For several weeks now I've been working on sketches for a pair of portraits of John Alden and Priscilla Mullins Alden. I think I've got John where I want him, but I'm finding sketching Priscilla pretty daunting. Nineteenth and 20th century depictions of Priscilla show a pretty and demure young woman but I just can't think of her that way. No woman who would get on a rickety old ship with her family and head for an unknown wilderness where everything would have to be built from scratch could possibly have been demure. And she probably wouldn't have remained pretty for very long, either.
What this struggle to depict Priscilla has revealed to me is how inaccessible the lives of the women of Plimoth Colony are to a 21st century inquiry. I haven't found any verbal descriptions of Priscilla from her contemporaries. All I have is my imagination, and a simple imagining of myself in her position evokes such a feeling of terror I can barely imagine how she could have slept at night.
Enter Dorothy May Bradford. Her husband William Bradford never wrote about the circumstances of her death, but a generation later the Puritan historian Cotton Mather wrote that one day as the Mayflower lay moored in Provincetown Harbor and William was away on a scouting mission, Dorothy accidentally slipped over the side of the ship and drowned. Given that the ship was moored, that there was no mention of a storm, and that the waters were shallow, some have speculated that Dorothy committed suicide.
There is absolutely no proof that Dorothy committed suicide, but there's also no proof that she didn't and I'm inclined to think that it's entirely plausible under those dire circumstances. At any rate, given the paucity of factual information about the Pilgrim women I'm going to have to make most of it up. So Dorothy May Bradford has jumped into my artistic imagination and the next print will be for her.
9 comments:
very interesting thoughts you have had...and I became touch by the story of your way of trying to be in their place in those circumstances...life can be tough and sometimes too tough for some, and it probably wasn´t the most easy times then...
Interesting insights, I keep thinking of the Frida Kahlo painting of Dorothy Hale......looking forward to seeing what you come up with.
Very cool, thought and image. My compliments. Being a bit of a history buff, I have read many stories and accounts of those early times. Although life was rough, the women took great care to look their best when in public (it was frowned upon to see women in public much period, so when they did "pop their heads out", they tried to look their best). By European standards, "demure" would have been laughed at, but by the then "New World" standards, .....
Have her looking proud in what she considered her best, trying to put on a "good face" for the public.
Maybe Dorothy, bless her heart, was leaning over to look at something closer, and fell in. If that were the case she would have drowned no matter what just from all the heavy clothing those women had to wear. I think I agree with Dan, demure was a whole different thing in that time. Make her proud and a bit defiant - with a set to her jaw. I have plenty of old family portraits and that is how all the women looked - I wouldn't have wanted to mess with any of them- ;-)
-Thanks Anita!
-Daniel, I think you're right about the protocol for women at that time, and no doubt the Puritans brought their same protocol with them to the New World. I'd like to get underneath it a bit, though, which is probably why I haven't been satisfied with a straight-up portrait of P. Alden.
-Sharri, lol I have some old family pictures like that too -- women who were definitely not to be messed with.
-As for Dorothy May, d.moll,l.ac.'s flash to the Kahlo painting is kind of where I'm heading as well.
Hi Annie,
I was so interested in your efforts to put yourself in these women's shoes. I've got ancestors who came through Plimoth and went off with Roger Williams. Have you been to Plimoth Plantation where they do Living History. You really get a feel for their life and it sure wasn't luxurious!! Also, seeing the conditions on the Mayflower was a revelation!
Lynn
Hi Annie,
I was so interested in your efforts to put yourself in these women's shoes. I've got ancestors who came through Plimoth and went off with Roger Williams. Have you been to Plimoth Plantation where they do Living History. You really get a feel for their life and it sure wasn't luxurious!! Also, seeing the conditions on the Mayflower was a revelation!
Lynn
After hearing all your thoughts on this matter, I can't wait to see what you will come up with for poor, drowned Dorothy. I'm sure it will be a surprise!
Lynn, I went to Plymouth as a child but need to go back again to help me with these prints. Planning a May trip. Cool that your ancestors went off with Roger Williams -- he was an interesting character.
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