Underpinning the sensationalism of battle reports & broadsides is the often silent steadiness of women’s work with textiles. The choices they made every day about fashion and fabric consumption & creation drove the course of Revolution just as determinedly as any congress.

As southern New England commemorates the 250th anniversary (semiquincentennial) of the War for Independence, it is these local lives dressed in pulled wool or spun silk that continue to inspire creativity, resilience, and empathy in us today. From the mythology of homespun to legends of midnight rides in red cloaks & calashes, the Dirty Blue Shirts share stories of women who waged war on multiple fronts as well as a look at what they wore as their worlds turn’d upside down.

This program is presented by costumed historians and includes reproduction clothing pieces & fabric samples as well as a PowerPoint presentation with images of extant originals.

Part of Middletown Public Library's 250th Anniversary programming.