A Rush to 1912

I had grand plans for a 1912 ballgown that were scrapped in favor of finishing my school work, since I wasn't able to make it to Salem for the Titanic Weekend and would have nowhere else to wear it...but now I'm in need of a summery 1912 outfit for the Orchard House Centennial Celebration next Saturday!  I already have a hat, which I made in March as an experiment, but now I need a dress to go with it. Hmm...

Standard Fashion Book, Summer Fashions for 1912

Next weekend is also Memorial Day, which I associate with busy times at Orchard House--doubly so this year when we turn 100! While looking for outfit inspiration I found this neat article from the New York Times published in 1912, entitled "What Usually Happened on the Old-Fashioned Picnic" which I thought was worth sharing...I'll be putting this into action (especially coconut cake!) for the Fourth of July, which is my picnic holiday.

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 picnics come to my mind with thoughts of Memorial Day just as I see stockings hanging by the fireplace at the mention of Christmas. When I was a youngster we went on a picnic every May 30, regardless of anything short of a cloudburst. It was the first holiday that came along after picnics got ripe enough to pick each Spring, and we invariably went forth on that day to eat things off a tablecloth spread on the ground....with young men in duck trousers and young women in their jaunty little shirtwaist outfits...

We weren't hard to please. A few cold fried chickens, some peanut sandwiches, a big paper sack full of Saratoga chips, some potato salad in a fruit jar, tw or three kinds of jelly and bread and butter, a couple of chocolate cakes and a cocoanut cake and a freeze of strawberry ice cream and a few accessories were practically all we expected at a picnic dinner in those days...

The day after the picnic the local paper would write it up, and close by saying that 'a delightful time was had'--and that was the truth.

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For more, you can read the full article scanned from the NYT here.  I love the description of "jaunty little shirtwaist outfits." How lovely! That shall be my goal for Saturday.

If you're in the Boston area, like Little Women, the Alcott family, 1912, or just celebrating history, stop by the museum for a wonderful day! The schedule is on their website (linked above).

Postcard of Orchard House, c.1900-1907