“The Devonship cap,” “the rutland cap,” “the summer cap,” “the Windsor cap,” “the Vestris cap,” “the Deshabille-cap,” these were the six new cap styles for the month of August 1781 in London. Reflecting the variety cap styles that came and went with the season in the eighteenth-century Atlantic World.

Yet the popular, cultural memory of these styles has distilled this diversity, the complexity of design and consumer choice down into a singular, simplistic and folksy style or the “mob cap.”

Many people in the twenty-first century associate the type of headwear with Martha Washington. This cap style is often perceived as an unflattering, and dowdy. However, I would suggest such an over simplification highly discredits the quality of materials, workmanship, cultural meanings, and beauty that surrounded this object. This simplistic misinterpretation has skewed American cultural memory to create a visual myth that fails to take into account the wide range of dynamic and rich experiences in eighteenth-century women’s lives.

This essay will reconsider the significance of the cap that crown’s Mrs. Washington’s head to work towards a more accurate understanding of this object and other cap styles worn in by women in the southern colonies and England from c.1770s-1790s.

Before continuing I’d like to mention that while this is looking at caps, it is important to note that other types of headdress were worn, such as turbans and handkerchiefs, while these are part of the larger narrative of headdress it is not the focus of this essay.

It is important to note a key language difference between modern clothing terminology and eighteenth century terminology. The word “accessory” was not be used in the 18thc to describe garments worn with gowns.  The New Universal Etymological English Dictionary defines it “a person who encourages, advises, or conceals an offender, who is guilty of felony by statute.” Instead, the items worn with gowns made and sold by milliners were called “ornaments” or “articles” or “millinery.” Using ‘accessories’ suggests a hierarchy that places garments like caps as secondary in importance, while a term like ornament or millinery places these decorative elements as key and necessary to the wardrobe.

This rapid cycle of fashion changing in the eighteenth-century would not be a shock to a “modern” sensibility of fast fashion, nor would it be for the eighteenth century as it was a modern age.  Arguably, the eighteenth-century woman would been comfortable with the rapid changing of styles. In March of 1774 The Ladies Magazine reported three new styles of caps, “There are three sorts of new undressed caps. The one a quartered cap almost the same as 2 child's. The other an extremely deep wing, which falls on the hind part of the head ; round, or Turkey lappets. This is a very elegant hat- cap. The third, a small, wide, shallow wing, with lappets tied in bunches. This is also a hat-cap.” by April of 1774, “The most fashionable cap is a very wide one, with a deep narrow wing, and triple lappets and an elegant hat cap ; the quartered cap wore last month is now almost abolished. Amongst, genteel people diversity of lappets, Italian, French fillagreed lappets” In total 1774 saw at least eight new cap styles.

Milliners and female makers were at the center of this commerce. The product of the milliners trade in the eighteenth-century was broader than just headwear and encompassed the ornaments of  the wardrobe, such as aprons, ruffles, handkerchiefs, and caps. While being responsible for keeping customer’s up to date with these constantly changing fashions. The London Tradesman noted that  “She imports new Whims from Paris every Post, and puts the Ladies Heads in many different Shapes in one Month as there are different Appearances of the Moon in that Space.”

The rapid change of style points to a consumer being able to update their style by just changing the cap. This evident in the update of the Henry Walton painting from 1776 to a 1797 renamed the “Cottage Maid.”

FASHION TIME LINE

Materials denote what context cap is worn as well as the expense:

Linen:  Williamsburg milliner, Catherine Rathell, advertised “fine thick cambrick and clear lawns.”1  Cambrick and lawn were very light weight and fine linen, perfect for caps.2  On May 18, 1774 John Eason was indicted in London for stealing a “laced lawn cap,”

Muslin: Lightweight , sheer cotton. In the eighteenth century muslin was originally produced in India.  Williamsburg milliner, Catherine Rathell, advertised “…plain, striped, and book muslin.”2 Book muslin was a light weight versions of muslin.3 Therefore making these varieties well suited to being made into caps.

Gauze: A light-weight open weave textile, made of silk or linen.  In Williamsburg, Virginia where milliner, Margaret Hunter advertised in 1772, “flowered, spotted, and plain Gauze.”1 In August of 1781 “The DESHABILLE cap” was described in The Ladies Magazine as having “Three wings of French net-gause…”2

I have demonstrated the rapid change that caps could undertake now I’d like to look specifically at the mob cap, to illustrate the multi-meanings that these caps could illustrate

MOB CAP

In the novel, Authentic and Interesting Memoirs of Miss Ann Sheldon the narrator describes a male character cross-dressing like a cook, he was “…dressed in a mob cap, tattered bed-gown, and an old petticoat belonging to the cook…”

(SLIDE) servants

(SLIDE) milk maids, country on January 16, 1777, two men were described in a London newspaper as dressed in masquerade with one of them wearing the “dress en femme rustique; with a scarlet cloak and a mob cap.” The way these mob caps are cut and worn would provide the wearer an amount of protection from the elements.

(SLIDE) Further more old age

In the The Old Woman. A Novel clothing is used to highlight the old age of the character Alice Grundy. The narrator writes that she “is a cheerful neat old woman…she wears…a mob cap tied under her chin and as tight as a drum upon her head.”

(SLIDE) foil to fashion

Moreover, there is a seeming connotation that the mob cap was not considered the most fashionable style for a woman to wear.  The passage from Selima, or the Village Tale, illustrates the discomfort the vain narrator felt when putting a mob cap on her head, “you recollect, no doubt, on that fatal day, from which I date the commencement of my troubles, with what pain to my poor vanity I was compelled to confine my flowing tresses under the close restraint of a mob-cap…” Instead of fashion, the mob-cap appears to be associated with conservative old age, and labor.

(SLIDE) Maid sexuality

Moreover These caps also have a modesty component because they do cover so much of the hair, as evidenced by the very vain young woman who did not want to conceal her hair.

ROUND CAPS

(SLIDE) Another form of cap general style with varieties underneath it. In 1762 it was reported “As to round caps, there is a plentiful number made, such as the Mecklenburgh, the Augusta, the Queen’s night-cap, the French night-cap, etc.etc.etc.” Some denoted fashion, others like the mob cap were modest and denoted rural living.

(SLIDE) A women of fashion visiting the countryside was considerate of the fashions assumed to find women looking like this, however In 1780 she “was astonished to behold some of them, not moderately smart, but even fashionably elegant. The linen gown, and neat round cap, no more distinguish the farmer’s daughter from the lady of the manor…and our country damsels walk with heads as high as town-bred belles.”

(SLIDE) LAUNDRY

(SLIDE) FRENCH NIGHT CAP One type of round cap was the French night cap

“But our Ladies in the South, [ILL]king so cumb'rous a Fashion, and
imaging that something whimsically like it might be the inven-
tion of a new Fashion, invented this French Night cap, or
Cheek Wrapper. A Lady in this Dress looks Hooded like a
Horse. with Eye -slaps—to keep them from looking one Way
or the other: and perhaps that is the Reason why most Ladies
in our Day choose to look forward!

(SLIDE) Maid

(SLIDE) Mainstream fashion

(SLIDE) taylor Performing fashion within the accepted social context was vital to maintain a respectable appearance.  Within the eighteenth century there was commentary after commentary chastising women who were dressing in a disorderly way, spending more than their husbands could afford.

(SLIDE)cobbler

(SLIDE) The over-performance of fashion was directly linked to an anxiety of women falling into immorality and worse prostitution.  Caps are used to illustrate this disorderly, irresponsible overconsumption of fashion. One of the LEADING CAUSES of PROSTITUTION  The DRESS of SERVANT GIRLS above their Stations.

“Mrs. Becky was not a wit inferior to her mistress: the cloaths of the latter might probably be more costly, but they were both made after the same fashion; and the soiled gauze cap sat as smartly on the powdered head of the former, as it could possibly have done some weeks before on that of its pristine wearer”.

The description of the dirty cap is an example of a garment that was handed down from her mistress to her servant. The description of it has dirty is possibly a hint at the cap being a symbol for tainted fashion. While the mistress is capable of wearing the cap and looking well in it the commentator believes the servant to be leaning towards vice, and the cap as the locus for this critique.

However, there were numerous realities for women, as seen at top the heads of the women in this print around the shoplifter.

(SLIDE)

I have demonstrated that a cap pinned to a woman’s hair helped to illustrate her age, occupation, and perceived position within society. Some fashionable caps were associated with extreme vanity and overconsumption. Others marked respectable consumption and gentility, while still others were essential to the hygiene of daily life.  These notions of fashion, gentility, and necessity, while defining feminine differences, also coexisted in society, contributing to the subtle variations of gender.

Looking back at Martha Washington I would suggest she is dressed as a fashionable, wealthy white 18th-century woman and not wearing a mob cap. Instead perhaps a fashionable round cap, with expensive materials and suitable to her station exemplifying the eighteenth century ideal reflected in her headdress because “her Ribbands and Lace, and Caps give a Grace.”