Last weekend I spoke to a wonderful group of readers and history-fans at the Albany Institute of History & Art. My talk was part of a series of programs surrounding their current special exhibition, The Schuyler Sisters & Their Circle, and what an exhibition it is! It’s a thoughtful, beautiful, and well-researched look at the Schuylers, one of the most influential extended families not only in 18thc Albany, but in the colonies and young country as well. While Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, George Washington, and a number of other gentlemen are included in the exhibition (more than enough to make Hamilfans swoon with delight), the focus is more on the women and their interconnections and friendships, through clothes, portraits, jewelry, needlework, and a wealth of other artifacts and artworks. The exhibition runs through December 29; if you can possibly make your way to Albany by then, go!
I’ll be featuring a number of pieces from the exhibition here on the blog over the next few weeks, and I’m beginning with these two caps with connections to Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, the heroine of I, Eliza Hamilton.
I’ve written before (here) about how Eliza appears to have continued wearing a variation of mourning for her husband Alexander for the fifty remaining years of her life. She also appears to have continued dressing in the fashions of 1804, the year in which he died. Judging by her portraits, her plain black dresses were relieved by a pleated white ruffle at the neck, and a white muslin or linen cap. In the 18thc and early 19thc, white caps were universally worn by women of every class, and ranged from the simplest linen caps worn by servants to extravagant confections of silk gauze that were flirtatious statements of the highest fashion.
As the 19thc progressed, however, caps fell from favor, and by mid-century, they were primarily worn by older women and widows like Eliza. Eliza’s choice of caps, however, didn’t appear to change, but continued as an increasingly old-fashioned style with a wide band, front ruffle, and a gathered crown at the back.
The cap from the exhibition was worn by Eliza, and it’s easy to see why. Unadorned by embroidery, lace, ribbons, silk flowers, or any other ornament, the cotton muslin cap is as no-nonsense as Eliza was herself. With its frill around the face, it’s similar to the cap she wears in the Daniel Huntington portrait, right, painted when she was in her nineties. To her friends, admirers, and numerous grandchildren, nieces, and nephews, such a cap must have been an instantly recognizable part of her.
But they also would have known Eliza for what she did as well as what she wore. Needlework was very much a part of her life, and there are numerous examples of her work still surviving, including the wedding handkerchiefs she made as a bride, a richly embroidered mat for Alexander’s portrait, and a fancy child’s dress (also now on display at AIHA) for a grandchild. In the exhibition is a tiny infant’s cap, left, that she is said to have stitched for her godson Augustus Holly Bissell (1840-1900). Eliza would have been in her eighties when she made this cap, yet the whitework design of the little cap is still beautifully worked - and the sprigs and scattered fill stitches are similar to these sketches she made on the back of a letter in 1799. (There’s also the possibility that, given her age, Eliza cut and sewed the cap from fabric that was previously embroidered - perhaps from one of the white dresses that had been so much in fashion earlier in the century.)
Both caps were carefully preserved as family heirlooms by Louisa Lee Schuyler (1837-1926) and Georgina Schuyler (1841-1923), the great-granddaughters of Eliza and Alexander Hamilton; it’s remarkable to realize that these two women as children knew Eliza, a Revolutionary War widow, yet themselves lived into the 20thc and the Jazz Age. The caps are now part of the collection of the Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site - the 18thc family home of the Schuyler family that was also preserved through the efforts of Louisa Lee and Georgina.
Above: Cap worn by Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, unknown maker, 1790—1830. Infant’s cap made by Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, 1840. Both Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site. Photograph copyright 2019 Susan Holloway Scott.
Right: Detail, Portrait of Mrs. Alexander Hamilton (Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton) by Daniel Huntington, mid-1800s. National Museum of American History, Smithsonian.
Read more about Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton in my historical novel I, Eliza Hamilton; order here. My latest historical novel, The Secret Wife of Aaron Burr, is now available everywhere. Order here.