Last Day of Colonial Week! Sdls275 Cloak

We are finally back! And with the last post of our first Colonial Week at The Doll Wardrobe. (We will have another one soon.) Sorry it takes us so long to do these posts, but it takes some prep work and school gets in the way. Bleh.

Today we show you Angelina in the yellow gown with the second stomacher. She is greeting Mary as she comes home wearing a brown cloak also by Ebay seller sdls275. She is carrying the copper lantern we received with the green I Dream of Jeanne Marie colonial gown. Under the cloak she is wearing Felicity's meet dress.

We have Felicity and Elizabeth's cloaks, but it is always nice to have more. They can be used for so many time periods and many of our dolls. (But not a lot of people make them.) This one is particularly nice because it has the furry trim around the hood and it is made out of a wool blend fabric to keep your doll warm.

So hopefully the lantern reminds you of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.... or at least we were hoping it would remind you of that.... heehee.

In Massachusetts in April of 1775 the word on the street was that the British troops stationed in Boston were going to march to the city of Concord to seize military supplies. A Patriot spy, Joseph Warren,  was sent to find out what route the soldiers would take so that their actions could be prevented. In the bell tower of Boston's tallest church (the Old North Church) he was instructed to hang two lanterns if they choose the water route and one if they came solely by land.

Paul Revere, a famous silversmith, and his comrade, William Dawes, were waiting for the signal on the night of April 18. Two lanterns shined in the church tower, according to the story, and it was then known the British were starting their journey by boat. The two men raced their horses towards Lexington and Concord to warn everyone on the route of the coming army. Along the way they were joined by Samuel Prescott, who rode with them and was the only one of the three to reach Concord.

Luckily, most of the military supplies were already moved out of Concord to protect them from the British, but colonials were also concerned that Samuel Adams and John Hancock, two main leaders of the Patriotic rebellion, might be captured by the troops.

On April 19, the very next day, the Battles of Lexington and Concord were fought between the 700 British troops from Boston and the Patriot militia that had been warned with the help of Warren, Revere, Dawes, and Prescott. These were the first military engagements of the American Revolution, and the first colonial victory.

So why don't we call this "The Midnight Ride of Revere, Dawes, and Prescott"? Well Revere was the only one captured, so he has a bit more of a romantic storyline. (Don't worry, he lived a long life and died in 1818.) Also Henry Wadsworth Longfellow didn't do Dawes and Prescott any favors when he penned the poem "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" in 1861. Here are the opening lines....

"Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year...."

In the slideshow below you will see an image of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, a portrait of Paul Revere by John Singleton Copley, a photo of his home in Boston (which you can visit today), and two photos of the Paul Revere statue in Boston. The first pic shows you the sculpture from the side, and the second includes the bell tower of the Old North Church in the distance.

We also wanted to talk about how in such a fancy gown, Angelina is obviously not dressed as a slave, like she was when she was dressed as Belinda. As we learned, Belinda did gain her freedom towards the end of her life. So there were "free blacks" in the colonies. They worked for actual pay and could even own businesses. But they did not have the same rights as whites. For instance, all blacks had a curfew and had to stay off the streets at night. If they were caught outside they would be arrested, whether or not they were slaves or free. It would be interesting to make a doll that is a free black in the colonial period. We think she would have some pretty fascinating stories.

So will American Girl replace Felicity and Elizabeth's time period with another colonial doll/18th century doll? They certainly did that for Samantha with Rebecca. But we still have yet to see a replacement for Kirsten. :-( But we are keeping our fingers crossed.

Last time we talked about undergarments, so we thought we'd show you the retired set for Felicity in this post (so you know what it looks like). You can find them on Ebay for a ton of money, but some companies make replicas like Williamsburg Rose and The Dollies' Dressmaker.

The original set came with panniers, a pocket, and a corset. The corset was sometimes called stays. While some women carried little purses known as indispensables it was normal to have a pocket hidden under your skirt. Your dress would have slits at your waistline through which you could access the pocket underneath. So that fancy embroidered thing in the pic below is Felicity's pocket. :-)

As our final farewell this Colonial Week, we wanted to show you some catalog covers featuring Felicity. She has been with us since 1991 and it is sad to see her go after almost 20 years of admiring her collection and her stories....

And one last picture of Ben.... I mean Ben and Felicity....