Transcript
Speaker: Hello and welcome to Curious Objects brought to you by the magazine Antiques.
Speaker: I'm Ben Miller.
Speaker: Let's do a little role play.
Speaker: Okay, no, not that kind.
Speaker: I mean historical role play.
Speaker: Imagine yourself born in 1762 in Virginia.
Speaker: By colonial Virginia standards, your family is prosperous, but life is still hard.
Speaker: You're a smart and precocious young man.
Speaker: You go to college while the Revolutionary War is heating up.
Speaker: You are meeting influential people and impressing them.
Speaker: You're fighting in battles.
Speaker: You encounter George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette and John Jay, who you somehow managed to seriously piss off.
Speaker: But it doesn't matter.
Speaker: Your career is skyrocketing.
Speaker: You're winning friends and influencing people.
Speaker: You are traveling across France and Spain and Poland.
Speaker: And when you're 25 years old, you find yourself a court diplomat.
Speaker: You're not easily intimidated, but let's be honest, this is the big leagues and you must make a good impression.
Speaker: You look down at yourself and... what are you wearing?
Speaker: So obviously if this is a nightmare, you realize you're standing in the imperial court buck naked.
Speaker: But this is not a dream.
Speaker: And in fact, you've carefully selected a spectacular three-piece suit for the occasion.
Speaker: It's made of the richest materials, meticulously constructed, tastefully decorated.
Speaker: Every detail is honed to perfection.
Speaker: This is a suit that will take you far.
Speaker: But what you don't know is that this suit will take itself even farther, and that 250 years later on, that very suit will be the subject of a podcast.
Speaker: Although, of course, you have no idea what a podcast is.
Speaker: But we have a terrific guest to talk us through the extraordinary story of this garment, what it represents, what it meant to its owner, what it can teach us about taste and values and ways of life.
Speaker: around the birth of America.
Speaker: That guest is Neil Hurst, curator of textiles and historic dress at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Speaker: And in case you don't already know, Colonial Williamsburg is home to living history.
Speaker: So Neil doesn't just study old clothes, he actually makes them, which is both very cool and also a good reminder that the actual practice and execution of craft is such a critical element for understanding how and why things were done the way they were.
Speaker: Neil, thanks for joining me.
Speaker: Good morning.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: How are you, Ben?
Speaker: I'm great, thanks.
Speaker: And I'm about to stump you with some rapid fire questions.
Speaker: Are you ready?
Speaker: I'm going to try.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: First up, what's the most impractical piece of historical clothing that you've ever seen?
Speaker: The most impractical piece of clothing?
Speaker: Probably some of the various undergarments that we have that survive from different time periods.
Speaker: I mean, I think they were practical in the period, but they may seem impractical to us.
Speaker: Tough to put on and harder to take off.
Speaker: Yes, in a certain sense.
Speaker: You know, we have a pair of very unusual under drawers that was kind of solving a problem of having to not wear two pairs of suspenders.
Speaker: So I think we would view them probably pretty impractical, but I think they were trying to solve a problem that we don't realize they had or we might have had, you know, 200 years ago.
Speaker: And here I am not even wearing one pair of suspenders.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: What's the most challenging textile reproduction that you've made?
Speaker: Oh, the most challenging, probably, you know, I have made a variety of things for a variety of time periods.
Speaker: And then, you know, one of the things that was certainly most challenging was making a copy of General Patton from the Second World War, his uniform called the Green Hornet, which was this sort of uniform devised to, you know, sort of create a spree de corps amongst the tank battalions that were forming up right before the Second World War.
Speaker: It was just...
Speaker: A pretty challenging garment to put together.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: You've been banned from clothing and textiles.
Speaker: I mean, not from wearing them, but from studying and making them.
Speaker: So you have to pick a new specialty.
Speaker: What's that going to be?
Speaker: New specialty, I think it would probably have to be either ceramics or maybe even portraiture or painting.
Speaker: What's so interesting to you about ceramics?
Speaker: You know, I just love the technology that, you know, sort of surrounds ceramics, you know, and how different individuals are coming up with different ways of firing things and making different things look like what, you know, is in demand, but is not quite there.
Speaker: You know, the sort of trying to make things look like porcelain, but you're not quite there sometimes.
Speaker: I just love that sort of technology aspect of it.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: What's the most interesting piece of clothing in the 2017 Beauty and the Beast remake?
Speaker: Oh, geez.
Speaker: You know, I really do like the Beast's clothing.
Speaker: I think it's perhaps a little bit more closer to what somebody would have been wearing in a fairy tale set sort of in the 18th century.
Speaker: But, you know, Belle's clothing is just as interesting, too.
Speaker: So I always find it interesting how they are sort of riffing off of, you know, period dress.
Speaker: What is the beast wearing and what's so cool about that?
Speaker: Oh, it's just a coat, you know, great coat with a little bit more attention to detail in terms of, you know, how those coats were cut at that point in time, you know, tall standing collars and things like that, which give it a little bit more of a historical flair to it, a little bit more truer to when that fairy tale was written.
Speaker: What's your favorite museum to visit other than Colonial Williamsburg, of course?
Speaker: I would have to say my most favorite museum would be the Victorian Albert Museum in London.
Speaker: You're not the first person to say that on this show.
Speaker: What's one misconception that people have about your field that you'd like to correct?
Speaker: You know, I think most people assume that it took forever to get dressed.
Speaker: And how could you wear so many layers?
Speaker: But, you know, we're we're very quick to forget that, you know, our counterparts, whether it's 100 years ago or 200 years ago, had to deal with weather and climate much more than we ever have to today.
Speaker: You know, we can go from our air conditioned house to our air conditioned car to our air conditioned workplace, you
Speaker: But, you know, if it's 95 degrees outside, it's probably pretty close to that inside your house in the 18th century.
Speaker: So dressing for the weather is something that we have kind of lost.
Speaker: And I think we just assume that, you know, they were just miserable and hot, but yet they had a huge range in textiles and things to choose from to be as comfortable as possible.
Speaker: Yeah, just try to remind me of that next summer when I'm wearing a suit and tie on the subway in New York.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: What did George Washington love so much about the so-called American hunting shirt?
Speaker: You know, that is one of the garments that he is going to use to establish sort of, again, a esprit de corps amongst the troops and sort of a leveling amongst the army.
Speaker: But it was cheap and it was convenient to make for a brand new army that has just sort of founded itself around Boston.
Speaker: What's something that you could only have learned about historic clothing through the experience of making it?
Speaker: I think a lot of that is sort of delving into the construction of it.
Speaker: Construction can tell us a tremendous amount of how these things are put together and can help individuals discern whether the garment is actually from the time period that it says it's from or has it been remade.
Speaker: So really being able to deep dive into that construction and knowing how
Speaker: these things were put together because once the sewing machine is invented, it completely puts that on its head.
Speaker: Construction changes drastically.
Speaker: What's one book that an amateur should read to understand your field?
Speaker: You know, probably my favorite book and the one that we use here constantly is What Clothes Revealed by Linda Baumgarten.
Speaker: That book alone probably changed the understanding of the historic dress feel and the textile feel more than anything.
Speaker: Okay, last rapid fire question.
Speaker: What was the last work of art or decorative arts that you saw that gave you goosebumps?
Speaker: That gave me goosebumps.
Speaker: I think probably one of the ones that certainly gave me goosebumps is when I was working for the Museum of the American Revolution and we were able to get on loan in 2016 some of the pieces of the statue of King George III that were torn down in New York City.
Speaker: What was so motivating about that for you?
Speaker: You know, it's just one of those sort of causal effects that the revolution had.
Speaker: You know, it's just, you know, here's this guilt, giant guilt led statue of the king and just the throes of revolution and fervor, you know, incite these individuals to tear that statue down.
Speaker: And the fact that these pieces still remained, you know,
Speaker: being you know held in collections uh across the united states mostly the new york historical society but um just just amazing to see and to know that you know something from that event just survives
Speaker: Okay, well, we'll be back in a moment with Neil Hurst in the story of this fascinating three-piece suit.
Speaker: First, just a reminder that you can see images at themagazineantiques.com slash podcast and a weekly nudge for you to take a moment to give Curious Objects a rating and to write us a review.
Speaker: My favorite recent one says, I listened to this show to lower my blood pressure and also that I've started collecting something because of the show, which is really special and I'm so happy to hear that.
Speaker: But whatever you have to say about Curious Objects, reviews are a terrific way to help the podcast reach new listeners.
Speaker: And if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, that is extremely easy.
Speaker: Just go to the Curious Objects show page and scroll down to where it says ratings and reviews and tap the write a review button.
Speaker: And of course, if you want to get in touch with me directly, you can email me at curiousobjectspodcast at gmail.com or find me on Instagram at Objective Interest.
Speaker: All right, let's get back to Neil Hurst.
Speaker: So Neil, for starters, what does this three-piece suit look like?
Speaker: Sure thing.
Speaker: So the suit itself is, you know, probably by all descriptions for the 18th century, fairly conservative, which is pretty funny, you know, because I don't think we view it that way.
Speaker: But it's sort of this compound stripe.
Speaker: It's blue and white stripe, but very fine.
Speaker: And it's kind of like a model stripe.
Speaker: So it's not like pinstripe, so to speak.
Speaker: And then the entire suit is fully embroidered with this sort of white and off-white flowers.
Speaker: They're going down the center front, around the pocket flaps.
Speaker: Each button is beautifully embroidered.
Speaker: And it's bordered with sort of fuzzy chenille that makes up some of these petals.
Speaker: And the most exterior of it, sort of the actual...
Speaker: edge of the coat and edge of the pocket flap is this incredible sort of very fine metal work that must have just glimmered when Little Page was wearing it.
Speaker: So the coat, waistcoat and breeches are all embroidered in the same manner and they all match.
Speaker: The whole thing is what they would refer to in the period as a ditto suit.
Speaker: So all three pieces are matching.
Speaker: Okay, so you just gave us a little spoiler with the word Little Page.
Speaker: And provenance really is everything with this suit.
Speaker: So tell me, who is Little Page?
Speaker: Yeah, so Louis Little Page is a really quite the interesting character.
Speaker: He was born December 19th, 1762.
Speaker: So his birthday is just around the corner here.
Speaker: And he was born in either New Kent County or Hanover County, Virginia.
Speaker: It's kind of disputed at this point.
Speaker: And his father was Colonel James Littlepage and sort of an upper middling class family did did OK.
Speaker: But by the time Lewis was three or four years old, his father dies.
Speaker: And so now he is sort of an orphan and.
Speaker: His mom is trying to figure out what to do with him.
Speaker: So he kind of gets moved around from uncle to uncle to uncle, trying to find some sort of education for him.
Speaker: Thankfully, his father did set aside money for his father.
Speaker: For his education.
Speaker: And eventually he is sent to the College of William and Mary.
Speaker: And there, you know, we get a little bit more sort of reading on Little Page and a couple of the professors there and some of his tutors think him as quite a genius.
Speaker: Very, very smart.
Speaker: He is transcribing Latin readily.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: and publishing it in newspapers, writing poems.
Speaker: So he is pretty well-educated and picks it up very quickly.
Speaker: And so it's while he was at the College of William & Mary that a family friend who is in Philadelphia suggested to John Jay, who's getting ready to go over to Spain to be a minister there for the newly formed United States, that little page would accompany him and would greatly benefit from him.
Speaker: So Jay, who really knew nothing of Little Page, was like, yeah, sure, no problem.
Speaker: Come on over.
Speaker: You know, basically meet me in Madrid.
Speaker: Which just seems crazy for like to tell a 17-year-old in, you know, 1777, essentially.
Speaker: I mean, that would seem crazy today when you could catch a flight over.
Speaker: But God, I mean.
Speaker: A four-week trip by boat might be a little bit more.
Speaker: I'm not sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Wild.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So, but he does, he goes to Madrid.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So, so little page is like, great.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: I'll meet you there.
Speaker: And Jay says that I will pay for your sort of boarding expenses, which is going to cause a lot more problems in their relationship later on.
Speaker: But essentially little page gets on board ship and arrives in France in 1780.
Speaker: But essentially he, he ends up convalescing for nearly a year in Bordeaux.
Speaker: before actually getting to Madrid and sort of hooking up with John Jay.
Speaker: Wow, I think I need to get sick.
Speaker: You're in Bordeaux sounds pretty nice.
Speaker: Well, it's pretty nice until you show up to Madrid and then hand all of your expenses for a year to John Jay.
Speaker: Jay is kind of like, what is all this?
Speaker: And so, you know, little page is running off of fumes in terms of money.
Speaker: He has very, very, very little money.
Speaker: And so he's sort of begging Jay to to not only give him sort of pocket money, but also to sort of continue to pay all his expenses.
Speaker: But Jay is just like, you know, I this is this is not what we bargained for.
Speaker: Mm hmm.
Speaker: And so because Little Page has sort of run out of money, he is – but he's at the court of Spain.
Speaker: He sort of befriends the Duke de Creon who is getting ready to go on an expedition to Menorca and essentially will become a volunteer and an aide-de-camp in the Spanish army under the Duke de Creon.
Speaker: So he's really a charmer.
Speaker: I mean, he is just talking his way into meeting after meeting and position after position.
Speaker: It really does sound like it.
Speaker: Yeah, he must be really good at not only picking up language and speaking in the native tongue, but also picking up French because that's what most of the courts are using to speak with.
Speaker: So he ends up going to Menorca.
Speaker: He is there for quite a while.
Speaker: It's obviously a successful mission there with the Duke of Creon.
Speaker: And then eventually comes back when the siege of Gibraltar is taking place.
Speaker: And so here you have the allied armies of the French and the Spanish army.
Speaker: of course, against the English who are sitting on the rock of Gibraltar.
Speaker: He meets up with an old war buddy, the Prince of Nassau-Siegun, and they had fought together at Gibraltar.
Speaker: And Nassau-Siegun is married to a Polish princess, the princess, the daughter of King Stanislaus II of Poland.
Speaker: So Nassau-Siegen invites Little Page to come with him as they're kind of taking a roundabout way to get to Gradno, where the Polish-Lithuanian diet or governmental body is meeting.
Speaker: But they're going to go to...
Speaker: Constantinople first and then basically.
Speaker: Hold on.
Speaker: So so little pages now he's in Paris.
Speaker: He meets now he's he's cavorting with Polish royalty.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And somehow going in the middle of all this to the Ottoman Empire.
Speaker: Correct.
Speaker: You are.
Speaker: Who is this guy?
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: okay sorry continue they go to constantinople goes to constantinople um there is an assassination attempt on little page there what it is thwarted and the scimitar sword that was taken from the assassin still remains in the family today um and why was somebody in constantinople trying to assassinate this guy that nobody had ever heard of
Speaker: Well, there, there, again, there's some question about that too.
Speaker: Uh, they, you know, whether it was some type of diplomatic thing that was happening that, um, you know, sort of ordered this attempt, um, or, or something else.
Speaker: Uh, it's kind of, it's kind of unclear, sadly.
Speaker: And a lot of that is, is lost.
Speaker: Are you sure he didn't just make up this story for his own, you know, personal?
Speaker: You know, I, I would have thought so, but I do find it interesting that the sword does survive.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So, you know, that's the first thing I would do if I was making up that story is go out and buy a nice sword.
Speaker: I mean, there is there's probably a grain of truth in there somewhere.
Speaker: But so anyway, the the the Nassau Seagans and Little Page, they leave the Ottoman Empire and they head up the Dnepr River in the eventually.
Speaker: Actually make it to Gradnow where Little Page will finally and for the first time meet the Polish kings, King Stanislaus II.
Speaker: And he begins his court duties as a diplomat working for King Stanislaus.
Speaker: Okay, great.
Speaker: So we've gotten now to the critical moment in this biography of Little Page at which this suit enters the picture.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And I want to know, just to give us a little bit of context around this, what do you think Little Page's clothes meant to him?
Speaker: I mean, how important was the clothing that he was wearing to his image, to the duties that he was performing at court?
Speaker: Was this like a fundamental critical part of his personality or was it more of an accessory?
Speaker: Yeah, I think for Louis Littlepage, clothing was extremely important for him.
Speaker: And this really bears out through not only the clothing that survives from him personally to the present day, but the inventories of his clothing that were taken at his death in 1802.
Speaker: But also the scant writing.
Speaker: We don't have a lot of papers from Littlepage because he does order all of his papers to be burnt together.
Speaker: When he when he dies in his will.
Speaker: But there's a few things that like it just suggests that he's kind of a clothes horse.
Speaker: But it's it's really important for his image as either an officer in the army or a diplomatic, you know, as a diplomat going to to the Russian court.
Speaker: So his clothing plays a really important role for him.
Speaker: And we see that at least with the surviving clothing from him as well.
Speaker: You know, whether.
Speaker: The garment may have been made five or 10 years earlier, but he's constantly updating them.
Speaker: But they tend to be very, very fashionable clothing.
Speaker: So this wasn't just pure vanity.
Speaker: There were real social expectations around what he was supposed to wear in this, you know, elevated company.
Speaker: Yeah, it's and some of it is prescribed to by the court like you have to wear certain things.
Speaker: And I think you're expected to to wear certain things.
Speaker: I mean, I think many people would would think back to Franklin and wearing the sort of plain brown coat and the fur cap.
Speaker: You know, he's kind of going against the grain, but he got a lot of attention for it.
Speaker: And, you know, ultimately ended up, you know, eating in an alliance with the French and the Americans.
Speaker: And so.
Speaker: Little Page is a little bit more prescribed.
Speaker: He's a little bit more, you know, I think what your typical court wear is fairly.
Speaker: He's also 25 years old, right?
Speaker: You're right.
Speaker: You're right.
Speaker: He probably doesn't want to rock the boat.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: He is pretty young, you know, in terms of folks who are running around these courts at this time.
Speaker: When did making plans get this complicated?
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Speaker: So does this suit that we're talking about, is that sort of similar to the kinds of clothing that his peers would have been wearing at court?
Speaker: Yeah, I think so.
Speaker: So the suit, as we've talked about, consists of a coat.
Speaker: The coat is covering you from the neck down to the back of the knee, long sleeves, fairly deep cuffs, which wasn't the fashion.
Speaker: And we tend to find that these courts tend to be kind of conservative in their look.
Speaker: The waistcoat is pretty typical, does not have any sleeves to it and matches the coat almost identically.
Speaker: And then the breeches themselves, again, they're going to cover you from the sort of hip down to right below the knee.
Speaker: And these have what they call a fall or flap in the front of them, which is how they close.
Speaker: But they're more cutting edge in terms of their styling.
Speaker: The flap itself goes from the side seam of the one leg to the other side seam of the other leg, which is what we're just sort of seeing that coming into style in the mid-1780s.
Speaker: And was this piece made there in Poland?
Speaker: Yeah, it must have been.
Speaker: And so Little Page would have purchased this as a sort of like a pre-embroidered kit.
Speaker: So there would have been professional embroiderers who are doing this type of work.
Speaker: And he would then go to a shop probably in Warsaw.
Speaker: He did spend quite a bit of time in Krakow as well.
Speaker: And so he may have purchased it there and then employed a tailor to then cut it out and sew it up.
Speaker: Okay, so this was actually a multiple step process.
Speaker: So he goes shopping, he finds something that he likes, but then it has to be tailored to suit him specifically.
Speaker: Yeah, tailors in the 18th century, they're working by measuring.
Speaker: And the thing to keep in mind here as well is that most men, whether you're Louis Little Page or the King of Poland or the tradesmen working in Virginia making wheels, whatever it might be,
Speaker: They're generally all going to tailor.
Speaker: So that is not the unique part of this.
Speaker: It's the quality of the textile.
Speaker: It's the embroidery.
Speaker: That is really what's going to scream that this suit is a court suit rather than sort of the tailoring aspect to it.
Speaker: So what were the actual choices that little page got to make about the clothing?
Speaker: You know, that is a great question.
Speaker: And it is something that I am not entirely sure of in terms of did he have a choice, you know, or was this sort of purchased for him on behalf of King Stanenslaus?
Speaker: Hmm.
Speaker: Hmm.
Speaker: I have not been able to find anything along those lines, but it may have been completely prescribed for him.
Speaker: He may not have had any choice at all.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: And how long would he have had to wait between ordering it in the first place and actually being able to wear it?
Speaker: So some tailor shops by the 1780s, I know in the United States at this point and also in Great Britain, they are advertising they could turn a suit around in a day, which seems pretty quick.
Speaker: But more than likely, he is being kind to his tailors and –
Speaker: Basically allowing them because, you know, they're not his only customer.
Speaker: He probably thinks that.
Speaker: But if I know anything about little page, he's probably charmed the pants off his tailor and they're making it for him for free.
Speaker: But he's probably giving them a week, two weeks, you know, maybe even longer to have those things.
Speaker: You know, I think it's just kind of courtesy for having your close meet.
Speaker: Sure, sure.
Speaker: But not months and months and months.
Speaker: No, no, no, no.
Speaker: You know, these the tailors are paid in the period are paid by the piece.
Speaker: And so, you know, they have to make these things quickly or else they're not going to be making any money.
Speaker: And how expensive would a suit like this have actually been?
Speaker: Well, I think this suit, unless the tailor was doing the embroidery in house, which it's possible.
Speaker: And we definitely do have references to that.
Speaker: It's kind of rare.
Speaker: You know, you're probably looking at somewhere somewhere around a pound, you know, in English language.
Speaker: English money at that point in time.
Speaker: So it's probably, you know, for the average working person, that would have been pretty expensive, you know.
Speaker: But if you're looking at something like the fabric, because I think the other thing to understand here is the fabric is worth more than the labor going into it.
Speaker: He may have spent four or five pounds on the fabric, like all the fabric that are needed and the buttons and everything to actually make the suit.
Speaker: versus the one pound or so that's going into the actual making of it.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: If the tailor can provide that ability to sell the fabric and do the embroidery, and in the court, they may have been able to do that, they're certainly on the better end of that profit scale.
Speaker: So let's talk about that craft.
Speaker: So what materials were used to make this suit?
Speaker: So the suit itself is made completely out of silk, at least the exterior is.
Speaker: And then in some of the areas where you're not going to see, like the sleeve linings and like the pocket bags, those types of things tend to be made out of a more utilitarian linen.
Speaker: So, I mean, you're not going to see it.
Speaker: So there's no reason to spend the money on it in that area.
Speaker: And that was kind of a typical practice, you know, for most English and American men.
Speaker: And where was that silk coming from?
Speaker: So the silk, you know, probably it may have been English silk that was then coming across the English Channel and going to Poland.
Speaker: But it also may have been coming as far away as as China being produced there as a raw material, spun and woven and then exported to Poland across Europe.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: So you mentioned that the suit might have actually been updated over time.
Speaker: How and why?
Speaker: So we know that there's a couple of unique things that are on the suit that you're not going to find on any other suit except for a Chamberlain.
Speaker: And the Chamberlain is an individual who's sort of...
Speaker: Job is symbolized by carrying a key.
Speaker: And so LittlePages key survives and it would have hung off the two buttons at the back of the coat.
Speaker: So those two buttons are still on the coat today, which is pretty cool to see that.
Speaker: But on the front of the coat, there is now a embroidered star for the Order of St.
Speaker: Stanenslaus.
Speaker: And we know that Louis Littlepage was honored with this order in January of 1790.
Speaker: So this suit...
Speaker: that he would have worn in 1787 on the diplomatic mission to Russia to meet Catherine the Great.
Speaker: The star was then added to it sometime after January of 1790.
Speaker: There's also a little cord because with the star, you then also get to wear the ribbon that symbolizes that order as well.
Speaker: And so the left shoulder has a kind of like a little cord to keep the ribbon from kind of flopping around.
Speaker: It's more like a sash, you know, across the body.
Speaker: But so that that so the sleeve head would have had to been unpicked, that little cord put into it and then restitched up.
Speaker: And we see that evidence on the on the coat, which is pretty cool.
Speaker: OK, so round out our story for us.
Speaker: So where does Little Page go from here?
Speaker: So Louis ends up on this diplomatic mission to Russia.
Speaker: It is basically their meeting near Kiev.
Speaker: And, you know, what they're trying to figure out is how can we get Poland and Lithuania, who at this point are sort of a dual government, essentially, some protection.
Speaker: Essentially, war is breaking out across Europe.
Speaker: The age of revolution has taken hold amongst the lower classes.
Speaker: And, you know, the Polish people and the Lithuanians are kind of like, you know, we kind of like what we have going on here.
Speaker: But, you know, we might need like a protectorate almost or just some protection here.
Speaker: So nothing –
Speaker: This diplomatic mission doesn't really work very well.
Speaker: Catherine Gray is kind of going to do her own thing.
Speaker: And then for the next few years, Little Page is kind of working on the same thing with other countries that are a little bit more stable.
Speaker: So he actually goes back to Spain and begins kind of massaging the relationship between the Poles and the Spanish there.
Speaker: But, you know, essentially this fervor is just going to kind of explode.
Speaker: And what kind of blows my mind, and I don't know really how to wrap my head around it, is here you have Louis Littlepage.
Speaker: Wandering through France on his way to Spain when the reign of terror essentially is happening.
Speaker: But because he's an American and the Americans have achieved liberty and independence, he seems to be like they seem to let him like it's OK, which I which I find very interesting and how he's able to navigate all this.
Speaker: Or maybe he just has this incredible charisma that- Yeah, that too, absolutely.
Speaker: To lead to totally charmed life.
Speaker: Was he still wearing his suit at this time in France?
Speaker: You know, he probably was, you know, because he is a diplomat and he's a member of the order of King Stanislaus.
Speaker: So I think some of those diplomatic, some of those orders help you perhaps, you know, with your diplomacy that you've been sort of awarded these things.
Speaker: So how does the suit finally make its way back to America?
Speaker: So what happens is there is a there is a constitution written in Poland in 1791.
Speaker: And this is the second constitution ever written in the world, second only to the United States.
Speaker: And this really annoys Catherine the Great.
Speaker: And of course, she invades and like Russians do, it seems when they're angry and which leads the second partition of Poland.
Speaker: And then this kind of leads down a spiral of events.
Speaker: During the second partition, even with the constitution, Thaddeus Kosciuszko leads a revolt.
Speaker: Kosciuszko, of course, is well known for his military career during the American Revolution.
Speaker: He's a cavalry officer.
Speaker: In 1794, this revolt happens.
Speaker: And it was actually pretty successful, but essentially they just get outnumbered by the Russian army.
Speaker: And so by 1795, there's the third and final partition of Poland and basically the dissolve of the Polish state until the early 20th century.
Speaker: So there will not be a Poland for the entire 19th century, a country that is known as such.
Speaker: So with all that happening, you know, Little Page is caught up in all of this.
Speaker: And finally, when King Stanislaus is sort of ousted and put into exile, Little Page is basically forced out of his position.
Speaker: And finally, by...
Speaker: The catch here, though, of course, with Little Patriots, anything is he was owed money by the king.
Speaker: And so he tries to stay in Europe to finally get paid.
Speaker: And, of course, Catherine the Great dies and we go through all these different regime changes.
Speaker: So it's unclear if he actually gets paid or not.
Speaker: But by 1801, he returns to Virginia.
Speaker: He's only here for about another six or nine months.
Speaker: And then these other illnesses that he's been battling, he gets involved earlier in 1787 in the Russo-Turkish War.
Speaker: And he gets what he calls camp fever.
Speaker: And that seems to plague him for his entire life and is what is thought that kills him in 1802.
Speaker: So in 1802, there is an inventory.
Speaker: So he dies, bachelor, unmarried, no kids.
Speaker: He has a German servant with him.
Speaker: And he leaves the bulk of his clothing to his stepbrother, a man by the name of Waller Holliday.
Speaker: And so all of his clothing, which we have a complete inventory of, goes to the Holiday family.
Speaker: And a few things were also given to his sister because he has a sister from his dad.
Speaker: So mom remarries a Holiday, but he has a sister that he does give a few things to.
Speaker: And so the objects stay in the Holiday family until 1952.
Speaker: Then they were given to the Valentine Museum.
Speaker: And they had them until 2023, where they transferred them to our collection here at Colonial Williamsburg.
Speaker: So what is the significance of this suit and of the whole Little Page collection to Colonial Williamsburg?
Speaker: You know, it really fits really well with our mission here.
Speaker: And of course, that is, you know, looking at Virginians and the study of Virginia.
Speaker: And, you know, for our historic dress collection, it's really important because it is now the single largest grouping of clothing from one individual that we have in the collection.
Speaker: And so we can learn a lot from it.
Speaker: It's not typical sort of English or American clothing.
Speaker: The embroidery styles are different.
Speaker: The construction styles are different.
Speaker: You can definitely tell that Poland is a lot colder than Virginia by the textile choices and how things are sewn together.
Speaker: And there's wadding in them to fit.
Speaker: to add warmth.
Speaker: Um, but it's just so interesting to see the choices and the variety of choices that, uh, an individual had, uh, who was obviously interested in clothing, um, you know, from about 1780 to probably the late 1790s.
Speaker: Fantastic.
Speaker: Well, Neil, this has been such a great journey that you've taken us on and I really appreciate you, uh, illuminating little pages life through the lens of this suit.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker: And Louis Littlepage will certainly be always an interesting character to deep dive into.
Speaker: Today's episode was edited and produced by Sammy Blotti with social media and web support from Sarah Blotta.
Speaker: Sierra Holt is our digital media and editorial associate.
Speaker: Our music is by Trap Rabbit and I'm Ben Miller.
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