by David Flint
The Dutch really did wear wooden shoes. Wooden footwear has been around for centuries, actually, and not just in Holland. They were very practical for working the farm, but you wouldn’t see them much in urban areas and probably not much among the Dutch in America. Erica Nuckles, a historian working at Fort Crailo, brought a pair to her illustrated talk Monday at the Stephentown Historical Society. But the focus of her presentation was more on women’s garments of the 17th century, in both old and New Netherlands.
Nuckles developed her interest in history as a re-enactor of French & Indian War times. Taught by her mother to sew, she developed a knack for making historic clothing. More recently she has begun to focus on the dress of the 17th century.
How do we know what people wore then? From the few extant garments available, historians try to piece together a story. Some documents give us a clue, such as a letter from Jeremias Van Rensselaer to the mother country asking for shirts of a lighter fabric more suited to the warmer weather in Rensselaerwyck. But by far the primary source of information comes from the prodigious output of the Dutch master painters.
Nuckles showed many slides of Dutch art depicting Netherlands people from all levels of society. The 17th century was the Golden Age for the Netherlands. With wealthy merchants having fled there from Spanish occupied territory to the south, the Dutch, with Amsterdam as their commercial center, became world leaders with a vibrant and prosperous middle class. In clothing styles, too, the Dutch became the trend setters, and the trends were picked up in the New World as well.
The upper class women dressed in fine silk and linens and showed their wealth by flaunting vast quantities of these expensive fabrics. The middle classes were by necessity less extravagant. The paintings show them dressed with quality fabric but not so much quantity and using more simple embellishments. The lower classes are seen wearing woolen jackets and more practical skirts and petticoats made of sturdy, cheaper linens.
Children in the pictures appear to be dressed as tiny adults. Boys and girls were dressed similarly, Nuckles said, until about age seven when boys would begin to dress more like adult males.
Nuckles brought a sizeable collection of garments she had made for her audience members to browse through and feel the fabrics. The clothing reflected the styles of a variety of levels of society and included shifts, bodices, skirts, children’s outfits, jackets, caps and baby hats.
For those interested in Dutch clothing and the Dutch experience in general in this area, Nuckles invited everyone to come to Fort Crailo July Fourth weekend for the public opening of a new exhibit and film, the celebration for “A Sweet and Alien Land: Colony of the Dutch in the Hudson River Valley.” For more information on that, call 463-8738.