I think that we have a very important topic here, ie. Did Puritans wear lace and if they did, when did they wear it? Over here, across the pond, this has tremendous ramifications, since we were settled by Puritans, at least in the New England part of the country, and they were Puritans who couldn't find any place in Europe that was austere enough for them. Previously, I have handled the ambiguity of the situation by concentrating on the southern colonies, where people were drinking and celebrating Christmas and doing all sorts of fun things, including lace wearing. But, in the end, we have to ask ourselves, the hard question, were the people such as those at the Plimoth Plantation settlement likely to have any lace at all, or would their religious convictions that drove them from England to Leiden, Holland, then to the New World, have kept them from wearing lace? Also, would they have learned anything about lace in Leiden? Also, at what point in New England history are lace demonstrators allowed to enter into the picture with their pillows at historic sites without being totally laughable? I have often demonstrated lace at colonial historic sites in New Jersey (more of a Dutch colonial enterprise) and been stumped about whether much lace was ever made or worn in early America. My guess is that it was worn by aristocracy and the wealthy, but mostly imported, since there are some newspaper references to lace coming into the ports on ships. Needless to say, one is quick to call upon the example of Ipswich to satisfy the querying onlooker at a demo, but that may have been a rather unique industry and it started in about 1750, a hundred and thirty years after the Pilgrims staggered onto the shore at Plymouth Rock, with or without lace in their caskets. Most of us here, learn about the Pilgrims in elementary school where a very abbreviated history is taught and they are presented as though they wore a black and white uniform. In fact, the word Pilgrim is often used as a synonym for people who don't have any fun or nice clothes.My encyclopedia also informs me that the term "Puritan" is often connected with not consuming alcoholic beverages, but in fact, the Puritans had no quarrel with alcoholic beverages. Could it be that they had no quarrel with lace? I am inclined to think they would consider it a "vanity", but a lot of the things I think are wrong. Unfortunately, there were not a lot of portraits being painted in the first few years of the colony, that I know of. ( I do know that Lord Delaware had a nice collar on in an engraving, but I don't know that he ever came over to see his colony of Rhode Island, and I don't think he was a Puritan. Rhode Island was rather liberal, in any case.) Someone has sent me a copy of a sumptuary edict of Massachusetts Bay Colony, from about 50 years after the arrival of the Pilgrims which implies that there was a hierarchy established in New England about lace wearing. Of course, a lot things had changed by the late 1600's. I have just consulted my encyclopedia about the members of the Mather family, Increase and Cotton Mather. It indicates that in the late 1600's a lot of New Englanders were looking for a more liberal government than that dominated by the Congregationalist Church, which was the Puritan's sect and that of the Mather family. Consequently a few witches had to be burned, etc. Incidentally, I just saw a filmed version of the Crucible and scrutinized it for lace. I think that some of the judges had some nice linen around the neck, but I don't think I saw any lace. But, then again, costuming people are not infallible. So, can anyone throw out a date at which they think someone would be wearing lace in the Puritan settlements of New England? Devon PS. Next we will consider the question about whether the Quakers of early Pennsylvania wore lace and whether their commitment to religious freedom meant that people who weren't Quakers were allowed to wear lace in their presence.
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