Casting of birdshot and fowling lead balls. Diderot.

Plate I: Casting of Birdshot, Water Casting

Plate II: Casting of Birdshot, Water Casting

Plate III: Casting of Birdshot, Mold Casting

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=did;cc=did;rgn=main;view=text;idno=did2222.0001.496

Diderot Search for 18th century items & Trades.

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/did/

Spinning. Images By Diderot.

The Man's Work Frock in New France. Part One.

Recently on another forum the use of the common work frock in New France has been questioned. This has mainly come about it seems because these French living historians had not actually ever heard of the work frock being in existance. So I have sort of opened a can of worms!

Okay, I can't at this stage in my research prove that the French work frock was used in New France, but it seems to me that if all other French clothing was taken to New France, why would the man's work frock be an exception? All I can do at this present time is show what I have for the use of the frock in France, but my research goes on.

18th century French peasants by artist George S. Stuart.

When I first saw this exhibit I wondered about the frock having no collar and no cuffs. Obviously the cuffs could have been there originally but are now missing from wear and tear. The collar could be the same, though I have seen a common French undershirt with no collar as in this next image.

© © National Gallery, London / Art Resource; 

As you can see, this common shirt does not appear to have a stand-up collar.

http://pinterest.com/textiletrunk/antique-vintage-french-fabric-and-textiles/; 

This French frock looks very much like the one in the exhibit at the top of this page. No buttoned cuffs, and no stand-up collar.

A French baker. 18th century.

The next eight images of French workers wearing the frock are from Diderot's Encyclopedia.

More on Wooden Shoes. Clogs & Prop making, Diderot.

Wooden Shoes.

Wooden shoes, also known as Sabots by the French and Clogs by the Dutch were footwear for peasants. The wooden shoe that many people associate with the Dutch, was in fact widely used through Europe and the British Isles including Cymru and other Celts.
Wooden shoes were relatively inexpensive to buy, they protected the feet from the wet and from sharp objects so were excellent for work shoes.

18th century French sabot.

18th century French sabots.

Three different styles of French sabot.

Dutch girls clogs with leather uppers and iron treads.

These are wedding shoes and I would guess at Dutch.

No date on these but I thought the ice cramps interesting. There seems very little difference to wooden shoes made in the 18th century to ones made later on.

I find this one interesting. Using a wooden shoe to deliver water to the stone seems to have been common practice among knife grinders. This chap is also wearing wooden shoes.

From Diderot, 1750s. A white cooper's shop. Note the wooden shoes on the floor.

Detail of the white cooper's shop by Diderot.

http://siftingthepast.com/2012/06/04/departure-from-a-french-inn-grimm-1775/ http://www.freewebs.com/spun_measured_and_cut_elbows/shoes.html http://historyofwoodenshoes.blogspot.com.au/2009/05/clogs.html

Cutler's Tools from Diderot.

Thoughts on 18th Century food packaging.

I started off researching packaging for chocolate, and really did not get very far. This led me to wonder about other forms of food packaging, and I did not get far there either! So I decided to apply my past experimental archaeology experience and some common sense, and decided, at least for now, that there really are not many choices.
Paper bags were not a commercial product until the late 18th century to 19th century, though in 1743, John Bartram with a supply of paper from London, did make his own paper bags, both large and small to hold seeds (New Green World, Josephine Herbst, page 71). Of course at this time paper was made from flax, not from wood as it is today, and later they made paper from old linen rags. So I guess there is a precedent for using paper.

Leather and cloth food bags plus a couple of glass bottles. Pottery was also used, but it tends to be too heavy for packing on foot. Glass although fragile, can be wrapped in cloth or covered in leather.

Then there are linen bags and leather pouches, both of which have been used in a variety of sizes for centuries for carrying and storing foods. We also know that items intended originally for one use, were often used for for others once empty. such as bottles. Wine and spirit bottles could be used for carrying water or even cooking oil (Encyclopedia Of The American Revolution).
One chap found that a powder horn he had found did not contain gunpowder...

"Found my powder horn was filled with spirits and got drunk as a wheel barrow.”
Constant Belcher of Elizabethtown 1776.
http://greensleeves.typepad.com/berkshires/ogden_genealogy/

This cloth sack was used for provisions in a 1910 expedition and contains cocoa powder. Now I realise that 1910 is 200 years too late for us, but I figure if it was still in use two hundred years later, then it was probably a favoured method for carrying food provisions in the earlier period. Flour was carried in cloth sacks, so why not cocoa powder.

Spices could be carried in a small or large bottle, or they could have been contained in some folded paper, as in perhaps an envelope. This in turn could be secured in a cloth bag.

This I would have taken for a replica, but the tag sais it is medieval period and it is in the museum of London.

 These three images of drawstring pouches are from Diderot's 18th century encyclopedia.

French trade Goods 1711AD.

French trade Goods 1711ad.

• 1050 catfish hooks.
• 29 packets small fishhooks. Weight with paper 3 ½ lbs
• 1lb 1 ounce fishhooks binding filaments
• 2 ¾ lbs damaged fishhook binding filaments
• 12 ½ and 11 ¼ lbs of cord for nets
• 13 ¼ lbs of lightly twisted cord for nets. Damaged.
• 14 ice chisels
• 32 small ice chisels

Images By Diderot.