Washington Whirlwind # 7: Whirling Star

 

Washington Whirlwind # 7: Whirling Star for the First Lady

by Elsie Ridgley

Despite the war Washington's social life whirled around frequent 

White House receptions.

Above: Mary Lincoln in a typical off-the-shoulder dress showing off

her "poitrine" as they say in France.

During the first year of White House life Mary Todd Lincoln must have enjoyed herself mightily as the nation's First Lady. She set about refurnishing the Executive Mansion, acting as hostess and buying a wardrobe that "befitted her position," as Julia Taft recalled. Mary's idea of that position was a bit lofty for a democracy. She and some newspaper editors viewed her as a "Republican Queen." She modeled her wardrobe on the French Empress Eugenie's.

Eugenie, Emperor Napoleon III's consort from 

1853 to 1870, set western fashion with her 

elaborate bell-shaped skirts.

Mary Lincoln clipped sketches of the Empress's gowns and asked seamstress Elizabeth Keckly for copies.

Whirling Star by Becky Brown

Mary Clemmer Ames (1839-1884)

During the Civil War journalist Mary Ames sent dispatches to various newspapers including one widely copied story telling of the "Late Slaves," meaning once-enslaved Washingtonians now free. 

This 1862 article about Lizzie may be the first published reference to Elizabeth Keckly's skills. 

Elizabeth Hobbs Keckly (1818-1907)

Whirling Star by Elsie Ridgley

Jean H. Baker in her 1987 biography of Mary Lincoln tells us of the French Empress's influence. Baker thought Mary Lincoln's personality problems and her need to outshine others were due to her mother's early death and resulting trauma, a somewhat Freudian explanation.

"Nobody suffered as she suffered."

Mary Clemmer Ames seems to have been more perceptive. In her 1873 book Ten Years in Washington: Life & Scenes in the National Capital, she describes the First Lady:

"Incapable of lofty, impersonal impulse. She was self-centered, and never in any experience rose above herself. According to circumstances, her own ambitions, her own pleasures, her own sufferings ...consumed every other. As a President's wife she could not rise above the level of her nature....."

Freud had not yet borrowed the term Narcissist for the extremely self-centered but Mary Lincoln seems to have been a classic example.

National Museums of Liverpool

Greek myth painted in 1903 by John William Waterhouse.

The rejected Echo looks on as Narcissus loses himself in his own reflection.

He cannot pull himself away and eventually dies, his handsome corpse

turned into the daffodils named for him.

Writing in 1914 Freud would have linked Mary Lincoln's personality disorders to sexual repression or some such thing but today that inability to view the world through any other prism but one's own feelings is considered an innate personality disorder, crippling in many cases. The Narcissist is often "her own worst enemy."

New Year's Eve at the White House, December 1861, London Illustrated News

Whirling Star by Elsie Ridgley

Like many Narcissists Mary was attractive and even compelling. Her husband did love her despite her tantrums. At her sparkling best she was quick-witted, amusing and up-to-date on the latest conversational topics, something he seems to have valued.

Mary's social whirl may have gotten her and the White House budget into financial trouble but this first year as First Lady was the only bright year in her Washington life. The year 1862 would bring her the first of the losses she was constitutionally unable to overcome.

Whirling Star by Denniele Bohanon

The Block

The pattern is Blockbase+ #3295, attributed to the Nancy Cabot column in the Chicago Tribune. 

Fifty years ago when I was compiling my Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns I relied on other indexers as sources and this is one I cannot back up today. But it's a pretty block in shades of mauve & magenta, representing the Republican Queen well. 

Further Reading:

Read Mary Clemmer Ames's 1873 book Ten Years in Washington:

https://books.google.com/books?id=0EAIGA6XQ-4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Ames+Ten+Years+in+Washington:+Life+and+Scenes+in+the+National+Capital&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiYpZmYoof-AhUsoWoFHaSVDxYQ6AF6BAgPEAI#v=onepage&q=Ames%20Ten%20Years%20in%20Washington%3A%20Life%20and%20Scenes%20in%20the%20National%20Capital&f=false

Psychology Today on Narcissism:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/conditions/narcissistic-personality-disorder

And information about Mary Lincoln's questionable associates:

http://www.mrlincolnswhitehouse.org/residents-visitors/marys-charlatans/marys-charlatans-chevalier-henry-wikoff-1813-1884/

The Lint & Bandage Mania in Boston

Soldiers marching on Washington Street, Boston

 

Caroline Healy Dall witnessed an impressive community event in Boston in late August, 1862. Shocked to hear that Confederate forces had badly defeated the Union Army at the First Battle of Bull Run, Bostonians resolved to do something about this unexpected loss as they heard that a second battle was being waged. Women responded by gathering en masse to make bandages and scrape lint, used to pack wounds.

Currier & Ives's print frames a Union victory but the

truth was the reverse.

Caroline Wells Healy Dall (1822-1912)

 in the hairdo popular in the 1840s

Caroline who lived in nearby Medford rode to the city on a car "crowded to a crush with women & bundles. Most of them were weeping." Outside Tremont Temple three tables had been set up to receive donations to pay for shipping the hospital supplies.

Tremont Hall

"On the side walk immense boxes were being packed. In the building 1800 women sewed all day."

She was most impressed by the bundles everyone was carrying into the hall, filled, presumably, with fabric and material from which to make the bandages.

"Women with bundles were crowding all the avenues and the streets as far as we could see...."The bundles were passed...tossed from hand to hand along the lines, till they reached the immense inner work-room."

For bandages newspapers advised volunteers to use absorbent, unbleached cotton muslin rather than bleached or glazed fabric, cut in long strips rolled into cylinders secured with a pair of pins. New fabric was often unavailable, and much cotton and linen from household textiles and clothing was recycled into hospital supplies.

Lidian Emerson was glad to supply the necessary pins as the war went on. See a post about her daughter Ellen and the pin donation here:

https://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2024/02/ellen-tucker-emersons-civil-war.html

 Varina Davis, wife of the Confederate president, recalled that linen was prized for both bandages and linting. A patriotic Southerner "sacrificed "the table linen she had treasured for forty years."

Detail of a painting by Mihály Munkácsy

showing European women scraping lint in 1871.

When the war began everyone was sure that poultices of well-worn linen thread scraps were the best thing for packing wounds. 

"Lint should be made of unraveled linen, new or old (the latter preferred), by cutting it in pieces of four or five inches square, which would be highly acceptable, while lint made from canton flannel is irritating to the wound.” Peterson's Magazine, August, 1861

Northerner Mary Livermore recalled the "lint and bandage mania" with hindsight in her history of women's work during the Civil War.

"Every household gave its leisure time to scraping lint and rolling bandages, till the mighty accumulations compelled the ordering of a halt."

Apparently, enthusiastic women donated far more supplies than necessary and the whole idea of packing wounds with lint or fluff raveled from linen quickly fell into disfavor with the doctors' experiences. Commercially produced linen lint was available and some surgeons preferred new cotton wadding, also available commercially.

A national call for lint a few days after the second battle of Bull Run.

Caroline Dall happened upon an example of the enthusiastic, early response of women when the nation realized that the Civil War was going to be a series of bloody battles. When she returned to Medford she found a smaller version of the same street activity. "A perfect crowd were hurrying with bundles."

Read more about lint scraping here:

https://civilwarrx.blogspot.com/2015/03/civil-war-bandages-lint-and-charpie-its.html

See a preview of Caroline Healy Dall's published diary Daughter of Boston, edited by Helen R. Deese:

https://books.google.com/books?id=A0GEcnfZ2VIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=daughter+of+boston+dall&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi067X9v5CEAxX8JzQIHTSiBawQ6AF6BAgBEAI#v=onepage&q=daughter%20of%20boston%20dall&f=false

Kentucky Classic # 4: Goldenrod for Belle Robinson

 

Kentucky Classic # 4: Kentucky Goldenrod for Belle Robinson

by Elsie Ridgley

In the late 1930s the Federal Writers' Project had the excellent idea of interviewing older Americans such as ex-cowboys and former slaves. Thousands of interviews were conducted with standard questions.

Mother & daughter by Alice Huger Smith

Alice painted and drew her South Carolina neighbors in the early 20th century.

 The interviewees who'd been held in slavery before 1865 were over 70, most of them children before the Emancipation Proclamation.

Texan Tempie Cummins was probably a young child in 1865.

Some interviewees were photographed.

Belle Robinson (1853- after 1940) was interviewed in Garrard County, Kentucky, in June, 1937. The woman, about 75 at the time, had short answers to the standard questions because, “Lawdy, it has been so long that I have forgot nearly everything I knew....I was too young to remember much about the slave days.”  

The transcript of her discussion with local teacher and historian Eliza Ison is brief. Eliza found Belle working on a quilt when the visit began.

“I was born June 3rd, 1853 in Garrard County near Lancaster. My mother’s name was Marion Blevin and she belonged to the family of Pleas Blevin. My father’s name was Arch Robinson who lived in Madison County." 

The white Robinsons were wealthy landowners with many enslaved people throughout the area. One of their plantations was taken over by the Union as a recruiting and training station named Camp Dick Robinson. See pattern #3 for more about Camp Dick Robinson:

Civil War Quilts: Kentucky Classic #3: Kentucky Carnation for Eliza Hoskins Farris

 

Belle spent much of her life with Mary Ann Beeler Brady (about 1821-?) and her family. The 1860 census found Mary Ann Brady at 39 living with an 18-year old hired hand John Ballard and one invisible person, listed on the separate slave schedule as an unnamed 7-year old female who must have been Belle. When Harrison Brady died his human property probably went to his heirs and not his wife, who bought Belle from the estate.

"When Mr. Brady died and his property was sold Mrs. Brady bought me back; and she always said that she paid $400 for me. I lived in that family for three generations, until every one of them died. I was the only child and had always lived at the big house with my mistress."

A "small gal" by Alice Huger Smith

The 1880 census shows two adjacent households in the town of Lancaster. Belle, unmarried at 26, and  two children---4 year old Betsy and 3-year-old William---are living with Joseph & Frances Beeler and several other adults who work for the Beelers. Belle is a servant. 

"The Servant" by Alice Huger Smith

Next door is Mary A. Spratt age 60. This may be Mary Ann Beeler Brady and a second husband Solomon Spratt (1820-1894), married in 1861, or perhaps one of Mary Ann's birth daughters. Nobody looks very prosperous 15 years after the end of the Civil War.

Later censuses find Belle living with Grand Anderson and his wife (Muriel?) probably Belle's daughter and four children. Belle's employed as a cook in 1920. In 1930 she was running a boarding house on East 5th Street in Lancaster and has assets worth $1,000.  In 1940 at 85 she was again living with the Anderson family, probably where interviewer Eliza Ison found her stitching a quilt.

Belle Robinson left far too much unsaid. Our current take on slavery's economic system and its inherent personal tragedies gives us little insight to the relationship of Belle and her white "family." She obviously took pride in connections that gave her a sense of who she was in this world. We cannot hope to understand the social customs and norms of the time.

The Block

#4 Kentucky Goldenrod

The various Kentucky appliques sometimes include this yellow-orange

floral. We have no idea what it represents but let's call it a 

goldenrod, Kentucky's state flower, chosen for Belle, a native Kentuckian.

One version appliqued with an embroidery stitch.

 Kentucky State Historical Society

The goldenrod pattern's loosely based on this version in a repeat block quilt, attributed to Millie Anderson McCain of Marion County. She included the carnation, fruit, roses and buds gathered in a very small container.

The Kentucky Historical Society owns 5 of Millie's quilts.

https://kyhistory.pastperfectonline.com/byperson?keyword=McCain%2C%20Millie%20Anderson

Lucy Kemper West

DAR Museum

One appealing design idea in these quilts, as we have noted, is the absurdly small vase. You may want to substitute Lucy's pink vase below for the taller vase in the Goldenrod pattern. 

I'd add a third flower or enlarge the original two a bit so it looks like the whole thing is going to topple over. Also see the little vase in pattern #2.

4 blocks finishing to 15" in the side-by-side set.

No medallion pattern this month.

Margaret Brodie McClain added a ribbon-like frame around

her center block with goldenrod and fruit sprouting from it.

Her quilt was found in Missouri.

"Patty"

The black & white illustrations by Alice Huger Smith are from Elizabeth Waties Allston Pringle's book
A Woman Rice Planter.

https://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/pringle/menu.html

Marie Virginie Trahan Ternant Avegno's Civil War

 

New Orleans on the Mississippi River

In 1860 New Orleans was the sixth largest American city with a population of about 170,000, most of whom were identified as "Creole" from French, Spanish and African cultures. The city's history was unusual in that it had been a French colony rather than a British or Spanish outpost. 150 years after its founding the city was still French in language, culture and sensibilities. 

Marie Virginie Ternant grew up in this house in the French Quarter

on Toulouse Street.

Residents like the Ternant family spoke French as their first language and spent time in Paris, sailing  rather easily across the Atlantic. The Ternants had the means to travel and to live well in both the French and American cities and rural Louisiana.

 Marie Virginie Trahan de Ternant Parlange

(1818-1887)

A portrait of the elder Virginie de Ternant hangs in her house.

Library of Congress

Parlange Plantation house, begun 1750

Pointe Coupee, Louisiana

Virginie's mother Marie Virginie Trahan de Ternant inherited the plantation from her first husband Claude Vincent de Ternant (1786-1842). Still in the family, the place is known as the Parlange Plantation after her second husband. When mother Virginie lived here before the Civil War she was the largest land owner in the area.

Marie Virginie Trahan Ternant Avegno (1838-1910)

Claude and Virginie's daughter, another Marie Virginie, was in her early 20s when the Civil War began. She'd married Italian-American attorney Anatole Avegno in 1857 and had two daughters, Virginie Amélie about 2 years old and infant Marie Valentine. 

 

Major Anatole Placido Avegno (1835-1862)

Soon after war was declared Anatole formed a company called the Avegno Zouaves, made up of men from a variety of ethnicities who dressed in the fashionable Zouave costume of fez and gathered pant legs.  

Library of Congress

A Zouave

Anatole was injured at the Battle of Shiloh in April, 1862.

On April 11th the Times-Picayune reported on Virginie's ordeal

 while waiting for news or her returned soldier.

Five days later

Daughters Amélie and Valentine towards the end of the war

Daughter Valentine died on March 11, 1866, perhaps of Yellow Fever during one of the many epidemics of the mosquito-borne disease. New Orleans was one of the unhealthiest cities in the United States due to the low-lying land and the busy port. Malaria, yellow fever and cholera were constant threats.

Virginie Avegno must have taken stock of the situation. Despite the war she still had enough 

family fortune to relocate to France. She and 8-year-old Amélie left for Paris in 1867.

Daughter Amelie Avegno (1859-1915) about the time she 

married Pierre Gautreau, 20 years older.

Amélie became a Parisian belle with her appearance her major goal. Cosmetics, expensive clothes and a slightly scandalous attitude won her the standard prize of a rich husband when she was in her late teens. Her mother, rebuilding her life after the Civil War, could consider herself a success.

Metropolitan Museum of Art Collection

John Singer Sargent painted this famous portrait of Amélie--- "Madame X," which shocked 

Paris when it was shown in 1884. Sargent left Paris. Amélie and her mother remained.

The Queen of Hearts

This blog is supposed to be about quilts and Civil War biographies, but I have no quilt to show for the Avegno family. I didn't expect to find any because New Orleans with its French heritage had few patchwork traditions until late in the 19th century, long after they left. The Avegnos did not take any patchwork quilts with them to France.

The best period bedding for those antebellum Louisiana plantations

like Greenwood pictured here would be a whole cloth quilt. The

whitework quilt, a form of Marseilles quilt, is a good choice;

the patchwork reproduction a bit of an anachronism.

Esther Searl of DeRidder, Louisiana and a quilt she made in 1915.

More typical of later Louisiana patchwork.

You might like to read Deborah Davis's Strapless: John Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madame X. You'll get quite a view of Madame Gautreau's Paris.