Learning From Original Items

You have to learn history before you can share it with others. Here are some of my favorite resources for viewing original clothing and material culture from the 1860s.

Local Museums
Make a research appointment at Seattle's MOHAI or the Washington State Historical Society in Tacoma. There's nothing like seeing a real artifact up close--unless that's seeing it up close, with a professional on-hand for commentary. Smaller institutions also may have collections available to view, so ask at your local museum or historic society.

Museum On-Line Collections
Featuring clothing, housewares, pictures, and documents of historic interest.
Historic New England
Museum of Fine Arts Boston
Met Online Collections
Minnesota Historical Society's Civil War Collection.
The Museum of London
The Victoria and Albert Museum
Washington State Historical Society Online Collections
Wisconsin Historical Museum Online Collections
The Henry Ford Museum: Collections Access
Library of Congress Digital Collections

UK National Trust
The Smithsonian Online Collections
Museum of the Confederacy/American Civil War Museum

For manufactured goods heading West in the 1850s and 1860s, you can't beat the Arabia and Bertrand collections:
Steamboat Arabia, More Pictures, Even More Pictures and the Virtual Tour.
Steamboat Bertrand (and the official site).

Textile/Clothing-specific Resources
FIDM Museum & Galleries
Kent State University Gallery of Costume (and Inside Out display)
Europeana Fashion Project (Museum Collection Database)
Demode Couture
The Fashionable Past
Fashion Timeline at Corsets and Crinolines
CDVs at The Graceful Lady
Images of period dresses from private collections, at All The Pretty Dresses
More CDVs from the Barrington House Museum

CDVs, fashion plates, and patterns from La Couturiere Parisienne
Original bonnets and caps from  Mrs. Parker's Millinery
Quilts at the International Quilt Study Center & Museum
More quilts at the Shelburne Museum

Event: WCWA Militia Ball

The WCWA's Militia Ball was held last Saturday evening, April 18.  Attendance by the 4th was rather sparse, but overall there was a good showing of our WCWA friends, Union and Confederate. We were also joined by a number of persons from outside the reenacting community, who added a pleasant mixture of new faces to the party.

Dance Set for the Evening

I) Grand March
II) First Waltz
III) Virginia Reel (Sir Roger de Coverley)
IV) Jig
V) Opera Reel
VI) Spanish Dance
VII) Rustic Reel
VIII) Final Waltz

Due to time constraints, the French Quadrille, Polka, and German (Parlor Cotillion) were not danced.

Toasts were offered at dinner

Waltzing

High spirits on the dance floor

Rounding Out Your Impression: Primary Sources

Glamour: 1865 (from Peterson's Magazine, January)

One benefit of reenacting 150(+) years in the past, is that the books, magazine, pamphlets, and newspapers of the time are in the public domain.  Yes, you can actually read the same papers that your ancestors got their news, humor, and fashion advice from.  Why not pick up a copy of Harper's and find some truly dreadful Victorian jokes to share around the next campfire?  Or regale your comrades with Mr. Foster's hit new song?

Here are some of the resources I've found useful for tracking down written primary sources from the 1850s-1860s.

The Library of Congress: It's not always the easiest to navigate when looking for a particular title, but they have tons of resources which are fun to browse.

Google Books (Advanced Search): One of the easiest ways to search for a particular topic is using this advanced search.  Enter your subject or title in the "all the words" bar ("leather work", "etiquette", "Godey's", "agriculture", "housework", etc.), check "full view only" (to get things you can read for free on-line) and set the year range (say 1855-1870).  Advanced tips: the "more editions" button can get you from the 1861 set of a magazine, to all the available years; compound words are sometimes spelled differently in the period: ie, "sunbonnet", "sun-bonnet", "sun bonnet"--if one search yields no hits, try varying the spelling.

Internet Archive: Less useful for subject-browsing that Google or LOC, Internet Archive can track down specific titles which the others may not have.  It's particularly nice for finding a whole year's worth of a magazine or newspaper (many period periodicals were published in bound volumes after the initial run of issues, and these are often what have survived in libraries and ended up posted on-line).

Project Gutenberg: If you know the title or author of a period book, you can search here: e-books, all public domain, and all free.  Unfortunately, I've never found a 'sort/exclude by date' option, so it's not easy to browse for specifically 1860s titles.

Harper's Weekly (and here): Probably the most famous of the national newspapers in the 1860s. Don't have time to read it all?  Check out the Cartoon of the Day.

And some of my specific favorites:

Links to Etiquette, Advice, and Household Books

Links to Literature and Sheet Music including the excellent Levy Sheet Music Collection from Johns Hopkins (allows you to search by title, subject, or instrumentation, and to limit the year range).

Links to Textbooks

Added 8/4/15: The British Library has an extensive collection of historic images from the 17th-19th centuries on their flicker account.  And they're all public domain!

Luminous-Lint has historic photographs (and information on the history of photography).