1860s Fancy Dress ball images now available

[Emmanuel Dabney]

Re: 1860s Fancy Dress ball images now available

Illustrate as in telll you? Many of the games we played with forfeits are on Julio's website.

Games included Puss in a Corner, a 19th century "board" game, one where we blew a feather about and whomever failed to keep the feather up had to pay a forfeit, and Question & Answer.

Jen will be along soon I'm sure but Michael's book on this subject plus various games can be found for sale at www.raggedsoldier.com.

[Anna Worden Bauersmith]

Re: 1860s Fancy Dress ball images now available

Illustrate as in telll you?

Yes. I meant what were the games like when they were played? What did you learn? What was fun? Which would you do again? Was the space suitable for each game? That type of thing. It's one thing to read about the games/amusements in books and articles. It's another to hear other's experiances with them or to actually play them.

Anna Worden

[Emmanuel Dabney]

Re: 1860s Fancy Dress ball images now available

The space we used as you can see from the photos was a 1745 mansion. I would say that if we had any more people it would have been too much for the space for EVERYONE to play (including our paying public who didn't know us from a hole in the wall but we included them in the heart of our game playing).

Puss in the Corner is always fun. If you haven't played, shame on you. You're missing a great amount of fun. We had one slip up and there is a picture of me helping the young lady from the floor. She wasn't injured and we all had a great laugh about it. Especially for one gentleman who was thrice in the middle.

Blowing the feather game (which I hope Jen or Mike will come on and remind me and everyone else of the title) was very amusing and less active for those who cannot run around the floor. The Pious Pilgrim Lady (Jess Craig) repeatedly had to pay a forfeit until basically she had no accessories to give up.

I think the important part of the evening was playing forfeits and Mike's book on games certainly includes forfeits. The Nun's Kiss was one of the most interesting in which a chair was lifted over the gentleman's head and through the splat (back of chair) a woman must kiss him. My forfeit in the feather game was to make a toast to myself, which everyone said suited me (Self Proclaimed King of America, long story but amusing).

Several of us feel like this obsession with waiting for the next time the Yankees or the Rebels show up has left citizen reenactors to think it is all real life Civil War people did. The war still allowed for amusements to take place, and some amusements were created because of war.

However, it was nice in this setting to be ca. 1860 and have no war talk, no military uniforms, no thread counting. It was the nineteenth century's era to be "farb" and fun (i.e., crinolines with 18th century clothing).

[Julio C. Zangroniz]

Re: 1860s Fancy Dress ball images now available

All those great-looking costumes - and you took a picture of my feet ? :p

>
Noah,
I tried to document *everything* that evening --including those bare feet!
As the only shoeless person in the building, you had to expect to attract some attention.
All in all, it was a great fun evening, regardless of which side of the camera we found ourselves, wasn't it?
Julio

[NoahBriggs]

Re: 1860s Fancy Dress ball images now available

I still think we should have took a picture of each other taking a picture of each other.

but I had fun. :D

[Virginia Mescher]

Re: 1860s Fancy Dress ball images now available

This is Virginia's spouse, Michael, chiming in. I was asked to be the game leader for the games. We had both parlor games to play as a group and some board or other indoor games that could be played between two players or in a small group. I think all of the games were fun because I culled the most popular games from several experiences leading parlor games. We adapted the games to fit the space and conditions we had and the only one where we had to regroup was The Flying Feather (see discussion below). Our circle was initially too big (about 15 people) and we split roughly in half which seemed to work much better. With this group we could also collect forfeits which it seemed was almost as much a part of the entertainment as the games themselves.

As Emmanuel mentioned, we played Puss in the Corner as our starting game. This game is very popular both as a parlor game for adults and as a children's game.

Following that, we played a session of Question and Answer which involves the gentlemen taking turns reading a question from a deck of cards with one question per card and the ladies answer from their own deck of answers.

We also had a session of Consequences. This is a serial story where individuals take turns writing parts of it without any knowledge of what other players have written before them. The completed stories are then read aloud to the company.

When we played The Flying Feather (when played with a bit of cotton fluff, it is Cotton Flies), we collected forfeits for failures in the game which was a period alternative to keeping score.

I think that is it for the games. The competition was then ended with the redemption of the forfeits. Since I probably knew the most forfeits, I was the judge. As each forfeit was held over my head, I assigned a task for the owner of the token to perform in order to redeem their forfeit. These redemptions included some challenges to figure out how to perform them, performing comic activities, e.g., Emmanuel giving himself a toast or going around the players and yawning very dramatically in order to get them to yawn, or Bev's Nun's Kiss where she kissed a gentleman (redeeming his forfeit) through the upright slats of a chair back. We only had time for a small sampling of redemptions so absolution was granted for the rest of the forfeits.

As Emmanuel mentioned, the games are described fully in my parlor game book or in "The Sociable" or "Book of Parlour Games" which are both on my website.

The members present really got into the spirit of the games and the most common element of them all was the laughter that echoed in the room. I think I speak for the company that we would look forward to doing them again.

For the table games, we had Mansion of Happiness, a spiral pursuit game first published in 1843 but still played at the time of the civil war; jackstraws which are like pick up sticks, the Checkered Game of Life, a game that used a board like a checker board and was developed by Milton Bradley just before the civil war; and The Endless Landscape which is non-competitive activity involving a set of cards that can be reordered to create different scenes (based on a set produced in the 1830's).

As Emmanuel mentioned, this gave a cross section of some types of games that people of the time period could play.

Michael Mescher

[Anna Worden Bauersmith]

Re: 1860s Fancy Dress ball images now available

Thank you Emmanuel and Mike. Your descriptions are very helpfull.

I used to have your book Mike. I tend to lose track of my books as they are loaned out. It was very helpful when I did games with school groups at GCVM. I think I also used it for a small event where we tried out a few different group games in a large round gazebo. I remember having fun but don't remember which games we played besides Blindman's Bluff. I do know we did something with hoops (not graces).

Thanks again, Anna Worden

[Julio C. Zangroniz]

Re: 1860s Fancy Dress ball images now available

Noah,
Next time --and there WILL be a next time, at least at Belair Mansion-- we will take a picture of each other taking a picture of each other.
At one point during the Fancy Dress Event, I noticed you trying to do exactly that and I think that, out of pure instinct, I may have jumped out of the way.
At that particular time, I was trying to get a full-length portrait of Beverly Heath (a photograph that appears in the collection posted at www.zphotos.smugmug.com, by the way).
Normally, as I peruse things through my lens, I try to be keenly aware of anacronisms, and if I detect one, I either try to "crop it out" of the picture or simply turn away and look for a "better" image.
This particular time, I turned away from you. No disrespect intended.
On another front, I just sent a check to Pam Williams at Belair Mansion, as well as a copy of the Event Photo CD for her records, representing our company's donation from the night's proceeds.
Anybody know the total that the evening contributed to the cause where the donations were headed?
I think Pam was quite enthusiastic about how the evening went, and I believe she fully intends to have a repeat of the evening next year. I sure hope such a repeat comes to be.
Julio