Making a Mary Dyer costume for school

Guest post © Judy Perry
 

Sophie is digitally transported to Mary Dyer's statue in Philadelphia.

 I remember once, when looking for information on how to make Anne Boleyn-style French hoods, coming upon either the blog or the website of a historical re-enactor, who took great pains to point out that she was not a costumer; she was the real deal!

But we don't all have the time and means to be the real deal and thus I proudly will admit myself to be a costumer – as long as it looks sorta, kinda correct and nobody in the general public can tell otherwise, I'm a happy camper.

Especially when I'm given less than two weeks to come up with male and female “American colonial” costumes for my twin children. Each also had to do a stand-up talk with one of those three-paneled “science fair” type cardboard displays. My daughter wanted to do a famous person, but didn't like any of the options that were available to her. (What the teacher meant by “American colonial” was Revolutionary late 18^th-century, whereas Mary Dyer lived in the mid-17^th century.)  Remembering Christy's research into Mary Barrett Dyer, I proposed Mary as a candidate and, after I supplied some information, my daughter's teacher agreed.

I didn't have much time and I didn't want to spend a lot of money. Basically, under such circumstances, you have three choices:

            •Buy a really cheap pre-made costume at a place like Party City (cheap quality but expensive).

            •Buy a pattern, fabric, and make it yourself (expensive and expensive).

            •Wing it (see below).

Winging it

This can be either totally flying by the seat of your pants or by poring over numerous books on period costume that you might not have on hand (I didn't). Therefore, I went by the two images on Christy's website and decided to start with the bonnet and skirt (and maybe apron?) as shown on the Boston statue of Mary Dyer. The important thing in winging it, especially if you are not an experienced seamstress, is to 1) simplify, simplify, simplify! And, 2) use really cheap materials wherever possible.

Coif Materials:

            •Millinery tape

            •Cheap white sheet

            •Double-edge binding tape

            •Fray-Check/Stitch Witchery (optional)

Before trotting off to your local fabric store to find the millinery tape, which was traditionally used by haberdasheries, you should be forewarned that they probably won't know what you are talking about. That's okay; ask them to direct you to their drapery department. It's a 3” wide almost grosgrain “drapery” tape. I measured (well, actually, couldn't find my measuring tape, so I just held the tape up and around the top of her head to the desired length) the proper length of drapery tape and cut. You'll probably want to hem that edge or use one of the iron-on hemming products/anti-fray products so that the cut end doesn't fray.

Secondly, buy the cheapest (choice of color) sheet you can find at Wal-Mart or other store in a twin bed size. Cut a circular-shaped piece of the sheet such that it's a little shorter than the millinery tape piece (to get a reasonably-shaped circle, fold the sheet vertically and then again just a little bit horizontally and cut a ¼ circle). Fold under into a straight line the portion of the circle that will fit along the top/back of the millinery tape. Dashed lines represent fold lines. 

This should result in something like the following:

First pin the straight-edge onto itself, then hem the semi-circular portion (or use the non-sewing hemming products). Sew the straight-edge to the center of the length of the millinery tape, right-edges facing each other (meaning you'll be sewing on the wrong side). Decide how long you want the under-the-chin tie strips and cut two from the bias tape. Sew them to the under-side of the millinery tape up near the ears and where the semi-circular piece meets the millinery tape. Gather the edges of the semi-circular at the bottom to create a “pouf.”

The reason for using a sheet is simple: it's about the cheapest form of fabric you can buy! This means you can afford to experiment and toss anything that doesn't work out. Even after discarding a few circles and making the apron, I had plenty of white fabric left over. This coif/bonnet simply involved measuring lengths and circle sizes, cutting them and sewing them. Easy-peasy!   

Above you can see the finished product, both by itself as well as on my daughter;
the pouf holds in her hair for modesty's sake.

Skirt Materials & Construction

            •Twin sheet of desired skirt (and blouse) color

            •Elastic ribbon or banding.

            •Iron-on hem product and/or Fray Check

            •Set of hemostats OR a large, well-made safety pin. Mary Dyer would call it a "bodkin."

           

Here is where the additional benefits of using sheets really kicks in. The first reason I gave was that it is about the cheapest fabric you can buy. Now, let's imagine that, somehow, in a mysterious parallel universe, you could afford to buy fabric the size of a twin sheet for the same amount of money as buying the sheet. Yes, but... that same piece of fabric would have two selvage edges (which wouldn't need to be hemmed and two cut edges, which would need to be hemmed. With a sheet, you have four hemmed edges! Cuts down your work considerably, especially in making the skirt and apron.

For the skirt, measure how long you'd like for the skirt to be, then add 2” or so and cut that sheet horizontally at that mark.  If you use the entire width of the sheet, you now have a hemmed bottom and two hemmed sides!

Now you need to make an upper-casing along the cut line. The purpose of the casing – which is essentially a hemmed-off channel at the top of the skirt – is to carry the elastic ribbon which will make the skirt puffy and easy to pull on over the hips. The casing is the reason for adding the extra 2” at the top of the skirt. You have three options here: FrayCheck the rough top edge, then fold over by an inch and hem; Fold under the rough edge by 1/8” and then by nearly an inch and hem; Hem the 1/8 edge, fold again by about an inch and hem. Remember that “hemming” means using either a StitchWitchery-type of product OR sewing. Stretch the elastic tape a bit to a comfortable size for the wearer of the costume and cut that amount.

Now sew the two side edges together up to the line of the casing hem. Attach either the hemostats OR the safety pin to one end of the elastic tape/ribbon and gradually begin inserting it int one end of the casing.  Don't allow the other end to be drawn into the casing! Stretch it and gather the casing until both ends exit just beyond the casing's sides. Here you can either sew them together or tie them shut. Now you can stitch shut the two ends of the casing, hiding the elastic inside of them. 

Congratulations! You now have a skirt! Do likewise for the apron (for which I used my white sheet instead of the gray that I used for the skirt), only make the casing a separate sewn rectangle and, pinning right side to right side (with wrong side facing the sewer), sew the separate “casing” which we will now call an “apron string” and use it to tie the apron around the waist.

My sewing machine died before I could make a blouse out of the matching gray colored sheet (regrettably, only after I'd freehanded the blouse pattern), so I went with one of Sophie's white cotton karate gi tops. You can see the final results below:  

Yes, I made portions of her brother's costume, as well.

.

_______________
Judy Perry is a university educator in computer science, and is author of a blog on Katherine Swynford. She and her family live in southern California.
_______________Thank you, Judy, for documenting your DIY project on Mary Dyer, and sharing your resourcefulness with desperate moms everywhere, trying to come up with a project for their children!

The Ghost of Mary Dyer

The Founding Fanatics

The Ghost of Mary Dyer

by David Macary, guest author

Although we regularly hear people (commentators, politicians, citizens) refer with pride to our Founding Fathers, it’s unclear whether they’re familiar with the relevant dates. Because if they had done the arithmetic, they surely would’ve noticed that every one of these illustrious “founders” had been born more than a century after this country was already formed.

Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in America, was established in 1607, and Plymouth, the second settlement, was established in 1620. By contrast, George Washington was born in 1732, John Adams in 1735, Thomas Jefferson in 1743, and James Madison in 1751.

Technically, these men didn’t “found” us. What they did was engineer our independence from England and invent our federal government, two magnificent achievements that set us on the successful course we’ve followed ever since. But let’s be clear: This country’s ethos—its customs, social rituals, religious beliefs, rural economy, national character—had been in place for a 150 years (that’s six generations) before Jefferson, Madison, et al, ever hung out their shingles.

We were taught in school that the Pilgrims came to America in order to practice “religious freedom.” While that statement is more or less accurate, what they fail to mention is that the Puritans were 17^th-century England’s version of the Taliban. These religious zealots wanted to “purify” Christianity (hence “Puritans”) in much the same way that the Taliban wants to purify Islam.

Indeed, if we wished to be brutally honest, we could say that America was founded by a bunch of religious fanatics, and that it was the framers of the Constitution (educated products of the Enlightenment) who, bless their hearts, saved us from them.

How fanatical were they? Fanatical enough, in 1660, to execute the first female in the colonies. Her name was Mary Dyer. She, along with three male associates [Robinson, Stevenson, Leddra], were hanged by Massachusetts Bay Colony authorities. Dyer and the men had repeatedly ignored warnings not to set foot in Massachusetts, where Quakerism was outlawed, and when the warnings went unheeded, the Colony hanged them.

One can think of many religious people who deserve to be hanged, but Quakers aren’t among them. In fact, Quakerism, with its pacifism and equality for women, seems like one of the more enlightened, dignified religions. But in 1660, the good citizens of Massachusetts chose to kill a group of settlers whose only crime was belonging to another faith and defying the orthodox theocracy. And they killed them in the name of Jesus Christ.

As far as theology goes, our neighbors to the north are, by all accounts, nowhere near as demonstrably religious as we are. A few years ago, I saw Kim Campbell (former Prime Minister of Canada) on Bill Maher’s HBO television show. The panel was discussing the comparative role that religion played in the politics of Canada and America.

Reminded of the fact that George W. Bush had declared, after announcing his candidacy, that he believed God wanted him to run for president, Campbell observed that if a Canadian politician had said the same thing, people would think he was “mentally ill.” And as many will recall, during the 2008 Republican primary, three candidates (Tom Tancredo, Sam Brownback and Mike Huckabee) proudly admitted that they didn’t believe in evolution.

Our history is filled with paradoxes. We embrace founders who didn’t actually “found” us, we applaud the Pilgrims for seeking religious freedom when, in fact, they were vehemently intolerant, and we assume we were established as a reverently Christian, God-fearing nation even though the framers took careful steps to ensure that we would never become a theocracy.

In this post-New Deal, post-industrial milieu we find ourselves, we have both kinds of voters: the kind who vote for candidates on the basis of their positions on specific issues (health care, tax reform, trade policy, etc.), and the kind who ignore the boring nuts-and-bolts stuff and simply vote for the candidate they regard as the “most religious.”

And when the Tea Party says that they “want their country back,” and evangelicals say that we will never again be the nation we once were until “we put Jesus Christ back into our lives,” we’re reminded of not only how polarized we are, but of how the ghost of Mary Dyer—the first woman in Colonial America to be executed for civil disobedience—still haunts us.

***** 

For more information on Mary Dyer and why she chose to die for her principles, please click these links:
Top 10 Things You May Not Know About Mary Dyer
Mary Dyer and the First Amendment, 1660-1791

Thank you, David, for this insightful article, used by written permission of the author. 

David Macaray, a Los Angeles playwright and author (It’s Never Been Easy: Essays on Modern Labor), is a former labor union rep. He can be reached by email.

Mary Dyer, a strong-willed woman

This article, second in a series on strong-willed women that includes Mary Dyer, is found at Jo Ann Butler's Rebel Puritan blog. She asked why I chose to write this blog and a book trilogy on Mary Dyer and her world.

© 2012 Christy K Robinson

Historical fiction has been my favorite literary genre since I was a young girl. I’ve learned that several of my author friends read my favorite book series on the Childhoods of Famous Americans when we were kids, and it shaped our discovery of history and historical fiction by humanizing icons of history and making them accessible to children. It tickled our imaginations to learn about culture and what life might have been like for Virginia Dare, Martha Washington, or Abigail Adams, as children. (There were boys in the series, too, of course.)

The author's pedigree chart, begun in 1974 and printed in 1994.

My mother was chronically ill, and she drafted me to help her at genealogy and history archives with the fetch-and-carry jobs, or searching the reference files (you know, the little card drawers at the book place, that preceded the search engine). We traced many of our lines back through renaissance and medieval eras to European royalty. One of our most important discoveries in the early 1970s was the confirmation that we were 11 and 12 generations descended from Mary Barrett Dyer, the 17th-century Quaker martyr. In the 1970s and 80s, we believed that Mary was hanged by those mean Boston Puritans for her religious beliefs, “simply for being a Quaker.” Unfortunately, that belief persists in countless web pages today.

Mary Dyer had several opportunities to avoid prison and execution. She could have lived her life in peace and safety, doing anything she wanted to, in Rhode Island, the colony she co-founded. But she intentionally returned to Boston several times to defy her banishment-on-pain-of-death sentence, until she forced their hand and they executed her. It’s not that she wanted to die, but that she was willing to die to shock the citizens into stopping their leaders from the vicious persecution of Quakers and Baptists. Whippings such as Herodias Gardner’s. Mary and other Quakers believed they were called by God to “try the bloody law,” the law that required torture, bankrupting fines, exile, and death for dissenters.

Mary’s sacrifice and civil disobedience worked. After her death in June 1660, a petition to King Charles II resulted in a cease-and-desist order to the Puritan theocracy in New England; and the king’s Rhode Island charter of 1663 (which replaced previous religiously-liberal charters) specifically granted liberty of conscience and separation of church and civil powers in Rhode Island Colony. One hundred thirty years later, the religious-freedom concept modeled by Rhode Island became part of America’s Bill of Rights to the Constitution.

1663 Rhode Island charter, written by Rhode Islanders
such as John Clarke, Roger Williams, and William Dyer,
and granted by King Charles II.

Religious liberties (to practice religion or not without interference of the government) and those who would legislate their morality upon others still clash today, 350 years later. That’s one of the things that compels me to write of a strong-willed woman. Mary Dyer sacrificed her will and her life of ease and wealth, with husband, children, grandchildren, respect and influence for the good of hundreds of people in her own time, and untold hundreds of millions who came after her.

The genealogy hobby is inspiring, educational, and fun. I’m 32 generations down the tree from Eleanor of Aquitaine. Eleanor’s son John was forced to agree to the Magna Carta, a charter of liberties which has been the model of constitutions around the world. On another line, I’m 12 generations down from Mary Barrett Dyer, whose sacrifice laid the groundwork for the human rights in the US Constitution. There are numerous other figures who may not be famous today, but who shaped our society nonetheless. It’s fun to speculate what molecules of DNA have come down to me, or from the thousands of other strong, resourceful, and intelligent women in the family pedigree. They’re the people whose actions and principles formed our society and culture today. They were not wimps. And neither are we. 

***************
Author/blogger/friend (not necessarily in that order) Jo Ann Butler releases book two of her trilogy on Herodias Long Hicks Gardner Porter in autumn 2012. "Herod" or "Harwood," as Jo Ann's heroine is known, was a neighbor of the Dyers in Newport, Rhode Island, beginning in the early 1640s.

William Dyer's 1643 memo regarding Herodias
and her husband John Hicks' domestic violence.
“Memo John Hicks of Nuport was bound to ye pease
by ye Govr & Mr Easton in a bond of £10
for beating his wife Harwood Hicks
and prsented [at this] court was ordered to continue
in his bond till ye next C[ourt] upon which his wife
to come & give evidence concerning ye case”

William Dyer recorded legal documents about Herodias' first marriage, and did business with and served in government with Herod's husbands. It's highly likely that Herodias and Mary Dyer were friends as well as neighbors, because Herodias, like Mary, protested the Puritan persecution of Quakers. Herodias, holding her unweaned baby, was stripped to the waist in public, and whipped with a knotted lash, as punishment for her support for Quakers and dissidence against the Puritan theocratic authority. She was then imprisoned for two weeks in Boston, so you can imagine that her wounds may have become infected and healed badly.

For more information on Herodias Long, and to order the book, visit the Rebel Puritan website.
Images courtesy of Jo Ann Butler.

Why Mary Barrett Dyer?

Originally published at the Rebel Puritan website by Jo Ann Butler.

Mistress Dyer is a well-known resident of Newport, Rhode Island, and is featured in Jo Ann Butler’s books Rebel Puritan.  She asked what attracted Christy Robinson to research and write Mary Dyer's life story.

Why Mary Barrett Dyer?

© 2012 Christy K Robinson

Historical fiction has been my favorite literary genre since I was a young girl. I’ve learned that several of my author friends read my favorite book series on the Childhoods of Famous Americans when we were kids, and it shaped our discovery of history and historical fiction by humanizing icons of history and making them accessible to children. It tickled our imaginations to learn about culture and what life might have been like for Virginia Dare, Martha Washington, or Abigail Adams, as children. (There were boys in the series, too, of course.)

My mother was chronically ill, and she drafted me to help her at genealogy and history archives with the fetch-and-carry jobs, or searching the reference files (you know, the little card drawers at the many-books place, that preceded the search engine). We traced many of our lines back through renaissance and medieval eras to European royalty. One of our most important discoveries in the 1970s was the confirmation that we were 11 and 12 generations descended from Mary Barrett Dyer, the 17th-century Quaker martyr. In the 1970s and 80s, we believed that Mary was hanged by those mean Boston Puritans for her religious beliefs, “simply for being a Quaker.” Unfortunately, that belief persists in countless web pages today.

Mary Dyer had several opportunities to avoid prison and execution. She could have lived her life in peace and safety, doing anything she wanted to, in Rhode Island, the colony she co-founded. But she intentionally returned to Boston several times to defy her banishment-on-pain-of-death sentence, until she forced their hand and they executed her. It’s not that she wanted to die, but that she was willing to die to shock the citizens into stopping their leaders from the vicious persecution of Quakers and Baptists. Whippings such as Herodias Gardner’s. Mary and other Quakers believed they were called by God to “try the bloody law,” the law that required torture, bankrupting fines, exile, and death for dissenters.

Rhode Island's 1663 charter
from King Charles II, that
mentions William Dyer's name
twice (and grants religious freedom
to Rhode Island citizens, a first
in Western history.)

 Mary’s sacrifice and civil disobedience worked. After her death in June 1660, a petition to King Charles II resulted in a cease-and-desist order to the Puritan theocracy in New England; and the king’s Rhode Island charter of 1663 (which replaced previous religiously-liberal charters) specifically granted liberty of conscience and separation of church and civil powers in Rhode Island Colony. One hundred thirty years later, the religious-freedom concept modeled by Rhode Island became part of America’s Bill of Rights to the Constitution.

Religious liberties (to practice religion or not without interference of the government) and those who would legislate their morality upon others still clash today, 350 years later. That’s one of the things that compels me to write of a strong-willed woman. Mary Dyer sacrificed her will and her life of ease and wealth, with husband, children, grandchildren, respect and influence for the good of hundreds of people in her own time, and untold hundreds of millions who came after her.

The genealogy hobby is inspiring, educational, and fun. I’m 32 generations down the tree from Eleanor of Aquitaine, author Christy English’s muse. Eleanor’s son John was forced to agree to the Magna Carta, a charter of liberties which has been the model of constitutions around the world. On another line, I’m 12 generations down from Mary Barrett Dyer, whose sacrifice laid the groundwork for the human rights in the US Constitution. It’s fun to speculate what molecules of DNA have come down to me from those two, or from the thousands of other strong, resourceful, and intelligent women in the family pedigree. They’re the people whose actions and principles formed our society and culture today. They were not wimps. And neither are we. 

*****

 Christy K. Robinson is an author and editor whose book We Shall Be Changed was published in hardcover in 2010. She's currently (in 2012) researching and writing a historical novel on Mary Barrett Dyer, 1611-1660. (The book was published as Mary Dyer Illuminated in October 2013.) You can reach Christy at http://christykrobinson.com .

Christy also has an excellent blog about William and Mary (Barrett) Dyer at http://marybarrettdyer.blogspot.com and I urge you to check it out!

Knowing people who know people

Lange Eylandt, cropped from a Dutch map.
In the 1650s-1670s, Johann Polhemus ministered at the west end,
in Brooklyn, while Mary Dyer spent the winter of
1659-1660 on Shelter Island at the east end.

If you enjoy learning about the human experience and culture of the 17th century, take a look at the article I posted on my other history blog, Rooting for Ancestors. It's about the Dutch Reformed minister to Brazil, and the first minister of the first Dutch churches on Long Island, Rev. Johann Theodorus Polhemius.

I doubt that there was a direct connection to William or Mary Dyer, but Polhemius was a beloved and well-respected minister in the New Amsterdam society. He was one of the ministers who, in 1658, reported that "The raving Quakers have not settled down -- for altho our government has issued orders against these fanatics, nevertheless they do not fail to pour forth their venom. There is one place in New England where they are tolerated and that is Rhode Island, which is the caeca latrina ["bowels latrine"] of New England." (Really, the cesspool? That's not very nice to say!) 

Polhemus' children and his widow would almost certainly have known or come under the influence of the New York mayor, Major William Dyer, 1640-1688. Yes, the younger William, who obtained his mother's reprieve from death in October 1659. At the risk of placing that earworm song "It's a Small World," in your brain, I urge you to read:

Rev. Johann Polhemus' deadly scrapes <---Click the link

Eleven places in New York City with 17th-century history