Vivandière Items
Vivandière Items
Usage conditions apply
- Description
- Physical Description
- Housewife sewing kit of blue wool with needle, thread, and buttons. Tobacco twist. Sugar bag, coffee bag and metal can, circular lamp, and camp stove.
- General History
- A vivandière, a woman who traveled with soldiers, often provided creature comforts to the men, including sugar, coffee, and tobacco. A housewife, or hussif, was a cloth sewing kit that soldiers carried into battle. Usually made of cloth or leather, it contained needles, thread, and a thimble for mending uniforms. While it was often difficult for the public to obtain tobacco, soldiers in the Civil War found it plentiful. The U.S. Navy supplied sailors with tobacco rations and in 1864, the Confederate government did the same for its soldiers. Confederate officers did not receive a tobacco ration as they were more likely to smoke the more fashionable cigar. Sugar and coffee were generally distributed to soldiers on an individual basis and carried in bags. Coffee cans were issued as part of a mess kit for cooking or boiling, as were oil lamps and camp stoves.
- Object Name
- Housewife
- Other Terms
- Housewife; Army
- associated date
- 1864 - 1865
- Measurements
- overall: 4 1/2 in x 15 in x 1/2 in; 11.43 cm x 38.1 cm x 1.27 cm
- ID Number
- AF.17090
- catalog number
- 17090
- accession number
- 60666
- subject
- Sewing and Knitting
- Civil War
- Civil War and Reconstruction
- See more items in
- Political and Military History: Armed Forces History, General
- Military
- Clothing & Accessories
- ThinkFinity
- Exhibition
- Price of Freedom
- Exhibition Location
- National Museum of American History
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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