From the Archives

This is an excerpt from a letter sent from the Marquise de la Tour du Pin, Albany, NY, 1794. It challenges the notion that all women wore their stays ALL the time. I've never thought this was true, afterall, how many of us modern gals wear our bras from the crack of dawn until bedtime?

"We had acquired moccasins, a kind of covering of buffalo skin, made and sold by the indians...

...One thing that had rendered me at once very popular with my neighbours. The day we took possession of our farm, I adopted the costume worn by the women of the neighbouring places, that is to say, a skirt of blue and black striped wool, a little camisole of light brown cotton cloth, a handkerchief of the same colour, with my hair parted, as it is worn now, caught up with a comb.

In winter I wore grey or blue woollen stockings with moccasins or slippers of buffalo skin; in summer cotton stockings and shoes. I never put on a dress or a corset except to go into the city."

- Dress in North America, the New World 1492-1800, by Diana de Marley, Holmes & Meier, NY, 1990