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cahnMore diaries of our favorite 18th-century Prussian diary-keeper have been unearthed and have been synopsized!
January 18th: Blessed be thou to me! Under your light, my Prince Heinrich was born!
January 18th: Blessed be thou to me! Under your light, my Prince Heinrich was born!
Length of hair under wig
Date: 2022-09-10 07:14 pm (UTC)I'll understand if none of you know this; it's not exactly something you can see on portraits...
Re: Length of hair under wig
Date: 2022-09-11 12:32 am (UTC)Otoh, you have young FW writing to Aunt Sophie that he‘s not wearing a periwig, he hates them, he’s wearing his natural hair instead at a point when they‘re giving way to the shorter wigs (which he‘ll have no problem wearing) anyway, and since he‘s able to switch between natural hair and shorter wig, and Prussian military hairstyle had the hair tied back in a strict short tail, it must have been at least long enough to wear said tail. But that‘s a continental German principality and may not apply to anyone British.
Re: Length of hair under wig
Date: 2022-09-12 07:49 pm (UTC)Also interesting about Prussian military hairstyle being a short ponytail! I get the impression that soldiers often had short cropped hair because of problems with lice etc, but maybe that isn't true in every era.
Re: Length of hair under wig
Date: 2022-09-11 10:34 am (UTC)Re: Length of hair under wig
Date: 2022-09-24 05:30 pm (UTC)So, first, as Selena said, wigs got shorter from the 17th to the 18th century. But there's a twist here. Two twists actually. One, the wig started out as a way of covering up hair loss. If you could achieve the same results with your own hair, you did. So a lot of what you think is a wig in a portrait might actually be the person's real hair, powdered and frizz, especially if they're younger. A lot of men started out with their own hair and then switched to wigs when hair loss set in.
18th century soldiers in the Prussian and British armies had to spend hours powdering and frizzing their/each other's hair, and as far as I know, that was their own hair. I'm guessing officers were more likely to be able to afford a wig.
Second twist: powdering and frizzing your hair was time-consuming and annoying, and wigs could be more convenient, if you could afford them. (Also, if you can keep the lice concentrated in the wig instead of your own hair, that helps too.)
So sometimes men who *could* have achieved this look with their own hair opted for a wig instead.
Third twist: as wigs got shorter but hairstyles remained long, it wasn't uncommon to have a wig on the top of your head but wear your own hair in the back long (in a hairbag, a pigtail, a ponytail tied together by a ribbon and bow, or what-have-you). If you couldn't grow your hair that long in the back, you could use a hairpiece. In the Prussian army, an artificial pigtail would be supplied to you if you couldn't achieve it yourself (but the preference was for you to achieve it yourself).
I have *read* that many men who were adopting this style cut their hair short on top for the wig but left it long in back. Was this the norm? I don't know. Could you have long frontal hair under a wig? Maybe?
Some specific data points:
Katte, 26 years old, was wearing a wig at his execution. (Oh. Wait, I wondered why Roes described him as losing his hair early. Maybe this is why?)
FW gave young Fritz a hard time for frizzing his hair "like a fool" and not cutting it. Since FW was, as far as I remember, a big proponent of the Prussian soldierly pigtail, does this mean Fritz was supposed to cut his hair in front under his wig? Or that pigtails were so long and no longer? Not sure!
By the time Fritz was 74, he was wearing a wig (at Rheinsberg, I believe he wore his own hair), and yet after his death, his locks were combed out over his shoulders. Given how male pattern baldness works, you probably couldn't have stroked any hair back from his forehead, but it does show he was wearing it longish in back while wearing a wig on top.
A few quotes from Duffy's Military Experience in the Age of Reason:
Cadets in most countries were familiar with the routine of the kind established in the Prussian cadet corps, where the first waking hour of every day was spent in fastening back and plastering down the hair with wax and talc; the next half hour was devoted to buttoning up the gaiters with a special hook, after which attention turned back to the hair, which was dusted heavily with powder.
The 18th century in general:
The wig or hair was curled into locks at the side, but drawn out at the back into a long military pigtail.
Prussians again:
It was a fiddling affair to do up the gaiters, which were fastened by rows of little buttons. The crowning achievement, and the most difficult of all to master, was to arrange the hair into a sculptural form, with a pigtail, a swept-back crown, and the regulation number of locks on either side. Pins, curlers, powder and ribbon were all brought into service to this end, and the men spent hours helping one another out. When troops were due to go on guard the next morning, they might spend the entire night with their hair done up in papers.
18th century Europe in general:
Enlightened commentators sought to do good by advocating browned musket barrels, realistic evolutions at drill, or a natural way of wearing the hair. They missed the point that the turnout and evolutions were totemic objects, and that a well-meaning amelioration in one detail would just have led to some other activity or object becoming a symbol of subordination in its place, like shining boots in modern armies. Meanwhile all the work kept the troops out of trouble, for ‘soldiers, and especially French soldiers, want to be kept busy; if they are not employed doing something useful, they will get up to something bad’ (d’Authville, 1756, 238).
In conclusion, first consider the age and income of your characters and whether you're *sure* they were wearing wigs. They might have just been powdering their own hair!
If they are wearing a wig, either because of hair loss or because it's fashionable and convenient, you might want to have that person tenderly stroke a lock of hair back over the man's shoulder. That way you can hedge your bets!
Re: Length of hair under wig
Date: 2022-09-25 02:29 pm (UTC)(My character is a 30-year-old British Army captain in 1745, and he canonically wears a wig. He has a fever, that’s why someone is stroking his forehead—it’s to check his temperature. Well, maybe hair doesn’t have to be very long in order to be stroked away for that purpose, if the other character wants their whole palm on his forehead…)
Re: Length of hair under wig
Date: 2022-09-25 08:14 pm (UTC)Most common, it seems, at least for wealthier men, was to visit a barber either once or twice a week to be shaved. Given the preference for the clean-shaven face from the late seventeenth century, this likely meant having the stubble scythed off, but might also include the head, to accommodate a fashionable wig.
The wig added an extra layer of complexity, in requiring the removal of the wearer’s own hair, and substituting it for the ‘dead’ hair of someone else.
An individual removed their own ‘natural’ hair and replaced it with something fashioned from the frowzy hair of the poor...Head hair was removed but the head re-covered by the wig.
My character is a 30-year-old British Army captain in 1745, and he canonically wears a wig
Ah, canon! Well, that is definitely a constraint. Unfortunately, the author above (who seems to be a legit scholar) presents short hair under the wig as at least a British norm (not sure if the Brits were also leaving it long in back or on the sides, as the continentals sometimes did).
Re: Length of hair under wig
Date: 2022-09-29 06:28 pm (UTC)Re: Length of hair under wig
Date: 2022-09-29 08:45 pm (UTC)The blogger has recently published a book on the history of beards in England, so the focus is to be expected! :)
Women, Armies, and Warfare in Early Modern Europe by John A. Lynn (2008)
Date: 2022-09-12 07:47 pm (UTC)That's a short summary, sorry! Ask questions if you have any. Peter Hagendorf’s diary is mentioned multiple times--obviously these working class women did not leave much in the way of written records themselves.
Oh, and also I have read the book Giving Birth in 18th Century England by Sarah Fox (2022), ask if you have questions about that. There's a lot of stuff in the book about the social context of giving birth, both in terms of family and of the surrounding community. Interesting to read about the trials for infanticide, where the surrounding community kept tabs on women they suspected, accusing them and bringing evidence - but also sometimes being kind to women in difficult circumstances, for example female servants made pregnant by their masters.
Re: Women, Armies, and Warfare in Early Modern Europe by John A. Lynn (2008)
Date: 2022-09-17 04:42 am (UTC)Did officers' wives also go with the army?
There's a lot of stuff in the book about the social context of giving birth, both in terms of family and of the surrounding community.
Does this mean in terms of family and community support during and immediately after birth? I had a very hard time after my first's birth, and idk how I would have fared if my mom hadn't been really helping me out. I've wondered how that worked in the past where, well, adverse outcomes were a LOT more common.
Interesting to read about the trials for infanticide, where the surrounding community kept tabs on women they suspected, accusing them and bringing evidence - but also sometimes being kind to women in difficult circumstances, for example female servants made pregnant by their masters.
Wow. I feel like I want to know more about this but I don't know what questions to ask! When did they suspect women of infanticide? Whenever a kid died who wasn't already obviously ill? I suppose it's hard to tell now, but I would think that would mean a lot of women whose kids died of SIDS or something would get wrongfully accused... I'm glad they were kind to the female servants, anyway. Ugh.
ETA: also, sorry about the delay -- I had a busy week, and I know both
Re: Women, Armies, and Warfare in Early Modern Europe by John A. Lynn (2008)
Date: 2022-09-17 02:18 pm (UTC)Yes, this!
Re: Women, Armies, and Warfare in Early Modern Europe by John A. Lynn (2008)
Date: 2022-09-19 07:45 pm (UTC)Re: Women, Armies, and Warfare in Early Modern Europe by John A. Lynn (2008)
Date: 2022-09-19 07:44 pm (UTC)Did officers' wives also go with the army?
Yes, but of course there was a huge class distinction in what they did, compared to the working class women. Of the working-class women who were not actual prostitutes, most of them were either married to soldiers or had agreed to partner (sexually and for work) with a particular soldier just for the campaigning season.
Does this mean in terms of family and community support during and immediately after birth?
Yes! There was a socially enforced period of rest for women who had given birth, I think about two weeks. This was called the lying-in period. Even working-class women observed it, and it was often a large financial cost for their families, and something they would ask for money for from charity to afford. The reasoning is apparently that since women were pregnant so often, they really needed this period of rest so that their bodies could recover. Relatives and female friends often came to visit during this period, and they drank caudle together (a hot drink made with wine, gruel, sugar and spices). Women were not supposed to do any work during that time, and also not expected to keep up with their correspondence (if they were middle/upper class).
Re: infanticide, this is basically women who killed a child at birth when they had failed to induce an abortion, often because they had no resources to keep it. Women could be suspected of it if their child died at birth, but of course children being stillborn was also common! So a woman was more likely to be suspected if she had tried to hide her pregnancy and then the child died. Women hiding pregnancies was really something that the community tried to root out. Another key point is whether she had prepared for the infant or not. This was actually a key point in law, where she was often declared innocent if she had clothes ready for the child.
Re: Women, Armies, and Warfare in Early Modern Europe by John A. Lynn (2008)
Date: 2022-09-20 05:07 am (UTC)The reasoning is apparently that since women were pregnant so often, they really needed this period of rest so that their bodies could recover.
I am super SUPER sympathetic to this line of reasoning. Honestly, even if you didn't have that many babies I think this is a very reasonable ask!
This was actually a key point in law, where she was often declared innocent if she had clothes ready for the child.
Ohhhh, that's really interesting. Poor women. Was there any consequence, either legally or socially, from a successful abortion? Or did people just sort of pretend it didn't happen?
Re: Women, Armies, and Warfare in Early Modern Europe by John A. Lynn (2008)
Date: 2022-09-20 08:19 pm (UTC)Re: Women, Armies, and Warfare in Early Modern Europe by John A. Lynn (2008)
Date: 2022-09-22 04:18 am (UTC)(And I suppose medically speaking, the word abortion just means that the pregnancy stops -- a miscarriage is medically called a spontaneous abortion.)
Yuletide nominations
Date: 2022-09-17 04:47 am (UTC)Me: Émilie, Heinrich, FW, SD.
I'm happy with all of these again -- as you know, the only ones I feel super strongly about are Voltaire and Heinrich, and maybe Émilie :) Are there substitutions we would want to make to this list?
I'd also like to post on the Yuletide RPF coordination list, but thought we should coordinate here first (especially since that post doesn't seem to have a lot of action). I'll probably repeat my prompts from last year.
Re: Yuletide nominations
Date: 2022-09-18 10:18 pm (UTC)Re: Yuletide nominations
Date: 2022-09-19 04:11 pm (UTC)Re: Yuletide nominations
Date: 2022-09-19 04:19 pm (UTC)Re: Yuletide nominations
Date: 2022-09-21 03:33 pm (UTC)Re: Yuletide nominations
Date: 2022-09-21 06:08 pm (UTC)