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Plimoth Plantation: An Interpreter's Tale
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Jim Baker, a young man with longish gray hair and leather sandals over his thick socks, looks as though he could easily function as an interpreter in the village, but he is now one of the official historians. A Mayflower descendant and Plymouth native, Baker has been to England eight times to do research on what 17th-century English men and women spent their lives doing. "The Pilgrims left a great many records of their thoughts about theology, but unfortunately they didn't give much indication of such mundane matters as what they ate, how they dressed, where they washed or went to the bathroom," Baker explained. Most of the information used to create the present Plantation came from Dutch genre paintings, local records, and contemporary English diaries and letters.
"We are constantly revising," Baker said, waving to the stacks of folders labeled Fishing, Animals, Clothes. "When you see the village today, you have to remember that this place started out as a typical American outdoor museum: clean little cottages, nice oyster shell walks, a 1950s suburban view of the Pilgrims. Then in 1967 an archaeologist named Jim Deetz from Brown University came in and got rid of the dummies and everything that was obviously wrong. He couldn't modify the existing houses, but he wanted middens (trash piles), dirt roads, pigs and chickens wandering around, and men with long hair.
"I suppose you could say that was the 1960s image of the Pilgrims, but it is, as far as we know, quite historically accurate, whether one likes it or not," Baker said. "We know, for example, that the Pilgrims threw their trash out the windows, because you can tell where the windows were in an excavation of a 17th-century house by the fan-shaped piles of trash. We know that they were dirty because at that time frequent bathing was considered unhealthy and even sinful, since the public bathhouses of the Middle Ages had become associated with the spread of syphilis and had given bathing a bad name.
"Some of the locals and a great many of the Mayflower descendants became very upset," Baker sighed. "They eventually recovered from Deetz, especially since he would document everything he did. But even today, middle-class Americans still complain either that the village doesn't meet modem American health standards -- which it doesn't, but since no one actually lives there, it doesn't have to. Or that their ancestors, whom they know from formal portraits in pinned collars and cuffs, didn't look so scruffy. Actually, the village is much cleaner than it should be. When we tried creating middens, visitors took the trash away for souvenirs. And only one interpreter really got into the part so much that she didn't bathe, but she gave it up after one summer month.
"When the new Disney Epcot Center was researching the American history exhibit, we got a request to send photos of our costumes," Baker went on. "Now, some of our reconstructions are just educated guesses, but we are very sure about the clothes. They phoned back indignantly and told us they could never portray Pilgrims like that because 'they look like pirates.' " Baker threw back his head and laughed. "I suppose it never occurred to them that the Pilgrims were contemporaries of Pirates of the Caribbean."
Donna DeFabio is Assistant Supervisor in the Interpretation Department in winter, and Priscilla Alden in summer. "I think we're making progress in people's understanding," she commented when the season was over. "This Thanksgiving there were record crowds, but almost no dumb questions like where's the canned cranberry sauce?" About half the Pilgrim interpreters seem to take the job because of an interest in explaining history, but for DeFabio the appeal was acting. "But acting that isn't as pressurized as on the stage. Like actors, though," she added, "most of us get laid off, although I was lucky enough to stay on as a supervisor."
Reader Comments
Comment from Alf & Diane Ripley on November 6, 2008
As always, I find any article about Plimouth Plantation to be very interesting. For years I have read everything I could about the saga of the Pilgrim fathers and their history. This and anything New England has fascinated me and for the longest time I couldn't understand the reason for this. A couple years ago my son, who is very interested in our family's geneology, came across any entry for my mothers side of the family (Hughes). This entry indicated that my great great great-grandmother was an Elizabeth Potter of Portsmouth, Rhode Island. It further indicated that Elizabeth's great great great-grandfather was a man named George Soule, who it turns out, was a bonded servant to Edward Winslow and accompanied Winslow to the new world aboard the Mayflower in 1620. Soule was also a signer of the Mayflower Compact. This information more than confirmed, for me, the reason why I had this interest in early New England history. My son has also learned recently that Elizabeth Potter had another relative during this time which is of interest. His name was Roger Williams. And yes it is the same Roger Williams of Rhode Island fame. Completely and utterly fascinating for me. If I am correct William Bradford was from Yorkshire in England and the Ripley side of our family was from that area as well. They immigrated to Nova Scotia in 1774 during the Yorkshire Settlement of that time. I have been a subscriber to Yankee Magazine since October 1981 and it is story's like Kathleen Kilgore's about Plimouth Plantation that helps to keep me coming back. Great article!!
regards,
Alf Ripley
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