Teaching Ai*m«y**Jf SACCNote^ Summer-Fall. 1997

Commonplace People:17th-19th Century

"CommonplaceBooks" As

EthnohistoricalSources

Suzanne Knudson EnglerLot Angeles Volley College

bits and pieces of paper reflect the peoplewho left them: their perceptions of them-

The practice of keepingcommonplace books began

centuries ago in Europe and wastransplanted to North America withits 16th Century European settlers.

In 1989, during a tenure as a Mellon Fel-low at the Virginia Historical Society ar-chives in Richmond, Virginia, 1 discovereda collection of historical "commonplacebooks" written and compiled by men andwomen from the 17th Century through the20th Century. Commonplace books arescrapbook-like coUectionsof miscellany theirwriters considered interesting or important,including clippings, inventories, soogs, reci-pes, quotes from books, accounts, children'sschoolwork and a wide variety of other ma-terials. None is consistently identical to anyother, but by definition each contains at leasttwo distinct types of such materials. Thepractice of keeping commonplace booksbegan centuries ago in Europe and was trans-planted to North America with its 16th Cen-tury European settlers. Commonplace bookswere often passed on to family members orspecific friends, and some people even listedthem in their wills.

Today such manuscripts are often used byhistorians as source materials for particularproblems, such as the study of teachingmethods in the 18th Century, or the histori-cal development of a folk song, for example.But no one has ever considered what suchtilings might tell us about the compilers ofthe books or their culture. So, in the summerof 1990 I set out to ascertain the value ofcommonplace books in providing informa-tion on material culture and plantation life inVirginia. How did these odd collections of

ld59),Colonial(l660-1775),Feileral(1776-1830).Ante-bellum(1831-1860),CivilWar

selves and others, the material cumirt com- (1861-65) and Reconstruction-Post Warmon to their times, the roles they played in (1866-1900). Still, any one book may spanthe culture of their day and how their atti-tudes and roles may have changed throughtime?

The first stage of my research included aninventory of the commonplace collectionavailable at the VHS to determine how manywere written by men and how many bywomen, and as precisely as possible, wheneach was written, a task that was not easilyaccomplished. Though each commonplace

two or even three of time periods.

Wives could be punished forrunning away as well as for the theftof the clothes they were wearing at

the time of their flight!

book in the VHS collection was usuallycatalogued under just one name, initial ex-

amination of the books revealed that some-times a husband and wife or two sisters hadadded to the same book simultaneously.The second writer simply turned the bookupside-down and wrote from the back to thefront, resulting in a confusion of interlacedentries.In other cases it was clear that many people

had added to a particular book. Changes inhandwriting could sometimes be used toidentify different writers, but often therewas no way of knowing if they were male orfemale, much less who they were. Further-more, many books were broadly diachronic,as later generations added to the contents atdifferent times. And it was common to findnewer portions of writing in the early pagesof a book. People had the habit of usingspace available on anypage.since paper wasscarce and expensive prior to the inventionof pulp paper processing in the mid- 1800s

Abigail (Langley) Granbery Hargrove'sbook is an excellent example of a familycommonplace. Although the tiny book islisted as her commonplace, Abigail is notresponsible for most of its contents. JohnChilcott actually began the book in 1694 andused it as an account ledger and journal. Itwas passed to John Granbery, Abigail's firsthusband, sometime between 1695 and 1723.John Granbery used it to record accounts ofcloth and tobacco and the results of a courthearing. Abigail inherited the book whenJohn died in 1733. Comments in her handinclude an interesting diatribe: "cutler runaway with billey to norfort an stoal his doeslike a rogue as he was," as well as birth anddeath records for her family and for her"negroe boeys and gals.** Abigail's secondhusband, John Hargrove, also added a fewthings, including a list of items bought at a"sail" When Abigail died in 1763, she leftthe book to her step-daughter, MaryGranbery Cowper. Mary gave it to hernephew, John Granbery, in 1806, and youngJohn used the little book for school lessonpractice

Abigail's book is an excellent example ofthe difficulties one encounters in research-ing commonplace books: the overlappingusage, the non-sequential organization ofentries, the broad span of time, the haphaz-ard spelling from an era when spelling con-ventions had not yet been established forwritten English. Interpreting the culturalmeaning of the entries is no less problem-atic. When Billy runs off to Norfolk withCutler, Abigail considers it an importantenough crime to enter it in her common-place, noting that the fugitive stole "his"clothes This most likely refers to the clothes

Because so many of the manuscripts have B»Uy wore at the time he ran away. Clothingcomplicated histories, with entries and en- w " 1 vduable commodity in Colonial andclosures spanning as much as 100 years or Fc<leral timeg» ••* **« m o s t °ti** **"** ofmore, I eventually organized the materials n***™1 culture, it was the property of theintobroadtimecategorie*: Settlement 1607- «nale head of household Runaway slaves,

Teaching Anthropology: SACC Notes. Summer-Fall. 1997 Paoa9

bonded servant* or wives could be punished(or running away as well as for the theft ofthe clothes they were wearing at the time oftheir flight! Since Abigail's entries containbirth and death records for slaves, her cutlerand billey may have been fugitive slaves.

From the Colonial period, just two of the23 manuscripts in the VHS collection werewritten by women. Women are better repre-tented in the 67 manuscript sample from theFederal period, yet males left twice as manycommonplaces—45 in total. Abo, duringthe Ante-bellum and Civil war periods, forwhich I examined more than 140 common-place books, men still account for more than60% of the total Even considering the nu-merous layersof additions to each common-place book, it is clear that men outnumberedwomen consistently, though by ever de-creasing numbers.

Men have am interesting tendencyto collect recipes from more diverse

sources . .

Another striking gender contrast was evi-dent in the 220 commonplace books in mysample: educational levels varied consis-tently between the sexes until well after theCivil War period. Again, AbigailGranbery'scommonplace is a good illustration. Herhandwriting and spelling, even given thelack of spelling conventions during theColonial period, are very unschooled com-pared to the writing of her husbands. Herentries are few and mostly concerned withrecords of births and deaths of family mem-bers and her husbands' slaves.

Women's education has gradually im-proved. Nevertheless, even as they gainaccess to more education, the commonplacesthey leave continue to reflect striking difier-encesinfemaleandmaleroles. The Pattersoncommonplace, an Ante-bellum period book,is a good example of the continuing dispar-ity in levels of female and male educationand ofgender roles. The book was started by

John BrownPatterson(1786-1811) whenheattended college. His portion contains cop-ies of poetry, class lecture notes on thephilosophy of law, music, and chymistry(lie), letters.aod some ofhis own poems. Hewrites in ink in fine, small script and islavish with sopoomoric commentaries oneverything from the literature of the day tohis professors'lectures When he dies, at

age 23, his sister, Maria B. (Patterson)Tompkins (1794-7) uses the book, turning itupside down and starting from the back.Maria's portion is a world apart from herbrother's literary ramblings. Written in pen-cil in a large, sloppy hand, Maria's entriescontain only very practical information: listsof clothing given to slaves, lists of porkpurchases and weights of hogs and invento-ries of household goods. In short, we heresee in the content, style and form of a com-monplace the striking contrast between theyoung man whoreceivesacollegeeducationand is encouraged to pursue intellectual in-terests, and the young woman who focuseson her wifely duties of household manage-ment and maintenance of the plantation'sworkforce.

Two other categories of gender-relatedmaterials popular in all periods are cook-book recipes and home remedies or folkcures. I initially reasoned that recipes wouldbe one element of commonplace collectionssafely associated with a woman's activitiesduring any one my time periods. (Anthro-pologists, after all, usually consider cookingand related secondary subsistence activitiesa female concern). Surprisingly, half myrecipes were found in commonplaces com-piled by men. Men have an interestingtendency to collect recipes from more di-verse sources, including Indians, "gipsies"and the Blacks they owned. It is difficult todetermine if they actually used the recipesthemselves. In some cases it seems theymighthave collected recipes as curiosities orbecause the recipe was something used foranimals or slaves.

Neither sex made any effort to organize"receipt" collections into sections that dealtseparately with foods and cures. Consider-ing how commonplace books were com-piled—the haphazard use of empty pages,coupled with a sometimes sequential addi-tion of new materials as they are collectedand tried1—it is easy to see how this mightoccur. Yet even in commonplace books thathave been organized into discrete sectionsby their compilers, cakes and cures are oftenfound side by side in the "Receipt" section.

Recipes are atypical element of common-place books for a simple reason. Womenusually learned to cook from their mother orother female relatives. Commercially pro-duced cookbooks did not become popularuntil Victorian times, and even then theywere primarily a status symbol for society

ladies of the day. Most young women sim-ply collected recipes from their relatives orfriends and saved them in commonplacebooks. With the invention of pulp paper,cheap books, newspapers and farm journalsprovided new sources of recipes and folkremedies. Thus, commonplaces from thelate Ante-bellum through the Reconstruc-tion periods often include numerous clip-pings of things taken from these popularsources.

It *s quite odd to find a recipe fordysentery side by side with a pound

coke recipe,

Like our own commercially made cook-books, commonplace recipe collections re-flect changing food habits. One of my oldestrecipe collections is from a Federal periodcommonplace that includes recipes fbr"farcemeat," possets, fish and meat pies of allkinds. By the late 18th Century, such thingshave been replaced with a larger number ofstillroom recipes (vinegars, pickles, jellies,etc.), pound cake, and gingersnap recipesThe number of recipes for cooked meatdishes diminishes tremendously, though onestill finds numerous recipes for minced meator mincemeat, pickled or "corned" meats ofvarious sorts and smoking brines for hams.Vegetable and fruit recipes are never com-mon, except for pickling, and, later, canningrecipes. Breads, puddings, cakes, dessertsand candy recipes abound.

One of the most intriguing aspects of"receipt" collections is the home remedy orfolk cure recipe. To the late 20th Centurymind, it's quite odd to find a recipe fordysentery side by side with a pound cakerecipe. In fact, from the 17th Century to thebeginning of the 20th, home remedies werea common component of most of the recipecollections and cookbooks I have examined.This reflects an important "cultural fact."Despite the advancement of medicine andthe rapid growth of the medical professioa,particularly in the 19th Century,even wealthypeople continued to treat everything fromcokis to cancer at home, using recipes thattheir friends andneighbors swore were "nevernone (sic) to fail."

The increase or decrease in the frequencyof various folk cures is an interesting indica-tor of disease patterns. Some diseases andconditions are obviously endemic to the

10 TeacM

area, for there is a consistent interest incures for such things as worms and dysen-tery. Cholera and smallpox are more cycli-cal. Commonplace books often reflect thisby their inclusion of sections of cures for aparticular disease that list multiple recipesfor each. It apparently was important towrite them all down "just in case."

Like foods, certain medicinal ingredientsgo through definite cycles of popularity.Spirits of turpentine was a favorite ingredi-ent in folk medicine in the 18th and early 19thCenturies. Laudanum becomes popular inthe Ante-bellum and is included in every-thing from recipes to soothe babies' teethingpains to numbing the pain of arthritis. Everygeneration seems to have had its "wonderdrugs."

Many recipes show up regularly, fromperiod to period. Others have much shorterpopularity cycles. In fact, did any of thesethings actually work? Some look like theymight have killed the patient! And just bowclosely do these folk cures compare with"legitimate" medical pharmacology of thetime? Were the treatments prescribed by thedoctors of the era any more effective thanthose concocted by the housewife or herhusband?

There it a detailed "prescription "fora smallpox inoculation dating to

1775,20 yean before Edward Jennerdeveloped Ike vaccine.

The information found in commonplacebooks spans ahuge range of anthropologicaltopics, not to mention other disciplines. Thebooks includereferencestosnowstorms and

developed the vaccine. There are shippingrecords and sea captains* journals, accountbooksanddiariesofCivil WarPOWs. Thereare even recipes for fireworks!

e a r t h -comets andThere areplant ingfarm jour-tailed de-plant ingsoil enrich-ments andThe "copyan interest-ofthe mate-

q u a k e s ,rainfall,extensiverecords andnals with de-scriptions oftechniques,mentexperi-crop yields,work" givesing glimpserials used in

education, both in school and home settings.The lists and inventories reflect the growingmaterial complexity ofthe 17th through 19thCentury world. There is a detailed "pre-scription" for a smallpox inoculation datingto 1775, 20 years before Edward Jenner

Commonplace books indeed hold a wealthof information for the anthropologist, and Ilook forward to continuing my studies offolk medicine as portrayed in this fascinat-ing ethnohistorical source.

These books are ideally suited for community college classes in anthropology, sociology,geography, history and ESL. Written in conversational style, emphasizing clarity andsimplicity, they can profitably be used with or without standard texts.

On Becoming Human is a description ofthe5 million year saga of how Homo Sapiens cameinto being as the dominant animal on earth. Thefirst half of each chapter is of fictionalizedevents, followed by a question and answersection as in a class discussion. 420 pp. $14.95

Coming in January 1998...

Life aa a Field Trip, is a description ofa life as seen in the focus of socialscience and history. 400 pp. $14.95.

Takeover in a science fiction format, is anaccount of how humans became the dominantspecies and how Euroman became the dominantsubspecies. 230 pp. $13.95.

I Life as ajField Trip

Examinationcopiesfor class use available free for 30 days. Orders by check or credit card from TW Ht*»id PrP.O. Box 1481-40, Bonsall, CA 92003., TeL <800)61«-74S7f FAX (760) 72S-6602, E--.il: niehofl@acccssl.aet.