by Sherry Horton Blake

Created on: October 30, 2009

Thanksgiving Day is fast approaching, and many school children are reenacting the first Thanksgiving celebrated at Plymouth. Many mothers will dress their children for school plays depicting this event and, most likely, they will dress their children in typical Pilgrim garb, i.e. black coat with wide white collar and sleeves, black hat with broad band with buckle, black breeches and shoes with buckles. However, in actuality, this is not typical Pilgrim garb.

In order to determine what the Pilgrims actually wore, researchers have studied surviving garments in museum collections, references to clothing that Governor Bradford made in his history of Plymouth Colony, early letters written by Pilgrims, various documents of the Pilgrims (including tailor's manuals), wills in which clothing was listed and woodcuts and engravings. After these studies, a completely different picture of Pilgrim garb has emerged.

Although the Pilgrims occasionally wore black or grey on worship days, every-day clothing was typically red, brown, blue, green, yellow or purple (influenced by the colorful clothing of the Dutch). The colors were generally not as brilliant as the ones we have today as vegetable dyes were used. The colors would fade in the sun and run in the rain. Most clothing was made from linen or wool and occasionally leather.

The women in Plymouth Colony wore the following clothing: underpants, stockings, numerous petticoats, stays, chemise (shift), bolster, bodice, skirt, outer gown, apron, coif and shoes. The chemise (shift) was a simple shirt, and when the woman was completely dressed, it showed only at the neck, sleeves and wrists. The stays (corset) was a funnel-shaped garment made of leather or linen with whalebone supports. Next came the stockings, garters and the petticoats (sometimes as many as five or six). The garters were narrow bands tied beneath the knees to hold up the stockings.

Now it was time for the outer garments. The bodice was usually pointed in the front, but could also follow the natural waistline, and along the bottom was a short skirt or tabs. The neckline was sometimes low, but it was filled in by the chemise. Next came the full skirt. The bodice or sleeves might be made of different material than the skirt. Women sometimes wore a ruff or falling band (a long strip of cloth which was gathered or pleated into a neck band and tied in place with a cord or fastened with a brooch). The dress was shaped by a bolster (a huge padded roll) which

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