Viviandiere at the South Street Seaport Photo Shoot

[mlleviolet]

A few weeks ago, a friend and I did a South Street Seaport photo shoot. It was also a scouting mission, to see if the area is suitable for a Pub Crawl and Photo Shoot (it is). Appropriately for a scout, I wore my Civil War viviandiere costume. I wore the same to the Library, but those photos were hopelessly dark and blurry. These are a great

Comments

[lookfar]

Wonderful costume! But say more about a viviandiere? What is that?

[mlleviolet]

Thanks! Oh, forgive me, the steampunk audience is familiar with the term. They were women who travelled with Civil War regiments and gave aid and comfort to soldiers, also boosted morale. Their uniforms were feminized versions of the regiment's uniforms. For more info:
http://www.vivandiere.net/
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivandi%C3%A8re

[lookfar]

WOW! This is totally fascinating. I had no idea these ever existed. And they were respectable women and girls, too; I figured all troop followers were prostitutes. Have you ever read any books on them? What a great start for a historical novel. Did you see that some of them were young girls of 9 or 10? Wow.

[mlleviolet]

They were usually the young sisters or daughters of high-ranking officers, but I have never heard of any as young as 9 or 10, but I'm far from an expert