Recovering from 150th Gettysburg @ Poplar Springs Spa

http://poplarspringsinn.com/spa/

Recovering from 150^th Gettysburg @ Poplar Springs Spa

For various reasons, other than visiting relatives, my husband and I have had no real vacation or self-indulgences since September 2011 when we spent a week in Charleston and Hilton Head.  And for the last few months we’ve concentrated our efforts in preparing for the 150^th Gettysburg events, which were wonderful, fascinating and exhausting.  Every evening at home since the BGA event, we’ve worked on print orders, addressing envelopes, wrapping ambrotypes for shipping, and trying to ensure timely deliveries to our valued customers.

We’d promised ourselves a treat after the last event and yesterday we journeyed to the charming Poplar Springs Inn and Spa outside Warrenton, Virginia for long overdue massages and relaxation steaming in the sauna.  We love Poplar Springs because of its rural environment in the beautiful countryside of Fauquier County and because the spa offers a complete experience with options that include the fabulous couples massage, European facials, aromatherapy massage, an outdoor hot tub, and a steam room in both the women’s and men’s locker rooms.

With every touch of masseur Zack’s hands the stress and tension melted away. In particular the tension was concentrated in my neck and right shoulder; and the tightness increased daily as I sat at my desk with eyes glued to my work computer screen.  But Zack with seeming magic pressed the stress, pain and tension from my body as if squeezing toothpaste from a tube. After our massages and time spent relaxed in the steam room, we both admitted to feeling a lightness of being that we’d forgotten could exist and mused as to why we’ve considered massage a treat rather than a necessity to maintain health and sanity in the modern world.

To add the whipped cream to our morning, we headed into Warrenton for lunch at one of our favorite dining establishments, The Iron Bridge Wine Company, where we enjoyed a wine flight apiece and a lovely lunch created with mostly local ingredients.  I’m still smiling when I think about our day.

Gettysburg 150th Anniversary ~ The Ugly

Gettysburg 150^th Anniversary ~ The Ugly

I decided to skip “the bad” because all in all, there really was no bad. Yes, we had some rain and mud, but….it was Gettysburg in July! What does one expect?

So, we move on to “the ugly”.

While I would LOVE to post images of “the ugly”, I have refrained from doing so to avoid being sued by overly sensitive persons. While “opinion” is not defamation, one must actually hire a lawyer to defend oneself for having an opinion – even though ultimately, I would owe no damages. So, instead, I will try to illustrate with words what constitutes “the ugly” and “the uninformed” and “the lazy” and “the clueless”.

Maybe I should just use bullets to emphasize the offenses that I saw at the BGA, the GAC and the NPS events~

1)   no corset! If you are going to portray a mid 19^th Century women, you MUST wear a corset! No exceptions.

2)   Plastic, shiny, acetate, fire hazard dresses, petticoats, accessories. If it isn’t a fabric that consists of a material found in nature (and I do NOT mean petroleum derivatives), it is WRONG!

3)   Bangs. Fringes. Ringlets on girls over 12. Side parts. With very few exceptions, women of the mid 19^th Century wore their hair parted in the center and dressed appropriately.

4)   Snoods. Of any color, fabric, design. Only very fine hairnets are acceptable. They may be decorative. But, the net is fine. And, one’s hair must be dressed / styled before affixing the net! Gathering one’s undressed, limp, unkempt tresses and enclosing that hair into a bulky hairnet is not acceptable.

5)   Modern sunglasses.

6)   Tennis shoes, flip-flops, Doc Martins: NO! NO! NO!

7)   Please, unless you are at the seashore or a very young girl (let’s at least draw the line in the modern world at 30) Do NOT wear a “height of fashion” straw hat. Your authentic options are a silk covered buckram bonnet, a stray bonnet, a sun bonnet, a slat bonnet, if inside a decorated hairnet (NOT snood), if a man – an appropriate military cover, if male civilian – in the summer a stray hat is appropriate.

8)   Solid color cotton dresses are verboten.

9)   Okay – the guy wearing a barrel and nothing else was amusing.

10)                   Those faux tapestry haversacks that are unfortunately carried by men and women alike are…..WRONG!

11)                   Make up! NO! No! Noooooooo! Unless, of course, you are a woman of ill –repute) Of course, when you have a period photo taken and you are wearing red lipstick, you are offended to see that your lips look….black!

12)                   A skirt / blouse combination with a Swiss waist unless you are a sweet young thing like the beautiful granddaughter of our friends Dean and Anita Lauramore!

13)                   Sunoco Rangers – men wearing jeans or twill pants with a stripe sewn along the outside seam to mimic a 19^th Century military uniform.

14)                   Inappropriate parasols from Thai paper, Battenberg lace, plastic, acetate, etc.

Okay – this is just a small example of the unfortunate things that we saw over the last two weekends.  Please, if you are going to portray a 19^th Century man or woman, make an effort to research what is appropriate.  Understand that just because somebody sells an item on Sutler Row, that doesn’t necessarily mean it is period correct. Committed historians and researchers of material culture have spent time and energy investigating what is appropriate. The experts make some accommodations for what is not readily available and understand the substitutions they make and have a legitimate basis for doing so.

Do your research.  Talk to the experts. If you want to make your own clothes or uniforms, buy your fabric and patterns from the right resources. If it is considerably cheaper than anyplace else, it probably isn’t right.  You get what you pay for in this hobby.  Go for quality over quantity always. It is worth it!

Reflections on the Gettysburg 150th ~ Part I ~ The Good

Reflections on the Gettysburg 150^th ~ Part I ~ The Good

Our collective remembrance of the 3-day battle of Gettysburg on the 150^th anniversary has now is now a part of history. As with any commemoration of a significant historical event, there were highs and lows, good and bad, ugly and “ you’ve got to be kidding me!”

From a positive perspective, I find it encouraging that so many citizens of the world traveled to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to honor the past, remember the tragedy that was, and to walk in the footsteps of those who fought and gave their all for their beliefs. 

The National Park Service afforded the opportunity for scores of living historians to march the same paths taken by the original actors, followed by crowds of spectators.  It makes my heart sing to know there are those among us who still care so fervently about our history.

The event also gave insight into how this schism in the American experiment has resonated with those throughout the world. We met re-enactors from England, Ireland, Scotland, Australia, Canada, Italy, France, Germany and Belgium.  When asked why they came to America for this reenactment, I was told that more than 45,000 English immigrants fought in the American Civil War. Many more German immigrants served. I learned there is a vigorous interest in Civil War reenacting in Poland and the Czech Republic.

My husband and I met a delightful woman who had brought her two young sons from Singapore to attend a reenactment because they were studying American history in school.

We photographed a young marine who had just that afternoon been promoted to sergeant and received orders to be at Quantico for deployment the next morning to ship out.  And we had the pleasure to make images of the charming French contingent that included the lovely Annabelle who was wearing a royal blue multi tiered confection of a dress she’d copied from a French fashion magazine of the period. The exquisite dress consisted of 14 meters of silk fabric and she told me she’d make the dress without a pattern.

But the best moments involved the friendships among the wet plate photographers.  John Coffer came to the BGA event to make images for himself. My husband Todd Harrington and his colleagues Bob Szabo and Del Hilbert helped one another with trouble shooting problems with the 19^th Century chemistry and technology, shared experiences, chemicals, and offered to help with any little thing.  We laughing referred to the Photographers Guild as if we were living in Renaissance Florence!

Next edition – either bad, ugly or worse…..depends upon my frame of mind.

A Flashback to the 80’s! Yikes! A Dude Sporting a Mullet at the Supermarket!

A Flashback to the 80’s! Yikes! A Dude Sporting a Mullet at the Supermarket!

There are some hairstyles that are so unfortunate they should be banned! Among those heinous examples of retro looks, the mullet ranks at the top along with the rattail, the dumb looking wedge / bowl look sported by little boys in the 1980’s, the bouffant, the beehive, the poodle perm, lacquered mall bangs, and anything that requires teasing.

A mullet makes anybody who sports the look resemble a redneck caught in a time warp.   While it may be patently unfair and stereotypical, a man or a woman sporting a mullet conjures up the images of pick up trucks with imitation male anatomy parts hanging from the trailer hitch, bad country music or un-groomed rock musicians, cheesy pick up lines, gold chains, and window stickers of little boys peeing.

So, seeing the guy wearing a mullet acting rather strangely at Martins in Winchester, Virginia this evening – I was distracted.  I saw him several times as I shopped. He played with the food at the salad bar; wondered around aimlessly as if looking for a person to abduct, stared at the game for picking up stuffed animals with a tong, perused the Redbox movies, and left with only a token item.  As I was wheeling my cart to the parking lot I noticed him walking to his car – a vehicle that fit the persona to a T. After I put my groceries in the trunk and pushed the cart to the corral, I had to check the plate.  It was as I suspected.  He was not from  Northern Virginia.

Gettysburg: Turning Point of the Civil War by TIME Includes My Husband’s Photographs in the Chapter titled: Gettysburg: In the Footsteps of Matthew Brady~ ;

Gettysburg: Turning Point of the Civil War by TIME Includes My Husband’s Photographs in the Chapter titled: Gettysburg: In the Footsteps of Matthew Brady~

150 years ago today, July 1, 1863, the first day of what would be three days of battle in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania took place. There is no war or conflict that resonates in the very souls of Americans than the Civil War and no battle that calls to mind the sacrifice of so many than Gettysburg. The three-day battle resulted in more than 51,000 casualties.

Civil War historians have well studied the photographs taken by Gardner for Matthew Brady’s studio after the battle of Gettysburg and determined that some of the more famous images were, in fact, staged.

In any event, the images made by Gardner after the battles of Antietam and Gettysburg sent shockwaves through the nation. Never before had such grisly images of battlefield dead been depicted and share with the general public. Unlike the heroic paintings of the Napoleonic wars, the American Revolution and French Revolution, these images clearly showed the horror of battle and the agony of death on the battlefield – the bloated, twisted bodies.

TIME contacted my talented husband, Todd Harrington, to recreate images made by Gardner of the same sites from the same perspectives contrasting those of July 1863 with today’s Gettysburg in 2013. 

I recommend the book most heartily not only because the hard cover edition celebrates the talent of my beloved spouse, but also because it is a fine commemoration of one of the most heart rending moments in our history.

It is the last bit of the Gettysburg address that really resonates:

“It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task

remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we

            take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave

 the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly

resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain –

that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of

freedom -- and that government of the people, by the

people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

We Americans have a duty to remember & to honor those who have come before us and fought for what they believed.  My husband had ancestors that fought and died for the Confederacy at Gettysburg. I had ancestors that found on both sides – brother against brother. When we look at this war and battle through the prism of 21^st Century sensibility we judge some harshly. But that is a disservice to those who fought for state or country with the views of time and place. Context is the key.  We have a duty to place all things in history within its context and to not judge harshly those who came before, no matter how we may disagree with the beliefs and actions of the past.  

Kudos to TIME for publishing this lovely commemorative book and for having the wisdom to utilize the talents of my wonderful husband to show the differences between Gettysburg then and now. But – it is only in the HARD COPY EDITION!

http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/06/29/gettysburg-in-the-footsteps-of-matthew-brady/photo/32853u/