Artifact: Green Child's Stays
Materials: Worsted wool satin, boned and lined with linen
Dimensions: waist 17 in. Center front length 7.5 inches
Date: 174-1760
Origin: England or America
Collection: Image Courtesy of The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
License: All rights reserved
Ledger Entry: Child's Stays
Department: Clothing
Customer: Anthony Russell
Ledger Page: 359
Imported From: Most of the clothing accessories sold in the Ramsay store would have been imported from England.
Product Description
Stays are a form of undergarment which utilize stiff boning to alter the wearer's posture and body shape. In the eighteenth century young girls and boys alike wore stays during development in order to develop straight posture. Several credits to women customers for stays mending in Ramsay’s accounts indicate that some form of staymaking or repairing was associated with his business.
Citation: Linda Baumgarten. Eighteenth-Century Clothing at Williamsburg. (Williamsburg, Va: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1986), 74.;
Historical Price: 12 shillings, 6pence; Modern USD: $140
Product Variations
The databases record twenty-two purchases of stays. The databases record three pairs of child's stays and four pairs of girl's stays, indicating that patrons purchased stays for both young boys and girls. The prices for children's stays range from twelve shillings six pence for a pair of child's stays to fourteen shillings ten and a half pence for a pair of girl's tabby breasted stays.
