An original shirt? What do you think?

[erik]

Re: An original shirt? What do you think?

Further to my last post, issue no. 66 of the quoted reference in an article on French Infantry 1871 to 1880 states "The shirt, virtually unchanged by the 1878 regulation, was cotton with or without blue stripe."
Well we have dropped 11 years.
Does anyone have an inventory of the famous Tiffany display of French uniforms and equipment or the scale of issue of Chasseur items to those units selected?
By the way, my mistake, it is Godillot of Paris.
The example may be from later years and an example of the docile agrarian peasant but I believe it follows a continued style used by civilians and the army for many years.
The British D shaped messtin was first used in the Napoleonic wars and retired only in the early part of the Second War.

Erik Simundson

[VMurphy]

Re: An original shirt? What do you think?

Gentlemen...

I agree that the fact that the selvedge to selvedge width of this textile is extra wide is the true sign it is a later century product. In fact, if it measures over 36" ;it could very well be a fairly recent product!
If I'm not mistaken, the average width of woven textiles in the early part of the 20th c. was 36" not 40" to 42"...
I'm anxious to talk to Doug Harding about the shirts in the MSHS archives that he studied and has photos of. In his book where he gives construction. He says to use the width of the fabric as the with of the shirt...selvedges on the side seams, This is also how the construction is given in THE WORK WOMANS GUIDE. So I deduce that the construction of the several shirts he viewed in the archives is of the same construction.

Regards
Vivian Murphy

http://www.themantuamaker.net

[Ross L. Lamoreaux]

Re: An original shirt? What do you think?

Ian and Vivian bring up fabulous points, which I'm ashamed to say in my rush to comment on the cut and fashion of the shirt, I failed to take note of the width of cloth. Its still impossible to totally say which decade (or even century if its a high-end repro), but the width of the cloth alone does give a great hint. There was however, after further research, looms (mostly European) that did have wider than the most common 28 inch, 30 inch, or 32 inch looms, they just were not very common. I don't have my research notes at hand, but several years ago I found several factories in France and England that had wider than normal looms in use for ready made clothing in the mid 19th century, but hardily agree with the learned folks above that it was far from common, making this shirt possibly much later than I originally surmised. Its still one heck of shirt no matter what age it comes from. Can't wait to make one for myself.

[erik]

Re: An original shirt? What do you think?

Interesting advanced discussions about loom width. Remember that the French were using the metric system even at that time. It measures "approximately 401/2 inches", 1 metre equals 39 inches approximately.
It may indeed be a work smock, but military shirts are generally of heavier cloth. I own a British army No. 1 shirt used under full dress and it is extremely heavy cotton for the purpose.
I include photo sent to me from the French Mess on an unrelated matter. The soldier in his shirt shows somewhat the same style, as poor as the image is. It is attributed to the period when the French were in Mexico, the 1860's.

Erik Simundson

[Citizen_Soldier]

Re: An original shirt? What do you think?

Greetings,

Pleated shirts had a pretty long life in the fashion industry and I agree that this shirt may possibly be a late ninteenth century or early twentieth century garment. I've seen similar pleated shirts being worn occasionally by both European and by a few partially uniformed stateside American National Guard soldiers in World War One photographs. The National World War One Museum in Kansas City has a display of a First World War French Uniform that includes a similar extant pleated shirt as well.

One of R.L. Shep's books on male fashion during The Rebellion has a period advertisment from a Harpers Weekly only dated as "early 1860's" which shows flannel "French" pleated shirts being available to purchase. Of course the illustration in the ad leads something to be desired and I wish Shep would have dated the advertisement in his book.

I would be hesitant to manufacture and market a "Rebellion era" pleated shirt from this particular pattern without some additional research. Pleated citizens shirts were quite common for the middle nineteenth century and with a little searching one could probably find a garment with a provanance to it that one could make a solid reproduction of.

It's a neat garment and I want to thank Dan for sharing photographs of it!

Darrek Orwig

[Hank Trent]

Re: An original shirt? What do you think?

One of R.L. Shep's books on male fashion during The Rebellion has a period advertisment from a Harpers Weekly only dated as "early 1860's" which shows flannel "French" pleated shirts being available to purchase. Of course the illustration in the ad leads something to be desired and I wish Shep would have dated the advertisement in his book.

To see some advertisements in Harpers Weekly, try this.

Not all the ads have pictures, but if you have more words to search from the advertisement, you should be able to see which issue(s) it appeared in using that search.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[Citizen_Soldier]

Re: An original shirt? What do you think?

Trent,

Thanks!

Darrek Orwig

[Dan Wambaugh]

Re: An original shirt? What do you think?

Folks,

Sorry I dropped off the face of the earth on this discussion, I forgot all about it and the pre-Gettysburg orders have kept me hopping. The thoughts and documentation shared were more than I hoped for, and I agree with Ian's assessment 100%! Those shirts he linked to were remarkably like mine and I believe help date this one. The linen is definitely very heavy, and very wide, and I think that is a good clue as well. Still, not too bad a find for a small antique shop in the middle of nowhere Michigan! Thanks folks!