The American Revolution may have begun with crates of tea hitting the water, but in the decades that followed, the beverage became the “social cohesion” that held New England together.
Tea, as it turns out, can still summon a conversation. Jane Wald, executive director of the Emily Dickinson Museum, led a presentation at the Tyler Memorial Library in Charlemont that examined how the beverage evolved from a catalyst for war into an essential tool for courtship, business and neighborhood gossip during the 19th century and the time of famed poet Emily Dickinson.
Through photographs of the Dickinson family’s extensive collection of tea sets and ledgers, Wald illustrated a time when “I’ll see you at the Dickinson tea” was a very common refrain on the streets of Amherst. And to complement the discussion, attendees were served tea.
The “Not Your Boston Tea Party” program was sponsored by the Friends of the Tyler Memorial Library and the Smithsonian Museum as part of continued programming from the traveling exhibit “Voices and Votes,” which was hosted by the Mohawk Trail Regional School last spring.
“Centuries ago, the taxation of tea without proper consent was one of the catalysts that helped spark the American War of Independence, “said Kate Stevens, a member of the Friends of the Tyler Memorial Library. On Dec. 16, 1773, she continued, “a group of colonial patriots, disguised as Native Americans, boarded three English ships in Boston Harbor and threw the tea on board to protest against the tax imposed on tea by the government of King George III.”
Stevens said that following the first Boston Tea Party, during which 342 chests of tea were dumped into the harbor, patriots took to dumping tea in seaports across the colonies. However, despite the revolts against British tea, tea remained an important aspect of life. It was used as the backdrop for political, business and societal gatherings throughout the revolution and long after. More than half a century later, tea was an integral part of Amherst society, particularly at the Dickinson house.
“We’re accustomed to thinking of Emily Dickinson as extraordinary and unique, and she was, but she and her family were also just ordinary, just like any other family responding to larger social cultural, economic and political forces, just like everybody else,” Wald said. “Material culture, the things that the Dickinsons selected, used, enjoyed, broke and threw away represents this kind of ordinariness, as well as the large forces around them.”
Wald said that in rural New England, tea was the basis for informal gatherings of knitting or sewing circles, or more formal business negotiations, larger parties and could be interchangeable with supper.
“What did it mean for the Dickinsons? In their world at the most basic level, taking tea meant it could be simply a time for consuming food and drink,” Wald said. “It could be a social event that encouraged neighborliness and social cohesion, it could be a vehicle for courtship, and it could also have a very businesslike or institutional character.”
Whether family gatherings, business meetings between Edward Dickinson and other Amherst College officials, or large neighborhood celebrations, the Dickinson household was a popular destination for tea. Wald said the Dickinsons hosted tea so frequently that Amherst residents would run into each other in the streets and say, “I’ll see you at the Dickinson tea.”
“Tea is not just a substance or beverage. It was an occasion, and could function in these different ways,” Wald said.
She added that in Amherst and other rural communities, tea etiquette was less strict than in cities, and was an occasion where folks could interact, despite their gender or socio-economic status.
“In the first part of the 19th century, social etiquette was far less formal than in the cities. Dropping in on neighbors. Tea parties, even the smallest of gatherings, could include men and women,” Wald said.
Tea was a huge part of daily life at the time, Wald said. Ledgers and inventories showed that in one year, the Dickinsons used 170 pounds of sugar, and with multiple tea sets, were “well equipped” to host tea.
She added that with the number of sets and types of sets held at the homestead — as well as the Evergreens household, where Emily’s brother and sister-in-law lived after they got married — the Dickinsons seemed to follow domestic guidebooks from the time to determine what was needed. Wald said the collection at the museum includes Chinese porcelain and English tea sets complete with tea cups, coffee cups, pots for tea, coffee and chocolate, silverware, bowls for dirty spoons, milk jugs, saucers and sugar bowls. The Dickinsons also had dozens of doilies, napkins, ice pitchers and trays.
“Taken all together, the tea equipment from the Dickinson households that are left in the collection, plus information contained in documents like the inventories or in the reminiscences of visitors to the house indicate these households were well equipped to carry out their social interests and expectations,” Wald said. “Yet the number and variety of these objects was really within the guidelines of published domestic advice books for a family of modestly prosperous means and the relative informality of the New England Countryside.”
