A Woman’s Work at Her Needle Is Never Done

“Work” with respect to girls and women used to be synonymous with “needlework.”  Not just the stitching of samplers, but “plain sewing,” the making of shifts and shirts, aprons and babies’ caps for members of the family.   Those tasks were not relegated to the servants: princesses and queens were supposed to cheerfully perform  this necessary work as well.  Virtuous female characters from the Bible and classical literature were cited as examples.  It was said the daughters of Queen Charlotte were expert at tapestry work and fine embroidery of all kinds.

But times were changing according to the anonymous author of The Little Needle Woman: Or the Pleasures of Work.  Published with the Approbation of The Princess Royal of Lilliput, for the Entertainment of the Ladies of Great-Britain and Ireland  (Gainsborough: H. Mozley, 1792).  He or she exclaimed:

Needle—work, the cares of domestic affairs, a serious and retired life, is the proper function of women; and for this they were designed by Providence.  The depravity of the age has indeed affixed to these customs which are  very near as old as the creation, an idea of meanness and contempt; but then what has it substituted in the room of them?  A soft indolence, a stupid idleness, frivolous conversation, vain amusements, a strong passion for public shews, and a frantic love of gambling.

If dexterity with the needle was as important as claimed above, then surely this little pamphlet has illustrations of obedient little girls hard at work.  Just one–the frontispiece shows a girl sewing while she watches the baby in the cradle.  But there is also a picture of a girl practicing the piano while her mama watches, which directly contradicts the rant in the introduction.…To be honest, there are more illustrations in 18th-century children’s books of boys mistreating animals in than of girls sewing.  Only one I’ve found in the collection so far is The Brother’s Gift, which was first published by Francis Newbery in 1770.  The story is straightforward enough.  Kitty Bland returns home from boarding school “perfectly spoiled,” having picked up affected manners.  Like most boarding school misses, she can’t spell correctly, write neatly, read aloud nicely, or, most important of all, sew carefully.  In spite of all this her older brother Billy loves her too much to let this continue  and explains kindly why it is to her advantage to learn all these things—and stop spending so much time staring at herself in the mirror.  Here she is hard at work.And here is her thimble.

If Kitty applies herself, she might one day produce a map sampler like this one in the Victoria and Albert Museum.Or aspire to needle paintings  in worsted like Mary Linwood, who exhibited her full-size copies of old masters in a  gallery on Leicester Square in London for decades.  Here is one after the famous animal painter, George Stubbs. 

 

 

Play the Board Game: A Race Game through a Magical Hand-drawn Shared World

Two weeks ago the Princeton Board Games Club visited Special Collections to look at a selection of Cotsen’s board games.  Here they are battling it out over Election: The Game of the Day, a 1950s board game very loosely based on Monopoly where players try to win seats in the House of Commons.  The battle for voters in Coventry and Bedford was spirited.

But when they walked into the large classroom, they made a beeline to the game shown in the foreground of the photograph and asked what it was?  The playing surface appears to be a drawing covering four sheets of paper which have been mounted on board, varnished, and hinged with fabric. The only evidence for the materials that were used if the label shown to the left pasted on the back. The creator didn’t sign the front anywhere obvious, although it’s possible a name could be concealed somewhere among all the figures.  Sometimes the rules for published board games are printed down the vertical sides, but this feature was not copied.  Perhaps they were written out and made into a little booklet. The tokens and dice probably went missing decades ago.

Was this pastime based on Snakes and Ladders or is it a variation of the Game of the Goose, the most popular race game of all?  There’s no way to know unless players line up at the castle in the upper left hand corner and advance down the track.

[Antique Manuscript Board Game]. [London?, 1920s?]. (Cotsen)

Like any version of the Game of the Goose, players lucky enough to land on certain squares  get a leg up on their competitors.  The Bull of Norway from the fairy tale waits at number 88 to carry the player to number 111.Among the obstacles to advancement is a fiery salamander, who will detain a play until a six is thrown. There two dragons to avoid…  Land on number 25 (notice that there’s one in bold in a circle and another above) and the knight kills the lion waiting to maul travellers and the the player can jump over the scaly brute to number 35. The second dragon can be slain if Excalibur is pulled from the stone at number 93.  Otherwise it will eat the unfortunate player who lands on number 94, eliminating him or her from play.  The satyr facing it is perhaps piping a tune to improve its digestion.  The elves to the right look disinclined to intervene. 
Tramp through the Forest of Sherwood and meet  Dick Turpin, the highwayman, who will relieve the player of unnecessary baggage.  Avoid  him and there’s a chance of nabbing the Seven League Boots that will skip ahead to number 73.
Hurry down to the sea and sail a tall ship around Neptune and bypass Long John Silver on Treasure Island.Turn north to head for home, a stately country home.  Perhaps it is a picture of a real place, the actual site where this quirky shared world cum board game  was made.  So far there aren’t enough clues to figure out who drew the game board, although it seems a good guess that the person lived in England before the first World War and was very familiar with the classics of Victorian literature.    When it’s digitized and up in the Cotsen module of DPUL, the board game club can figure out how it’s played!