Camp stools

[Straekat]

Straecat,
Military officers were ones who traveled with wagons full of personal furniture & supplies while families moving from one place to another might have all their worldly possessions with them on a wagon and/or horses. Based on the latter, what may have been seen in civilian camps would be what people had in their houses which would include the chairs they had at home. To say much more would be to invent a fantasy narrative...

Those points are good ones. Moving a -household- as a family unit from a settlement to find a place "out west" to settle on and establish a living, versus a frontiersman, "mountain man" or anyone on the frontier who was nomadic are different from each other. A farmstead, permanent house site and similar signs of a sedentary life versus a camp site used by one or two transients are going to be distinctly different in the material culture that would have been present.

A family that is relocating intends on setting down permanent roots. A single male, or small party of males on the move, hunting, trapping, or trading may not be able to haul more than the bare essentials.

Probate papers, wills, and other 18th century documents describing items accounted for in legal or tax papers can be very detailed. Those records, in general, indicate most families (who weren't considered "rich") living outside of towns and similar settlements, did not own much furniture. Solon Buck in his "Planting of Civilization in Western Pennsylvania" claims during the middle of the 18th century, chests and boxes in rural houses were used for seating, table top functions, etc. Chairs, and dedicated use furniture items such as purpose made tables, four poster beds, were not part of the initial settlement era furnishings.

 

[tenngun]

I’m a ground sitter, but, at an event do have a candle lantern and mostly more cooking ware then I need. Then there is my tent itself.
I like my creature comforts.
Some folk tote their full time night women along with them, and the results that come from the pleasant company of the weaker sex (sic). So our camps tend to be more wealthy officer like instead of poor farmer like.

 

[Nyckname]

...the weaker sex (sic)...

Put on some armor and fight any female Knight in the S.C.A.

 

[tenngun]

Well I’ve been married these thirty two years now, so my relationships with any and all other women is strictly plutonic. How ever even my most private fantasies would never include be beated into jelly and bone bits by any one of them young ladies, I think I’ll decline that request

 

[Rifleman1776]

I met Rifleman1776 about 1983. His outfit was about the best any one knew could be put together for an ARW Rifleman. He looked like he stepped out of a diorama at the Smithsonian.
Today good, and unfortunately not so good info, is just a click away. It is so easy to put together an outfit much closer to the reality today then then.
We should never think that one person has disdain for HC/PC because he didn’t come as close as our own personal excuse line.
When you put on your kit and step softly on to the trail and celebrate your own HCness, don’t forget It was Rifleman 1776, Pat Turney, Currly G, ol Pappy and countless other that blazed that trail.

Well written, Tenn. We had some good times then. And, thanks for the compliment. You mention 'diaorama'. I don't recall if my outfit was patterned after a diorama or pics from books. But, my wife's outfit was definitely as near an exact copy of a diorama exhibit at Chicago's Museum of Natural History as is humanly possible. I took photographs and she reproduced her dress and accessories from those pics. (I was a professional photographer at the time and had permission to use tripods, lighting, etc. Got really good pics.) Yes, this is a constant learning avocation. I chuckle at recent posts about single or double, removable, non-removable capes on Rifleman's frocks. Folks, there was almost no standardization at the times. The correct answer as to whether or not certain things were done or made is: yes, no, maybe and sometimes. Enjoy and carry on.

 

[Black Hand]

...there was almost no standardization at the times.

This must be why shirts, breeches, hats, shoes, stockings, frock coats, petticoats, aprons, gowns, waistcoats and nearly any other article of clothing (and pretty much anything else) are very similar in design, form and function (for a given period).

Were there a few superficial differences? Yes.
But to say there was (almost) no "standardization" flies in the face of available evidence...

 

[tenngun]

Well there was style and in the military uniforms. Certain professions had a set of recognizable clothing. And some religious groups had a subset of clothing.
However, within the background of style people did do their own thang as Rifleman likes to say.
Breeches was common ware in the eighteenth century but we have plenty of references to trousers among the lower classes.
Shirts were underwater at that time, white or unbleaced linen. However stripes and checks were seen on the lower working classes, and traded on to the frontier.
A painting from the Mexican war shows an elderly man in his breeches even though they were long since out of style.
Many men who had been ‘over the water’ brought back some odd foreign clothing fitted in to his clothing.
We know button on capes were seen in eighteenth and nineteenth century clothing. Did anyone put it on a rifelmans shirt? I doubt it was common. However we only have two or theee revolutionary era rifelmans coats. Paintings and cartoons don’t really answer the question. We know of at least one with pockets, though that seems uncommon.
I’m not going to kick someone with a button on cape out of my camp.
I would rather not see folding rendezvous chairs at a camp, but won’t get my breech cloth in a wad over one.
Remember Mrs Dickerson reported Crockets dead body with his ‘peculiar cap’ by his side.
We want to do what we know was there and not go off on fantasy ‘well they could have made it’. But at the same time we can’t try and put the past in to a uniform that didn’t exist then ether.

 

[Black Hand]

But to say there was (almost) no "standardization" flies in the face of available evidence...

Can anyone show me the LACK of standardization in design, form or function (beyond superficial differences in buttons, trim and cloth)?
https://www.scribd.com/document/159514758/Clothing-Male-Breeches-Overalls
https://www.scribd.com/document/240864337/Clothing-Male-Waistcoats
https://www.scribd.com/document/240864437/Clothing-Male-Coats-Suits

The reason WHY we can identify a particular item as being from a specific period IS because they are similar in design, form and function...

 

[tenngun]

I don’t know, just kinda look at paintings and cartoons from the time, I see wide variations in poor working men shown and closer to the uniformity among mostly wealth and young, shifting the past is a good site to go on for a big collection of cartoons and drawings of the poor and the wealthy

 

[Kansas Jake]

Tenngun, isn't this still true today. Most people working with their hands tend to wear similar clothing and usually it tends to be functional. Styles change very slowly. Now, take a bunch of teen agers and style is important and what they wear changes fairly often. People in upper class and white collar occupations tend to be more style conscious and wear suits and shirts currently in style. I still like button down shirts, but most dress shirts now are not button down.

So, if I portray a middle or lower class craftsman or as pointed out an older person at the time, my style may change much more slowly than an upper class or professional person.

 

[Black Hand]

Most people working with their hands tend to wear similar clothing and usually it tends to be functional. Styles change very slowly. Now, take a bunch of teen agers and style is important and what they wear changes fairly often. People in upper class and white collar occupations tend to be more style conscious and wear suits and shirts currently in style. I still like button down shirts, but most dress shirts now are not button down.

So, if I portray a middle or lower class craftsman or as pointed out an older person at the time, my style may change much more slowly than an upper class or professional person.

Yes - but it doesn't radically change the style of the clothing so it is no longer recognizable as being from a particular period. The design, form and function doesn't change significantly: a waistcoat is still a waistcoat and can be recognized as a waistcoat - what primarily changed from the beginning to the end of the 1700's was the length of the waistcoat.

And you are incorrect - styles change quickly. Some people can afford the newest styles and others can't - styles may have changed more quickly in Europe and took some time before they arrived in the colonies (still happens today). Even Jefferson noted this: "In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock." Older people might still be wearing an older style, while other older pieces were re-cut/re-tailored to the newer style so the person would remain in fashion.