BS: Handkerchief History - How big?

Subject: RE: BS: Handkerchief History - How big?
From: EBarnacle
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 11:26 AM

In addition to its use as a close in combat weapon, the James Black Bowie was also balanced as a throwing weapon. As this was a relatively unknown feature, few, if any, other smiths and manufacturers have built this feature in.

Subject: RE: BS: Handkerchief History - How big?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 06:52 PM

Funnily enough, the Bowie looks remarkably similar in shape to the Seaxe - a very old style sword/knife.

Subject: RE: BS: Handkerchief History - How big?
From: Naemanson
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 07:40 AM

This site, which I got to through McGrath's link above, shows the testing criteria for a boy scout neckerchief. It also answers some of the questions I have.

Thanks, McGrath!

Subject: RE: BS: Handkerchief History - How big?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 27 Aug 10 - 03:57 PM

The Bowie knife, or Arkansas toothpick, was first made by a cutler named Black for Resin Bowie. The knife became well-known because of the famous 'Sandbar Fight' in 1827, when the knife was used by Jim Bowie.
There were many demands for the knife, and cutlers Searles, Constable, and others made them in the 1830s.
Sheffield cutlers in England in the 1840s and 1850s improved on the design and produced the knives in quantity; it was these English knives that were popular with sailors and other workmen who needed a good, large knife.

McGrath, I think, points to the correct interpretation of Poe's handkerchief; cowboys, farmers, workmen and travelers often had a rather large general purpose cloth which was used around the head to filter dust, wipe machinery and other uses; commonly called a 'handkerchief' but not the smaller one for the pocket.

Subject: RE: BS: Handkerchief History - How big?
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 27 Aug 10 - 04:00 AM

Don't forget a kerchief was not to wipe your nose (as smaller handkerchief became). Women wore it over head or round neck to cover bosom in low cut bodice. They were clearly valuable as they were worth stealing (cf Oliver Twist), these might be large enough and strong enough to tie into a rope.

RtS

Subject: RE: BS: Handkerchief History - How big?
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 27 Aug 10 - 03:02 AM

Lady's handkerchief a dainty 12" square

Gentleman's handkerchief an elegant 18" square

Workman's handkerchief - larger than the above?

Subject: RE: BS: Handkerchief History - How big?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Aug 10 - 11:40 AM

The size of a traditional Boy Scout's neckerchief was supposed to be 32 inches square, big enough to be useful for stuff like that. I'd imagine that sort of size would be about right.

Think of all those Westerns where cowboys turned their hands tom other trades like robbing banks or stagecoach hold-ups. They weren't using tiny little pocket handkerchiefs.

Subject: RE: BS: Handkerchief History - How big?
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 26 Aug 10 - 10:12 AM

tomorrow I'll be in the next suburb to one of the 2 libraries in Australia that holds Dr Margarete Braun-Ronsdorf's "History of the Handkerchief" - unfortunately it's not on the open shelves as it used to be way back in the 70s/80s when I used their Historic Costume collection. It's in Offsite Storage which probably means it takes days to get it.

I'll be back there a week later, if you want me to ask them if I can use it then.

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Handkerchief History - How big?
From: Naemanson
Date: 26 Aug 10 - 08:48 AM

I realize Poe wrote fiction but we all write what we know. While the story is fiction he wouldn't put anything into it that his readers would object to. In the story the sailors also used "Bowie Knives". I had to check the history of the knives. The story was written shortly after the fight that made Jim Bowie famous. It made perfect sense for him to use it because his readers would see it as recognizable.

I believe these "pocket handkerchiefs" are not what we are used to. They were probably squares of trade cloth used to get the attentions of the island girls.

Subject: RE: BS: Handkerchief History - How big?
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 25 Aug 10 - 09:27 PM

There's lots of info line, but no useful info I could see, so it's back to the books!

The Dictionary of Costume by R. Turner Wilcox. NY, Scribners, 1969

Handkerchief
...Early in the nineteenth century, the gentleman's handkerchief settled into an accepted size of about eighteen inches, of white linen with a hemstitched edge & an initial in one corner.

My old handkerchief mentioned in the Guam thread is creamy silk with a one & a half inch hemstitched hem & "K" monogram in one corner, & is 19" square. The only date I have for it is 1973, when I bought it!

Have you looked for a contemporary review of Poe's novel to see if critics savaged it for playing around with facts?

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Handkerchief History - How big?
From: Slag
Date: 25 Aug 10 - 07:46 PM

A story from whole cloth, I assume.

Subject: RE: BS: Handkerchief History - How big?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 25 Aug 10 - 05:47 PM

So? Poe wrote fiction.

Subject: RE: BS: Handkerchief History - How big?
From: Naemanson
Date: 25 Aug 10 - 10:14 AM

Yeah that's all well but Poe has these guys using them for rock climbing! Later on in the story they add them to a shirt to make a sail for a canoe!

Subject: RE: BS: Handkerchief History - How big?
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 25 Aug 10 - 09:14 AM

In the Wild West hankerchiefs were used as tourniquets in emergencies (I saw it on TV) so they would have had to have been large enough to wrap around a leg or man's arm.

Subject: RE: BS: Handkerchief History - How big?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 24 Aug 10 - 03:13 PM

The standard (my decision) bandana handkerchief is 21" x 21".

See Drysdales Western Wear-
http://www.drysdales.com/Mens/Neckties-Wild-Rags/detail-355-Basic-Red-Bandana.html

They sell yer Basic Red for US$1.50. And it is 21" x 21" (furriners do their own metric figuring).

Subject: RE: BS: Handkerchief History - How big?
From: olddude
Date: 24 Aug 10 - 03:03 PM

On the TV show survivor I guess they are big enough for the girls to wear them as halter tops .. either they are that big or the girls are that small ..

don't know

Subject: RE: BS: Handkerchief History - How big?
From: Smokey.
Date: 24 Aug 10 - 03:00 PM

Roughage helps.

Subject: RE: BS: Handkerchief History - How big?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 24 Aug 10 - 02:37 PM

How could the handkerchiefs be used for anything after tying them around their wastes?

Subject: RE: BS: Handkerchief History - How big?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 24 Aug 10 - 12:59 AM

Wal.... that depends if it was snotrags or real handkerchiefs. Snotrags come in all sizes because, of course, they start out as RAGS, for which there is no standard size. Gent's hankies OTOH would be fine linen....

How big is a magician's handkerchief-- the ones we see nowadays (on TV hiding rabbits) are purdy big. The "standard" bandana, now, is about 12"--- but this is beside the point.

Because-- when you make them into ropes, you fold them on the diagonal, which is the direction the fabric wants to stretch the most and also probably the strongest: force pulling on it will pull not across warp or weft (like where one might want to tear a rag and it will tear quite easily)-- but on the "bias," where the threads intersect.

So to really get to the heart of this you would need to know not only how biased your escapees were, but also what fabric was used and how tightly it was woven. Batiste, for example, is a loose, almost sheer weave, so it would stretch a lot.... plus take very little of the corner-fabric to make a very strong knot. Anyone who has ever tied a bandana into a bikini can tell you THAT.

(As well as that wet fabric behaves differently from dry.)

But then you also need to know what fibers might have been used because cotton batiste would not be very strong but linen woven that way....

My head hurts.

But you can see for yourself, now, how to handle this "feasibility" question with kids-- invite them to bring different fabrics and sizes and play "escape" (but not from the classroom if it's not on the ground floor, LOL).

~Susan

Subject: BS: Handkerchief History - How big?
From: Naemanson
Date: 24 Aug 10 - 12:35 AM

As part of my class on Pacific Island Literature I am reading an excerpt of A Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym by Edgar Allen Poe. It is Poe's only full length novel and, apparently it gets rather strange.

In the excerpt I am reading there is a point where two men make a rope out of their pocket handkerchiefs and use it to descend a cliff face. Poe describes at one point how one of the sailors tied the "rope" around his waste and then lowered himself several feet down the cliff! That is a hell of a POCKET handkerchief!

I have also learned, earlier and from a different source, that Chamorro women liked to get the handkerchiefs of sailors. The would tie them around their wastes to hide their nakedness.

So here is my question: How big was a pocket handkerchief in the first half of the 19th Century?