair and other adornments on special occasions.
Clothing - Women of the Salem Witch Trials (1650-1690)
The clothing in Puritan communities was simple and homemade. Fabric was simple and homespun. Fabrics were naturally died from plant materials.
What Did Women Wear?
For under garments, women wore a shift, which was a long, loose shirt with long sleeves that reached down to their ankles.
What color clothing did the pilgrims wear in the Cabin of the Mayflower?
In this 1900 painting, titled The Signing of the Compact in the Cabin of the Mayflower, by Edward Percy Moran, the pilgrims are also depicted as wearing a mix of black clothing and colorful clothing.
What Were the Pilgrim’s Clothes Made of?
The pilgrim’s clothes were made from linen, wool and leather. Linen is a natural fiber spun from the flax plant. Wool is woven from sheep’s wool. Leather is made from the hides of domesticated animals.
What Did Children Wear?
Baby boys and girls were dressed the same way. They wore gowns (a one piece dress) with long sleeves.
What were women's stockings made of?
On their legs, women wore stockings, which came up over the knee and were tied with garters, that were made from ribbon, knitted or leather strips, to keep them up. These stockings were hand-knitted and were usually made out of wool or linen.
What did women wear during the stay?
Over the stays, women wore a waistcoat, which was like a long-sleeved, close-fitting jacket, that was made out of linen canvas or wool. Women also wore one or two petticoats, which were long, full skirts made out of linen or wool.
What was the name of the piece of wood that was used to make the stays?
The stays were stiffened using rows of stitching or reeds or sometimes had a flat piece of wood, called a busk, inside the center front of the stay. Women also either wore a linen kerchief that draped around their neck and tucked into the top front of their stays for modesty or they wore a flat linen collar.
What Type of Uniforms Did Massachusetts Soldiers Wear?
Minutemen were citizen soldiers and didn’t have an official uniform so they instead wore regular clothing, which consisted of waistcoats, linen hunting shirts and breeches.
What colors did the Continental Army wear?
American soldiers early in the war wore long, brown coats. When the Continental Army’s uniforms were standardized in 1779, each regiment was assigned a blue coat with facings of a particular color to indicate their regiment. The New England states of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island wore blue coats with white facings.
How many soldiers were in the Massachusetts Continental Army?
Massachusetts Continental Army Soldiers: When the Continental Army was first established in June of 1775, out of the 37,363 soldiers who enlisted in the first year, about 16,449 were from Massachusetts.
When were Minutemen organized?
Massachusetts Militiamen & Minutemen: The first minutemen of the American Revolution were organized in Worcester county, Mass in September of 1774 when officials at the Worcester County Convention decided to weed out loyalists in the militia by requiring the resignation of all officers and then reconstituting the militia into seven regiments ...
When did Massachusetts allow blacks to join the army?
Finally, on April 28, 1778, the Massachusetts legislature passed a law officially allowing the enlistment of African-Americans.
When did Massachusetts allow African Americans to join the military?
That year Massachusetts set its own criteria for the enlistment of African Americans by passing two acts in 1776. The first was passed on January 26 and the second of November 14 which specifically exempted “Negroes, Indians and mulattoes” from military service in the Massachusetts militia.
Who were the first colonists to fight in the Revolutionary War?
Massachusetts colonists were the first to fight in the Revolutionary War and they also made up the majority of the soldiers in the war. They served as militiamen, minutemen and soldiers in the Continental Army.
Why did the Pilgrims come to Massachusetts?
The Puritans strongly dissented from the theology and church polity of the Church of England, and they came to Massachusetts for religious freedom. The Bay Colony was founded under a royal charter, unlike Plymouth Colony. The Puritan migration was mainly from East Anglia and southwestern regions of England, with an estimated 20,000 immigrants between 1628 and 1642. Massachusetts Bay colony quickly eclipsed Plymouth in population and economy, the chief factors being the large influx of population, more suitable harbor facilities for trade, and the growth of a prosperous merchant class.
What tribes lived in Massachusetts?
Massachusetts was originally inhabited by tribes of the Algonquian language family such as the Wampanoag, Narragansetts, Nipmucs, Pocomtucs, Mahicans, and Massachusetts. The Vermont and New Hampshire borders and the Merrimack River valley was the traditional home of the Pennacook tribe. Cape Cod, Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, and southeast Massachusetts were the home of the Wampanoags who established a close bond with the Pilgrim Fathers. The extreme end of the Cape was inhabited by the closely related Nauset tribe. Much of the central portion and the Connecticut River valley was home to the loosely organized Nipmucs. The Berkshires were the home of both the Pocomtuc and the Mahican tribes. Narragansetts from Rhode Island and Mahicans from Connecticut Colony were also present.
Why did the New England colonies use paper money?
In 1690, the Massachusetts Bay Colony became the first to issue paper money in what would become the United States, but soon others began printing their own money as well. The demand for currency in the colonies was due to the scarcity of coins, which had been the primary means of trade. Colonies' paper currencies were used to pay for their expenses and lend money to the colonies' citizens. Paper money quickly became the primary means of exchange within each colony, and it even began to be used in financial transactions with other colonies. However, some of the currencies were not redeemable in gold or silver, which caused them to depreciate. With the Currency Act of 1751, the British parliament limited the ability of the New England colonies to issue fiat paper currency. Under the 1751 act, the New England colonial governments could make paper money legal tender for the payment of public debts (such as taxes), and could issue bills of credit as a tool of government finance, but barred the use of paper money as legal tender for private debts. Under continued pressure from the British merchant-creditors who disliked being paid in depreciated paper currency, the subsequent Currency Act of 1764 banned the issuance of bills of credit (paper money) throughout the colonies. Colonial governments used workarounds to accept paper notes as payment for taxes and pressured Parliament to repeal the prohibition on paper money as legal tender for public debts, which Parliament ultimately did in 1773.
What led to the revocation of the Massachusetts charter in 1684?
These political and trade issues led to the revocation of the Massachusetts charter in 1684. The king established the Dominion of New England in 1686 to govern all of New England, and to centralize royal control and weaken local government.
When did Maine join the Union?
On March 15, 1820 , Maine was separated from Massachusetts and entered the Union as the 23rd State as a result of the enactment of the Missouri Compromise .
When was Massachusetts colonized?
The area that is now Massachusetts was colonised by English settlers in the early 17th century and became the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the 18th century. Before that, it was inhabited by a variety of Indian tribes.
Who was in charge of the Hull Mint?
The Massachusetts legislature established a mint to produce the pine tree shilling beginning in 1642. John Hull and his partner Robert Sanderson in charge of the "Hull Mint".
What were the clothes of the 17th century?
The basic items of clothing worn by women during the 17th century were an undershirt, known as a shift, a corset, and long petticoats. Her outer clothing consisted of either a gown or a waistcoat (fitted jacket) and a skirt. Bodices, as a rule, were long and pointed, and skirts were full and long.
What did women wear in the winter?
In the colder winter months, women wore cloaks, a sleeveless outer-garment that draped over their shoulders. Women’s shoes and stockings were much the same as men’s. Laboring men wore leather and coarse fabrics. Farmers wore frocks, a large outer garment, to protect their clothing or hide an untidy appearance.
What were the laws of Massachusetts in 1634?
In 1634, the General Court in Plymouth decreed that wearing silver, gold, silk, lace, girdles, or hatbands were prohibited . Slashed clothing was definitely a no-no unless done discreetly (with merely one slash per sleeve and perhaps one slash at the back). Any other embroidery or needlework was also prohibited. People were fined for not adhering to the laws of modesty. Most of the modesty laws concerned women’s clothing—no great surprise there. One law decreed how long and wide a woman’s sleeve should be. Also, her skirts must drag along the floor since it was improper for a woman to show any part of her legs. No ankles here, please.
Why did the Puritans flee England?
The colonial Puritans were stricter in many ways than their English counterparts, and, oddly enough, after the Puritans fled England to escape persecution they became the persecutors . Of course, as with any story, the reality of the Puritans is more complex than can be summed up in a few sentences.
Why was the Massachusetts Bay colony different from the rest of the colonies?
However, living in the Massachusetts Bay Colony was different because Massachusetts was a theocracy ruled by Puritans. The colonial Puritans were stricter in many ways than their English counterparts, and, oddly enough, ...
Why did farmers wear frocks?
Farmers wore frocks, a large outer garment, to protect their clothing or hide an untidy appearance. The farmers would take the frocks off when they went inside their houses or went into the village or marketplace. The Monmouth cap, a knitted woolen hat, was frequently worn by working-class men and fishermen.
What was the Monmouth cap?
The Monmouth cap, a knitted woolen hat, was frequently worn by working-class men and fishermen. Men wore a long shirt, stockings, garters, doublet, breeches, points (a tie used to join the doublet and hose), a waistcoat, a neckcloth, a knee-length coat, a great coat for colder months, and shoes.
