History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884, Part 15

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn; Westcott, Thompson, 1820-1888, joint author
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : L. H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 992

USA > Pennsylvania > Philadelphia County > Philadelphia > History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884 > Part 15

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

his glass. You then drink mournfully with him, as a recruit imitates his corporal in his exercise."

The Prince de Broglie describes good-humoredly his first experience at tea-drinking in Philadelphia :

" On the 13th of Angust, 1782," says he, " I arrived at Philadelphia, the already celebrated capital of a quite new country. M. de la Luzerne took me to tea at Mrs. Morris', wife of the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States. Her house is small, but well-ordered and neat; the doors and tablee of superb, well-polished mahogany; the locks and andirone of polished brass ; the cups arranged symmetrically ; the mis- tress of the house good-looking and very gray. All was charming to me. I took some of the excellent tea, and would have taken more, I think, if the ambassador (M. de la Luzerne) had not kindly warned me at the twelfth cup that I must put my spoon across my cup when I wished to bring this warm-water question to an end. Said he, 'It is almost as had to refuse a cup of tea when it is offered to yon as it would be for the master of the house to offer you another when the ceremony of the spoon has indicated your intentions on the subject.'"

The Duke de la Rochefoucault-Liancourt, who was in the United States in 1795, '96, '97, said,-

"The profusion and Inxury of Philadelphia on great daye, at the tables of the wealthy, in their equipages, and in the dreases of their wives and daughtere, are, as I have observed, extreme. I have seen balls on the President's birthday where the splendor of the rooms and the variety and richness of the dressea do not suffer in comparison with Europe; and it must be acknowledged that the beauty of the American ladies has the advantage in comparison. The young women of Phila- delphia are accomplished in different degrees, but beauty is general with them. They want the ease and fashion of French wobien, but the bril- liaucy of their complexion is infinitely superior."

But the duke is not so well satisfied with the hos- pitality, or rather the want of hospitality, of the Philadelphians. He tries to account for it thus :

" The inhospitality to strangers, 80 often spoken of, is caused by the anxiety of the inhabitants to amass wealth.

" This mercantile idea of necessity confines the man whom it influ- ences, and gives him no time or taste for the pleasures of society. What is juatly called society does not exist in this city. The vanity of wealth is common enough. The rich man lives to show strangers his splendid furniture, bis fine English glasa, and exquisite china. But when the stranger has once viewed the parade in a ceremonious dinner, he is diemissed for some other new-comer who has not yet seen the mag- nificence of the house, nor tasted the old Madeira that has been twice or thrice to the East Indies; and then & new face is always more wel- come than an old one to him who has little to say to either. The rent state of society in Philadelphia is included in iovitations to great dinners aod tea to all who arrive from Europe,-English, French, inhabitants of every country, men of every class and of every kind of character, phil- ogophers, priests, literati, princes, dentists, wits, and idiots. The next day the idolized stranger is not known in the street, except that he he wealthy, especially in money, when, indeed, the politeness of the citi- zene of Philadelphia continues to exist as long as the stranger can purchase estates, and even beyond that term, for the homage paid to wealth ia a worship in which all secte unite."

910

HISTORY OF PHILADELPHIA.

algne against them-which chills to the very heart those who come to visit them. In their private socleties a tristesse is apparent, near which mirth end gayety can never apprunch, It le no unusual thing in the genteeleet houses to see a large party of from twenty to thirty persone assembled and meated around a room without any other amusement than what nrises from the conversation most frequently in whispers that passes between the two persone who are seated next to each other. The party meets between six nud seven in the evening. Ten is served with much form, and at ten-by which time most of the company are wenried with having remained so long stationary-they return to their homes. Still, however, they are not strangers to music, cards, or dancing. Their knowledge of music, indeed, is nt n very low ebb, but in dancing, which seems to be their favorite amusement, they certainly excel. The women in general, while young, are very pretty, but by the time they become mothers of a little family they loso all their beauty, their complexions fade away, their teeth begin to decay, and they hardly look like the same creatures."

Mr. Weld must have been introduced to a very different set from that visited by the travelers already quoted. Perhaps the satirical writer of an essay under the title of " The Trifler," published in the Columbian Magazine, in 1788, was right in his views of Philadelphia society when he said,-

" In Philadelphia there are several classes of company,-the Cream, the New Muk, the Skim Milk, and the Canaille! . . . In private parties and in public meetings, the distinctions here are accurately preserved. The Cream generally curdles into a small group on the most eligible eituation in the room. The New Milk seems floating between the wish to coalesce with the Cream and to escape from the Skim Milk; and the Skim Milk, in a fluent kind of independence, Inugha at the anxiety of the New Milk, and grows sour upon the arrogance of the Crenm. Hence it is, sir, that our concerts and assemblies have lost their charms-for the superiority established on the one hand, and the mortifications felt on the other, seem to have produced this resolution; that never again shall the ears of Cream and New Milk listen to the same melody, or their feet caper. Notwithstanding these variances, however, ench class closely imitates its immediate enperior ; and from the conduct of one you may easily conceive the conduct of all. The marriage week is ap- propriated in the same manner. You drink punch with the bridegroom, and ten with the bride. Every lying-in furnishes you with a taste of the caudle and the sight of a bed; and every tea-party consists in the same parade, whether your cake is handed on silver or Japan by a supercili- ous footmian in lace, or a female apprentice in camlet."

This writer further divides society into "the Dres- sers, the Eaters, the Drinkers, the Singers, the Tat- tlers, the Politicians, and the Dozers."

Bulow, who was in this country in 1791, '92, '95, '96, must have met with some unpleasant adventure in Philadelphia, for nothing pleases him there. He speaks more like one smarting under some injury than as an impartial observer. It is a criticism de parti pris. He says, " Devouring immense quantities of flesh, the Americans call ' living rich "' . .. Their drink is for the most part brandy and water, and Madeira wine which is strongly adulterated with brandy." He illustrates the inhospitality of the Philadelphians by the story of an Englishman who burnt all his letters of recommendation because they procured him everywhere no other benefit than a glass of brandy and water. At public dinners they drink many toasts, " and for twelve persons on such occasions, you may always reckon sixty bottles of Madeira wine ! Judge in what a condition the people return home! In general, Americans make a point of honor to spend a great deal at taverns. But tavern-keepers do not make great fortunes, because

there is so much 'toping on credit,' and 'the pay- ment often fails.' . . . The tea parties were invented by Avarice, in order to see company cheap." They would be a good economical invention, if they were not " so stiff." "The greatest expense is for furni- ture, which must be all made of mahogany. Travel- ers have been often astonished to find handsome car- pets and mahogany tables and desks,-and in log houses, or rather huts !

" ... Luxury in North America turns upon ob- jects of vanity, never to the production of the fine arts." In proof of this the artistic Bulow informs us that " an Italian came to Philadelphia with some copies in plaster-of-Paris of some excellent statues ; but he could sell none of them, and went away again. A glass of grog, or of cold punch, is worth more to them than the most beautiful picture or statue." American architecture offends the good taste of this amiable foreigner, and he notes with disgust that "among the new houses in Philadelphia the most fantastic caricature shapes are found."

Luxury in house furnishing was, as a matter of course, a fit accompaniment of luxurious living. If the wealthy purchased fine imported furniture, home manufactures were daily increasing in importance, and the citizen of moderate means could introduce many improvements in his house. This was a field in which, despite Mr. Bulow's opinion, the native good taste of the Philadelphia ladies could display itself to advantage. European workmanship may send its most elegant productions to our markets, but the mere ability to purchase these and fill our rooms with them will not give us elegantly-furnished houses. It is the taste which presides in the selection and the arrangement that will make them pleasing to the eye. The charın attached to an American home, that je ne sais quoi which strikes the foreigner agreeably, is due neither to the English nor the French style of the furniture, but is peculiar to the American taste of the lady of the house. In no other city is this charm felt more than in Philadelphia.

The fondness for carpets, so characteristic of the American housekeeper, for even at this late day well-to-do familes in Europe do not find carpets in- dispensable to their comfort,-became general as soon as this article was appreciated. The first carpets in use attracted much attention in Philadelphia about 1750, and in 1788 De Warville wrote as follows :

" It already aj pears that they have carpets, legant carpeta. It is a favorite faste with the Americans. They receive it from the interested nvarice of their ( Il masters, the English. A carpet in summer is AD absurdity ; yet they apread them in this senson, and from vamty. This vanity exorcisea Itself by saying that the carpet is an ornament. That is to sty they sacrifice reason and nihty to show.

" The Quakers likewise hive carpets, but the rigorous ones blame this practice. They mentioned to me the instance of a Quaker from Caroline, who, going to dine with one of the most opulent at Philadelphia, was offended at finding the passage from the door to the staircase covered with a carpet, and would not enter the house. He said that he never dined in n honso where there was luxury, and that it was better to clothe the poor than to clothe the earth."

911

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, 1700-1800.

The character of the usual household furniture of the time is shown by the following list of articles be- longing to Dr. Franklin's estate, and advertised to be sold at auction in May, 1792, by Richard Footman, auctioneer :

" Mahogany sideboards, dining-, card-, and Pembroke tables, mahog- any chairs, looking-glasses, clothes-presses, tea-uros, plated candlesticks, windsor-chairs, an elegant sofa, chintz window-curtains, chest of drawers, a forte piano, a harpsichord, a copying-press, circular and sundry other coal-grates, Franklin stoves, china and queensware, brass andirons, shovel and tongs, patent lamps, plated knives and forks, jack, etc., silver and plated ware, waiters, sugar canisters, snuffers and stand, a dish- cross, tea- and coffee-pots, cruet frame and castors, candlesticks, sauce- pans, butter-ladles, wine-strainers, funnels, tureen with handsome glass and elegant workmanabip, milk-pots, etc. Also a sedan chair."

Dr. Franklin, in the latter part of his life, had grown fat and heavy, and this sedan chair was his usual conveyance.

Two other advertisements of sales, although dated in the beginning of the present century, describe the furniture in use during the latter part of the eigh- teenth century in the homes of wealthy citizens. The first, in April, 1803, was at the house of Thomas Ket- land, merchant, in Market Street, and comprised a drawing-room suite of French chairs, curtains, and sofa, in yellow damask ; one mahogany four-post bed- stead, with two hair mattresses and down feather-bed ; richly-painted cornices, and three window-curtains to match ; mahogany sideboard; dining-tables ; mahog- any commodes ; tambour and satin-wood secretaries ; one lady's writing-desk, painted; mahogany wash- hand stand; fire-screens ; wine-coolers; one upright fine-toned mahogany forte piano, with stops, by Stod- dard; one large, superb wardrobe, with writing-desk, drawers, closets, etc .; French Sevres tea-china in sets ; one pair vases, superbly painted ; groups of sev- eral figures and hyacinths, pleatue, French ; a very handsome French clock, of the finest workmanship; a pair of French bronzed and gilt andirons; sundry prints and pictures ; one elegant painting of dead game; Derbyshire ornaments; Italian marble busts ; one large set of cut-glass dinner-ware; girandoles ; dessert-dishes, etc. ; a large glass hall-lamp ; one pair richly-gilt tripods; gilt brackets, etc .; dinner-sets of English earthenware; a large steel grate, with a va- riety of other articles.

The second, published in the United States Gazette of Nov. 16, 1805, is still more important as describing the household furnishings of one of the leaders of society, of which Wanzey, in 1794, made the follow- ing note in his diary :

"June 8 .- I dined this day with Mrs. Bingham, to whom I bad letters of introduction. I found a magnificent house and gardeus in the best English style, with elegant and even euperb furniture. The chairs of the drawing-room were from Seddone, in London, of the newest taste,- the backs in form of n lyre, with festoona of crimson and yellow silk ; the curtains of the room, a festoon of the same ; the carpet, one uf Moore's most expensive patterns. The room was papered in the French taste, after the style of the Vatican et Rome. In the garden was a profusion of lemon-, orange-, and citron-trees, and many aloes and other exotics."

plate belonging to William Bingham, which were to be sold at auction by A. Pettit & Co. In the draw- ing-room were a looking-glass seven feet six inches by five feet, a glass chandelier, four girandoles, four gilt candlesticks, three sofas, eight sets of blue satin window-curtains with gilt cornices, two gilt branch candlesticks, six large arm-chairs, two fire-screens, with shovel, tongs, and fender, carpet, with vases, figures, and artificial flowers. The parlor was fur- nished with ten looking-glasses, two rush-bottom set- tees, ten arm-chairs, and ten single chairs, dining- tables, mantel ornaments, Venetian blinds, and one harpsichord. The dining-tables probably were placed there for convenience. The furniture of the dining- room was a mahogany sideboard, wine-cooler, twenty- four mahogany chairs with morocco bottoms, brass and iron fenders, shovels, tongs, and bellows, with chandeliers, girandoles, brass lamps with reflectors, shade lamps, and a very large assortment of china, dinner, and tea sets, with bottles, decanters, and glass- ware. In the ball-room-probably placed there for convenience and sale-was a mahogany bedstead, seven feet square, with canopy, curtains, and mattress complete. The chambers were supplied with bed- steads with damask curtains, chairs with damask stuffed bottoms, yellow and pink chairs, and sofas with silk bottoms, and bureaux in japan, gold, and mahogany. There were figures in all the rooms, and in one of them a full-length portrait of Mrs. Siddons as the "Grecian Daughter," with vases and other ornaments. Silver plate was composed of tureens, vases, dishes, candlesticks, waiters, urns, bowls, gob- lets, trays, forks, spoons, etc., and weighed nearly two thousand ounces, in addition to which were several articles of plated ware. In the hall were twelve windsor-chairs, pedestals of composition and marble, with busts of Voltaire and Rousseau, three busts of Franklin, bronze and composition figures, two marble medallions in gilt frames, and a dial on a composi- tion pedestal. In the library were three mahogany bookcases, a secretary, a copying-machine, four bronze figures, two urns, two busts, and a centrepiece placed on the top of the bookcases, with a costly collection of paintings and prints.

This list helps us to picture to our minds the grand apartments so often filled with a galaxy of beauties, in which the central figure was the charming hostess, acknowledged by all the queen of elegance, the rooms in which Washington, the Adamses, Jefferson, Mad- ison, Hamilton, and other public men, met the Chews, the Mifflins, the Willings, and mingling with the gay crowd of ladies, forgot for a while the cares of state.

The number of equipages increased with the luxury of the times. William Priest, musician, " late of the theatres of Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Boston," in his " Travels in the United States of America," -- commencing in 1793 and ending in 1797,-says, "There are eight hundred and six two and four-

The advertisement referred to contained a very full catalogue of the principal articles of furniture and . wheel pleasure carriages in the city. The population

912

HISTORY OF PHILADELPHIA.

does not exceed fifty thousand inhabitants. This is a proof of the luxury of the people."

Weld describes with great minuteness the equipages which he saw in Philadelphia :

" The carriagea made use of in Philadelphia consist of coachee, char- lots, chaises, coachece, and light wagona, the greater part of which are built in Philadelphia. The equipages of a few individuals are extremely ostentatious. Nor does there appear in any that neatness and clegnoce which might be expected amoug a set of people who are desirous of imitating the fashions of England, aod who are continually getting models over from that country. The coachee is a carriage peculiar, I heliave, to America. The body of it is rather longer than that of a coach, but of the same shape. In the front it is left quite open down to the bottom, and the driver aits on a bench under the roof of the car- riage. There are two seats in it for the passengers, who sit in it with their faces to the horses. The roof is supported by small props, which ara placed at the corners. On cach sida of the door, above the panels, it is quite open ; and, to guard against bad weather, there aro curtains, which are made to let down from the roof, and fasten to buttons on the outside. There is also a leathere curtain, tu hang occasionally between the driver and passengers. The light wagons are on the same con- struction, and are calculated to hold from four to twelve people. The only difference between the small wagon and the conchee is that the latter a better furnished, has varnished panels, and doors at the side, The former has no doors, but the passengers scramble in the best way they cao, over the seat of the driver. The wagons are used universally for stage-coaches."

Meanwhile, the ever-changing fashions continued to turn the heads of the belles and beaux, and to inspire the satiric muse.

The Columbian Magazine of 1792 has the following :

"THE REVOLUTIONS OF FASHION.

" Fashion, intent our wonder to excite, Seems nature for the marvelous to shght ! Now on the head the Bonnet soars, designed To show a towering, bold, ambitions mind ! Now swells the Petticoat, a spacious round, And now in length three yards or more are found ! Tites like the Titan's heaven appear to scale Ae Fashion's arbitrary laws prevail ! The Stay's sharp peak with star-like lustre glows, And the paste Buckle glitters on the toes !

" These wanderinga of Taste we may excuse, Assisting by politeness Beauty's views ! Powder! behold thy cheering, cleanly aid, By Nature's tresses amiably displayed ! But may na curling-tongs e'er heat that brain, Where cool Discretion should in triumph reign.

"Still will thosa Follies frame tyrannic laws, Now dealing in Cork Hips and now in Crawa. Must Delicacy to thy power eubmit ? Wilt thou yield ample scope for sneering Wit? The fair ahnll never suffer in my verse, And simply thus a cynic's thoughte rehearse:

" There was a titne, perhaps that time remains, When feathers gave the tone to female brains. Each whims the fair with readiness embraced, Since to be flighty was a proof of taste. There was a time, attached to liberal arts, When Indies soothed our minds and cherred our hearts. Ily moderate arta, ye fair, preserve your reign. Prudence alone your empire can retaln. Fromu delicacy, hope, sincare applauso,

Your hearts Dies wish to gain, but slight your crawes !'"

The fashions for men underwent some change about this time.

Oswald's Gazetteer for September, 1792, specifies the gentlemen's dress for balls, and declares that shoe- and knee-buckles are abolished.

"Two yards of black ribbon for the shoes, aod an equal quantity for the knees, are used instead of buckles. The breeches are very tight. Two watch-chaina and trinkets are worn. The hair is powdered, frosted, and perfumed. The cape is of different color from the coat. Moslio and cambric are worn about the neck ; and the genteel besu la particularly genteel when he wears a tamboured ebirt."

There was still some elegance in this, but the time was not far when Philadelphians, in no small nun- ber, would imitate the absurd fashions and coarse manners of the Parisian sans-culottes. The Americans had seen, with sympathetic interest, the incipiency of the French Revolution : it was the struggle of right against abuse ; the Frenchman of 1789 did but follow the example of the American colonies. French peo- ple and French ideas were popular here, as it was hut natural they should be, and we have mentioned in these pages the introduction of fashions à la républi- caine ; but affairs in France had taken a turn unex- pected by the patriots, who demanded but the "rights of man;" a bloodthirsty mob had taken control of the government ; Lonis XVI., the honest king, who had befriended the struggling colonies, had been be- headed in the name of liberty ; his beautiful queen also had perished on the scaffold ; the hideous guillo- tine was decimating the nobility of France, it did not spare the families of those gallant gentlemen who had fought under Washington, and yet the wild ravings of the followers of Robespierre found an echo in our streets. The bonnet rouge made its appearance.

"No such 'frenzy,' to use Mr. Jefferson's favorite expression, has ever since been known in America. Politeness was looked upon as a sort of Dse républicanisme ; the common forms of expression in use by the sans-culottes were adopted by their Amer- ican disciples; the title citizen became as common in Philadelphia as in Paris, and in the newspapers it was the fashion to announce marriages as partner- ships between citizen Brown, Smith, or Jones, and the citess who had been wooed to such an association. Entering the house of the President, citizen Genet (French ambassador) was astonished and indignant at perceiving in the vestibule a bust of Louis XVI., whom his friends had beheaded, and he complained of this 'insult to France.' At a dinner, at which Governor Mifflin was present, a roasted pig received the name of the murdered king, and the head, sev- ered from the body, was carried round to each of the guests, who, after placing the liberty cap on his own head, pronounced the word 'Tyrant"' and proceeded to mangle with his knife that of the luckless creature doomed to be served for so unworthy a company. One of the Democratic taverns displayed as a sign a revolting picture of the mutilated and bloody corpse of Marie Antoinette."1

The Parisian beaux of the time were called musca- dines. Their style of dress was adopted by their imi- tators in Philadelphia. A writer in Oswald's Gazet- teer, of January, 1795, describes them, as follows :

1 Griswold, "The Republican Court."

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, 1700-1800.

913

"The sweet muscadines have the quene and the twist, the parallelo- gramic waistcoat and the waistcoat circular, the bolstered neckcloth and the cravat puddingless [Although almost everybody wears some- thing of a puddingj. They have the cape velvet, the cape cloth, the cape up and the cape down, the slash sleeve and the close sleeve, the London broadcloth and the Paris narrow back, the lapelle and the sin- gle breast, the covered queen's nipple, death's head, and metal button, the culotte long, ths culotte short, and the bow."

In "The Trifler," published in the Columbian Magazine, it is said, speaking of the divisions in so- ciety :

"Florio, who is a type of the whole, has fretted himself into a fever that almost cost him his life because a modest tailor has made a pair of yellow breeches decently large for his limbs, and has not carried the cape of his coat as high as the crown of his hat."

But the best hit was in the Philadelphia Minerva, -" The Sunday Parade," a most delicious ode. In this effusion the writer says,-

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884, Part 15

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn; Westcott, Thompson, 1820-1888, joint author Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : L. H. Everts & Co. Number of Pages: 992

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn; Westcott, Thompson, 1820-1888, joint author
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : L. H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 992