Delaware Dress Ways: The Quaker Idea of “Going Plain in the World”

“The Calico! O the Calico!” wrote Anne Cooper in 1762. “I think tobacco and tea and calico may all be set down with the [keeping of] negroes, all one as bad as another.”¹

To strangers, the cultural values of the Quakers were most visible in these distinctive attitudes toward dress, which became a vital part of Quaker identity and an important expression of their faith. The idea of “going plain in the world” made its appearance during the first period of Quakerism, as part of George Fox’s gospel. His followers took up this teaching with high enthusiasm. In many a North Midland town the visit of a Quaker evangelist was followed by an event called the “burning of the braveries,” in which the people made a bonfire of their ribbons and silks.²

During the second period of Quakerism, the Society of Friends developed George Fox’s taste for simple clothing into dress codes of fantastic complexity. Quakers believed that clothing in all its forms was an emblem of Adam’s fall—a “badge of lost innocence.”

William Penn argued that “guilt brought shame, and shame an apron and a coat”:

[As] sin brought the first coat, poor Adam’s offspring have little reason to be proud or curious of their clothes, for it seems their original was base, and the finery of them will neither make them noble nor man innocent again … our first parents … were then naked and knew no shame, but sin made them ashamed to be no longer naked.

Since therefore guilt brought shame, and shame an apron and a coat, how low are they fallen that glory in their shame, and that are proud of their fall. For so they are that use care and cost to trim and set off the very badge and livery of that lamentable lapse. … if a thief were to wear chains all his life, would their being gold and well made abate his infamy? To be sure, his being choice of them would increase it.³

This idea was reinforced by another principle. Quakers believed that clothing should be only what was “needful” “to cover their shame” and “fence out the cold.” Every ornament not “needful” was systematically searched out and condemned. Quakers generally agreed that excess of dress was “unscriptural.” Penn asked:

How many pieces of ribbon, feathers, lace bands and the like had Adam and Eve in paradise or out of it? What rich embroideries, silks, points, etc., had Abel, Enoch, Noah and good old Abraham? Did Eve, Sarah, Susanna, Elizabeth and the Virgin Mary use to curl, powder, patch, paint, wear false locks of strange colors, rich points, trimmings, laced gowns, embroidered petticoats, shoes and slip-slaps laced with silk or silver lace and ruffled like pigeons’ feet?⁴

To all of these reasons for “going plain,” Quakers added yet another argument that a primary purpose of fashion was to arouse the sexual passions which they feared and despised. “It’s notorious,” Penn wrote, “how many fashions have been and are invented on purpose to excite to lust, which … enslaves their minds to shameful concupiescence.”⁵

As if these objections were not enough, Quakers added the argument that costly costumes created envy in the world and divided one Friend from another. They also believed (in company with most others of their age) that the stock of wealth was fixed, and that one person’s extravagance caused the impoverishment of another. “If thou art clean and warm, it is sufficient,” wrote William Penn, “for more doth rob the poor.”⁶

Further, Quakers argued that attention to superficial things diminished a deeper concern for the life within. Isaac Norris of Philadelphia in 1719 instructed his son in London: “Come back plain. This will be a reputation to thee and recommend thee to the best and most sensible people—I always suspect the furniture of the inside where too much application is shewn for a gay or fantasticall outside.”⁷

Moreover, it was important to Quakers that they should simply be different from others in the world. In 1726, the female Friends of the Philadelphia yearly meeting drafted an open letter to all women of their persuasion, condemning “vain conversations, customs and fashions in the world. “Dear Sisters,” they wrote, “These things we solidly recommend to your care and notice, … that we might be unto the Lord, a Chosen Generation, a Royal priesthood, an Holy Nation, a Peculiar People.”⁸

When Quakers translated their ideal of “going plain” into actuality, they adopted a special form of simple dress which derived from the folk costume of England’s North Midlands. George Fox himself wore the costume of a North Country shoemaker, including heavy leather breeches and a doublet of distinctive cut which became a symbol of both the man and his movement. Fox was called “the man in the leather breeches,” and was thought to wear them all the time, “except a little one hot summer.”⁹

George Fox’s costume was widely imitated by other male Quakers for many years. Ancient leather breeches were handed down from father to son. A Yorkshire Friend in the nineteenth century recalled, “ … when I was a lad there was a vast [many] still sitting in their fathers’ leather breeches and more than one I kenned had breeks their grandfathers had had for their best and there was a vast of good wear in ‘em yet.”¹⁰

Other humble people in the North Midlands wore simple trousers of a broad cut, with a wide leather apron in front. This costume was brought to the Delaware Valley and was worn by farmers for many years. A European visitor found Quaker farmer John Bartram dressed in “wide trousers and a large leather apron.”¹¹

The conventional costume of male Quakers also derived in other ways from the dress of farmers and artisans in the north of England. The common fabric in the north was a plain homespun called “Hodden gray.”¹² One variety, called penistone, was a course woolen fabric named after a village in Yorkshire. In the Delaware Valley, penistone was one of the first textiles to be manufactured on a large scale. Its soft gray color set the tone for Quaker clothing through generations.¹³ So normal did this costume seem that when Mary Penington had a vision of Jesus, the Saviour appeared before her as “a fresh lovely youth, clad in grey cloth, very plain and neat.”¹⁴

Quaker meetings in England and America enforced the rule of simplicity in dress with regulations of high complexity. The Pennsylvania Council entertained a proposal for restricting all men to only two sorts of dress through the year.¹⁵ Male Friends were forbidden to wear “cross pockets” on their coats and “needless” pockets of any sort. They were warned against broad hems, deep cuffs, false shoulders, superfluous buttons, fashionable creases, wide skirts and cocked hats.¹⁶ The refusal of Quakers to use tricks of tailoring created a garment of curious profile called the “shad-belly coat” in the Delaware Valley. The question of male headgear was much debated among Quakers. Men were encouraged to wear plain broad brimmed beaver hats, undyed and uncocked. So many adopted this fashion that American Quakers in the early eithteenth century were called “broadbrims” or “men with broad hats and no pockets.”¹⁷

Many meetings also wrestled with the difficult question of wigs. Hairless Friends were permitted to wear modest periwigs, but only after they had consulted with elders and solemnly affirmed that “necessity and not voluptuousness has brought them to the use of them.” Even these “needful” wigs were expected to be “such as in color and shape resemble their former hair as need be,” and were not to be excessively long, full, bushy, proud or powdered. Quakers who kept their own hair were generally discouraged from wearing any wigs at all.¹⁸

For women, even more elaborate dress codes were recommended. The women’s meetings discussed at length every imaginable aspect of feminine costume. Fashionable hair styles and fancy hats were condemned. Women of all ages were encouraged to wear plain hoods, which in the eighteenth century were replaced by bonnets of extreme severity. Handkerchiefs were worn modestly over the top of the bodice. Quaker women were expected to wear aprons when they appeared in public—“either of green or blue or other grave cloth colours and not white … nor any silk aprons.¹⁹ Dresses were to be of simple cut and plain colors. Special warnings were issued against “the wearing of stript or branched stuff or silk, or long scarves, or any other things which may lead us into the fashions of the World.”²⁰

In the eighteenth century, Quakers discouraged the use of dyes, particularly indigo, because it was produced by slave labor. Bright dyes were condemned as excessively proud, and dark dyes were forbidden because they were thought to hide dirt. The New Jersey Quaker John Woolman conducted a lifelong campaign against the use of dye-stuffs on this ground:

I have been where much cloth hath been dyed [he wrote in his journal], and have, at sundry times, walked over the ground where much of their dye-stuffs has drained away. This hath produced a longing in my mind that people might come into cleanness of spirit, cleanness of person, and cleanness about their houses and garments. …

Real cleanliness becometh a holy people; but hiding that which is not clean by coloring our garments seems contrary to the sweetness of sincerity. Through some sorts of dyes, cloth is rendered less useful. And if the value of dye-stuffs, and expense of dyeing, and the damage done to cloth were all added together, and that cost applied to keeping all sweet and clean, how much more would real cleanliness prevail.²¹

This Quaker wedding dress was made in the mid-eighteenth century and still survives in Philadelphia. It had no buttons, belt, sash, decorations or adornments of any kind; but it was designed with grace and refinement and cut from fine silk. The dress was worn with a handkerchief folded modestly over the bodice in accordance with the recommendation of the many women’s meetings. The source is John A. Gallery, ed., Philadelphia Architecture (Cambridge, Mass., 1984), 17.

Neatness and cleanliness were also encouraged in other ways. Amelia Gummere remembered that Friends were “as notable for the neatness as for the old-fashioned cut of their garments. Their linen was always fine and clean.”²²

Quakers were also forbidden to have commerce in clothing that was denied to them. This was the case in both England and America. The Cheshire quarterly meeting as early as 1699 agreed to very strict rules in that respect:

A question having been proposed to this meeting whether any friend may make, sell or buy anything which it is not consistent with truth or that friends cannot wear, which matter came to this result—that the making, buying or selling striped, figure, printed silks, stuffs or cloths or anything else that friends cannot wear is altogether inconsistent with truth and for future to be avoided. Liberty being only given that such as have any such by them do dispose thereof and for the future buy no more.²³

Quaker hostility to changing fashion caused them to cling to the clothing styles of the past. Amelia Gummere wrote that “it may be set down as a safe rule, in seeking for a Quaker style or custom at any given time, to take the worldly fashion or habit of the period preceding.”²⁴

Always, some rebelled against these rules. A few restless souls called “gay Quakers” wore whatever pleased them. But most Friends, even the most affluent, attempted to preserve something of “going plain.” One who allowed himself the luxury of silver buttons insisted they should not be “wrought” (engraved). In 1724 a German printer noted that affluent Quakers in Pennsylvania wore plain clothing “except that the material is very costly, or even is velvet.”²⁵ “Plain” did not mean cheap. Many Quakers, including William Penn himself, combined exceptionally refined taste with the plain style, and were willing to spend large sums for clothing of good quality.²⁶

Quaker dress ways were invented in the North Midlands of England. But they survived longer in the New World than the Old, and became more uniform in the Delaware Valley than they had been in any part of Britain. As early as 1770, an English

Quaker was startled by the sight of his first American meeting—“such as I had not seen before—so consistent in appearance of dress and uniformity,” he wrote. He noted that conformity in dress was much stronger among Quakers in America than in England.²⁷When Brissot de Warville visited Philadelphia yearly meeting in 1788, he also observed that 90 percent of the Quakers were dressed in plain homsepun.²⁸ As late as 1985, long after Quaker costume was generally abandoned in England, one historian observed that “stylized plain dress only lingers now within certain groups of Friends in the United States of America.”²⁹

The Quakers were not the only people who adopted the plain style in the Delaware Valley. Many German pietists had similar dress ways. Mennonite men of various sects were required to wear simple clothing, dark colors, plain suits, and broad-brimmed hats. Women were expected to wear modest dresses with an apron, a triangular Bruschttuch (breast cloth) folded over the bodice and a little kapp on the back of the head. The fabric and pleats of the kapp were unique to each little sect and local community. Many Pennsylvania Germans adopted plain clothing of some sort or other, similar in tone and feeling to the costume of English Quakers.

During the eighteenth century, the plain dress of the Quakers was much admired by others. In the year 1784, for example, a Latin adventurer named Francisco de Miranda was traveling through the United States. One Sunday he amused himself by attending a Quaker meeting, and was captivated by the women he saw there. In his journal he wrote:

At three o’clock went to the temple of the Quakers, in whose company I remained for two hours, without anybody speaking a single word. I entertained myself all this time by examining slowly the dress and the countenances of the female concourse and I can assure you with all ingenuousness that neither more simplicity, cleanliness and taste in the first nor more natural and simple beauty in the second can be imagined. I am firmly persuaded that the coloring of Rubens and the carnations of Titian can never imitate what nature offers here in the hue and complexion of these simple Quaker women, who have not a grain of powder or drop of oil on their persons.³⁰

Many Pennsylvanians who were not themselves Quakers or German Pietists tended to imitate these dress ways. Benjamin Franklin, an immigrant from Puritan Massachusetts, adopted the Quakers’ idea of “going plain,” and conformed to so many articles of their dress that he was often mistaken for a Quaker himself. So also did the Presbyterian Benjamin Rush, the Freethinker Thomas Paine, and others of various denominations. In more moderate forms, the ideal of simple dress spread westward from the Delaware Valley into the American midlands, and for many generations became part of the culture of an American region.