Letter to the Franklin Institute
Dear [name removed to protect the innocent],
I'm writing to you because I believe you are the person we (The Pirate Brethren) met with at the Franklin Institute "Real Pirates" exhibit last Saturday. I heard that someone at the Franklin Institute asked John if there were any historical inaccuracies in the exhibit. I am writing to tell you about them.
My name is Kass McGann, and in addition to being a member of the Pirate Brethren, I am a professional clothing historian. My area of expertise covers the Golden Age of Piracy. In fact, I was the clothing historian who provided the clothing to Life Formations, the company who provided the mannequins for the "Real Pirates" display.
As a Golden Age of Piracy historian, the Whydah artifacts are like the Holy Grail to me. It is like finding the proof for all our theories! Finding that ship was like a dream come true to maritime historians of this time period.
I was truly honoured when Life Formations contacted me and asked me to provide clothing for this exhibit that will tour the world. I have to say that I counted it my supreme career achievement to date.
I did not see the exhibit when it opened in Ohio and was thrilled that it was coming to Philadelphia, being a Pennsylvania native myself. But I have to admit that I was horrified at what had been done to my clothing in the exhibit and returned home in disgust.
To begin, I sat through a short film with some of the most horrific costumes I have ever seen. The fake wig on the man portraying Sam Bellamy was comical. But the green dress on his fiancée was not only not from any historical period, it had a zipper in the back! This disgusted me, but I went into the exhibit anxious to see my work alongside the beautiful Whydah artifacts.
What I found was my work destroyed. I sold a dozen 1710s linen shirts, eight sailors' jackets, nine pairs of seamen's trousers, and one full common woman's outfit to Life Formations for use on their mannequins. My clothing was required to be historically accurate for 1717 and appropriate for common sailors of that period. The only changes Life Formations was to make was to "age" the garments.
They didn't. They dyed some of the shirts red (sailors' shirts of the period were white or natural-coloured, and sometimes blue or checked, but never red). But the most horrific change that was made to my clothing was that the neck of every single shirt was punched through and laced with leather thongs. Shirts were not laced at the neck. This is an element that is seen on Ren Faire pirate shirts and has no basis in history. One look at these shirts by anyone who knows about historical clothing and your exhibit would lose all integrity.
The two mannequins that did not wear any of my clothing were even worse -- Sam Bellamy and the pirate talking to the tavern girl. They looked like 1970s lounge singers in plush velvet blazers. And the accents that the tavern man and girl were using were the worst of Ren Faire garbage. After that, I rushed through the rest of the exhibit, anxious to leave. If I had sold clothing to Disney or a Ren Faire, I would expect such things. But I was contracted to make historical clothing by a company working for National Geographic. I am shocked that this "Hollywood" interpretation was allowed by an institution of such reputation.
I do not know who National Geographic hired to do the paintings of the Whydah sailors, but their clothing was laughable as well. And a firearms historian friend of mine assures me that the pistols Sam Bellamy has on his belt were not produced until 60 years after the Whydah sank. I cannot confirm this, not being a firearms historian, but if the clothing in the paintings is any indication, then not much in those paintings is historically accurate either.
I am certain that there are historical illustrators of integrity who could have portrayed Bellamy and his crew accurately. Instead National Geographic chose to make their exhibit have more in common with "Pirates of the Caribbean" than anyone from history.
I have so much respect for the archeologists who worked on the Whydah recovery that I cannot imagine they are not as angry as I am when they saw this exhibit. Life Formations has taken perfectly good historical information and twisted into a Disney-inspired Ren Faire fantasy. It makes the title "Real Pirates" a complete joke.
I know that exhibits such as this one come to the Franklin Institute as packages and your staff is not responsible for the historical accuracy of the display. But I thought you'd want to know the glaring inaccuracies in this one from the mouth of a historian of the period.
Kass McGann
owner
Reconstructing History
http://reconstructinghistory.com
I'm writing to you because I believe you are the person we (The Pirate Brethren) met with at the Franklin Institute "Real Pirates" exhibit last Saturday. I heard that someone at the Franklin Institute asked John if there were any historical inaccuracies in the exhibit. I am writing to tell you about them.
My name is Kass McGann, and in addition to being a member of the Pirate Brethren, I am a professional clothing historian. My area of expertise covers the Golden Age of Piracy. In fact, I was the clothing historian who provided the clothing to Life Formations, the company who provided the mannequins for the "Real Pirates" display.
As a Golden Age of Piracy historian, the Whydah artifacts are like the Holy Grail to me. It is like finding the proof for all our theories! Finding that ship was like a dream come true to maritime historians of this time period.
I was truly honoured when Life Formations contacted me and asked me to provide clothing for this exhibit that will tour the world. I have to say that I counted it my supreme career achievement to date.
I did not see the exhibit when it opened in Ohio and was thrilled that it was coming to Philadelphia, being a Pennsylvania native myself. But I have to admit that I was horrified at what had been done to my clothing in the exhibit and returned home in disgust.
To begin, I sat through a short film with some of the most horrific costumes I have ever seen. The fake wig on the man portraying Sam Bellamy was comical. But the green dress on his fiancée was not only not from any historical period, it had a zipper in the back! This disgusted me, but I went into the exhibit anxious to see my work alongside the beautiful Whydah artifacts.
What I found was my work destroyed. I sold a dozen 1710s linen shirts, eight sailors' jackets, nine pairs of seamen's trousers, and one full common woman's outfit to Life Formations for use on their mannequins. My clothing was required to be historically accurate for 1717 and appropriate for common sailors of that period. The only changes Life Formations was to make was to "age" the garments.
They didn't. They dyed some of the shirts red (sailors' shirts of the period were white or natural-coloured, and sometimes blue or checked, but never red). But the most horrific change that was made to my clothing was that the neck of every single shirt was punched through and laced with leather thongs. Shirts were not laced at the neck. This is an element that is seen on Ren Faire pirate shirts and has no basis in history. One look at these shirts by anyone who knows about historical clothing and your exhibit would lose all integrity.
The two mannequins that did not wear any of my clothing were even worse -- Sam Bellamy and the pirate talking to the tavern girl. They looked like 1970s lounge singers in plush velvet blazers. And the accents that the tavern man and girl were using were the worst of Ren Faire garbage. After that, I rushed through the rest of the exhibit, anxious to leave. If I had sold clothing to Disney or a Ren Faire, I would expect such things. But I was contracted to make historical clothing by a company working for National Geographic. I am shocked that this "Hollywood" interpretation was allowed by an institution of such reputation.
I do not know who National Geographic hired to do the paintings of the Whydah sailors, but their clothing was laughable as well. And a firearms historian friend of mine assures me that the pistols Sam Bellamy has on his belt were not produced until 60 years after the Whydah sank. I cannot confirm this, not being a firearms historian, but if the clothing in the paintings is any indication, then not much in those paintings is historically accurate either.
I am certain that there are historical illustrators of integrity who could have portrayed Bellamy and his crew accurately. Instead National Geographic chose to make their exhibit have more in common with "Pirates of the Caribbean" than anyone from history.
I have so much respect for the archeologists who worked on the Whydah recovery that I cannot imagine they are not as angry as I am when they saw this exhibit. Life Formations has taken perfectly good historical information and twisted into a Disney-inspired Ren Faire fantasy. It makes the title "Real Pirates" a complete joke.
I know that exhibits such as this one come to the Franklin Institute as packages and your staff is not responsible for the historical accuracy of the display. But I thought you'd want to know the glaring inaccuracies in this one from the mouth of a historian of the period.
Kass McGann
owner
Reconstructing History
http://reconstructinghistory.com