https://www.youtube.com/embed/N3rmKrQPAE4
(cheerful music) - (Cheyney) When I started living history, everyone told me "black women wore what white women were wearing, but the poor version of it." And from the jump, I was like "That doesn't make sense at all." (exploratory piano music) My name is Cheyney McKnight. I run Not Your Momma's History channel and I specialize in telling the stories of black folks in North America in the 18th and 19th century.
So we started a new series, These Roots, where we do a day in the life of a black person, whether they're free, enslaved, wealthy, or working class. And so we follow them through an entire day and we've done three episodes so far and we're going to continue to do it. And then I also am a historical interpreter. So, I travel around teaching people about the stories of my people. - Cheyney's series is going to be linked all over this video because you need to check it out. But Cheyney is going to talk a little bit about, sort of give you a little bit of a taste of some of the stories of these women.
- Yes. Absolutely. - And people. - So when I got started in living history, I really wanted to learn about what black women were wearing. A little bit about my background, growing up, I had family members in New York and in South Carolina and so I had a very unique experience where I knew elderly people from the north and the south. And so I got a range of what black women were wearing in the 1940s and 30s. Going further back, I really wanted to learn the style of black women because I could distinctly see the difference in style between black women and other women in the 1990s and the 2000s. This was the same in the 19th and 18th century. When I started living history, everyone told me "black women wore what white women were wearing, but the poor version of it." And from the jump I was like, "that doesn't make sense at all." I had access to paintings and drawings and pictures, phot- photography of the style of black women and we had, have a huge amount of WPA narratives where black women were talking about clothing and the different styles they went through.
And then we also have firsthand accounts of people observing black people, which they really talk in depth about the style of black folks. What it comes down to is that black women always had this very peculiar style that is distinctly West African in origin. No matter how far removed they were for the continent, whether it was through enslavement, through time, through space, they held onto these very distinctly West African characteristics in clothing and also in culture.
And that this is what I really wanted to educate people on and make them aware on, of. I think people sometimes dismiss African-American culture as a distinct culture because it's kinda become mainstream culture in many ways with hip hop. A lot of that kind of gets lost in the wash, but I want to make sure people know the origins of black culture and style that is distinctly West African. - I mean, this is such a good segue - into what you're wearing, (laughs) but I want to talk also a little bit more about specifics. What is the style? Like where does it come from? What are the developments? - I don't know. - No, that's a great- - There's just like way too much.
- No, no, no, that's a great question. So, I get my sources from a lot of different places. I get it from the WPA narratives, from accounts of enslavers, European travelers. But when looking at the WPA narratives, they talk about the necessity for things like mending and patchwork, which everyone was doing. But I find that the style, aesthetic choices of black folks were slightly different. There was one account from a missionary during the Civil War. They were teaching black children how to read and write. There were donations from New York City of dresses, beautiful plaid dresses, for the little girls and the, the children brought them home to their mothers.
And what happened was the mothers took contrasting colors and sewed it to the bottom. And so when the girls came back, the mothers were like, we fixed the dress you gave to our children. (Cheyney laughs) Like they could not tell them that this was a better dress because they added that fabric to the bottom. Obviously, the woman was horrified, but I like to think that they did fix those dresses. - You're welcome. (laughs) And so those are, you see, little anecdotes like that, where you would see white women who, whichever standing they are in society, would never have made that choice. Just like I think some French women who find themselves in America would makes distinctly different choices about their wardrobe, English women who had just recently migrated or Irish women are also, were also making distinctive choices that are different. So looking at someone, you could kind of tell this person is from a different place or culture.
And I find those little things unique when you find them in stories. Also, last one, one of my favorite stories. An enslaver's wife was observing enslaved persons going to church or what they call Sunday meeting. She said that the head wraps of the women were just so big and brightly colored that they could put one's eye out from a mile away. - Head wraps were a big deal. - Yes, absolutely. So you can find head wraps in the north and the south on women from enslaved women, free black women, and depending on where you were, it can inform if the person is enslaved or free or just simply black.
It was also a racial identifier. Some women, for example, Juliette Toussaint. There's a beautiful painting from the early 19th century. She and her husband lived and worked in New York City and they were quite wealthy. They were, I would call them upper middle class or upper, upper middling. And she is wearing this beautiful head wrap, flat head wrap. And it's distinctly different from the turbans that were worn in the early 19th century. But unfortunately, something that I am trying to break down is that it wasn't just black women and Creole women in Louisiana who were wearing head wraps or just in the south. Black women in the north and south were wearing head wraps, we have the evidence on up into the 19th century. I have a beautiful picture from a historical society in New York, that pictures a black woman who works for a household as a maid of all work. And she is wearing this huge, fabulous, like mid-century, mid-19th century printed cotton. And it is huge, it looks like a Gele. And she's just like in the painting with her employers just, not the painting, the picture, with her employers, just "hey :)".
It is so cool. - So. - Fantastic. - It's like, so we've done a collab, Cheyney and I, which you can find on her channel, about chatelaines and we were just talking about how a chatelaine makes noise and it announces your presence to the room. I feel like it has some of the similar, like, "I am here". - "Acknowledge me". - Absolutely. - And I spent quite a long time kind of hiding myself that now I want to announce to the world that this is who I am. This is where I'm from and I embrace my culture and my people. - Everything to say "I'm here!" (upbeat music) Head wraps and taking up space and- - You do literally bring your work into the way that you dress. As you call it? - Yeah, so Afro-Victorian was a term coined by the costume designer of Jingle Jangle. And when I first heard it, I was just like ooh.
- You've been doing that for years. - Exactly! This is my style. And then also I incorporate a lot of Afro-Futurism, which I think some of this - would incorporate. - Which you can go check out - on Cheyney's channel. - I think that I, more so, educate people about things that we lost, the knowledge that we lost, which you encounter a lot, for people. Because we didn't do some things since the 1920s or 30s, there's a whole generation of knowledge that we lost. And for, specifically for black women. There's a whole period of time where we lost how to, for example, stretch our natural hair. So when I say stretching, my hair is in a natural state, but if I want to do a updo, like you see those beautiful pictures that were taken of black women, they weren't using hot combs. They were able to pin their hair down into a European hairstyle with their hair like this. And so there were some things they did every day to stretch their hair.
And so kind of making those connections and educating people about that. And I'll be doing a lot more videos on black hairstyling in the 19th century. - So definitely, I mean we've said this a hundred times, but please go check out Cheyney's channel. - Me too. Thank you so much Bernadette. It's been so awesome to finally just hang out with you. I feel like every time we see each other, we're racing by one another. I'm like hi Bernadette, bye! (laughs) - Hello. Goodbye. - Right, right, right, right.
- And it's always an honor to listen to you talk and to watch your videos, of course, I cannot stress enough how much, not only is your channel informative but it's so well-produced, like it's exactly what the world needs. All the links down below, go and follow Cheyney. I mean, I'm sure all of you already do because, you know. Yeah, I have no idea how to end this video. - Yeah.
- This is like the worst part. - I know, it's always the worst part where you're like oh, I'll let you go. - So we're going to end this now. Go forth and be your most wonderful self and watch some videos. - Bye! - Bye! (laughs) - Okay, huzzah!.
