South Union Shaker Village, Kentucky

As part of the recent Costume Society of America Southeast Region Symposium, we were treated to a visit to the South Union Shaker Village. The Shakers are not to be confused with the Quakers, nor with the Amish, which we were told was a common misconception. I’m not going to go into a long explanation of who the Shakers were, but simply put, they were a Christian group that believed in celibacy and communal living. Like the Quakers, their religious practice involved physical movements. Unlike the Quakers, they lived in communal housing and were not married. They are confused with the Amish due to an emphasis on handcrafted items and “old-fashioned” clothing. In the case of the Amish, they are associated with a way of life that does not include modern technology.

The Shakers embraced technology. Their craftsmanship came about through need of furnishings. Once they could buy things more cheaply, they made fewer of their belongings. As for the clothing, the Shakers adhered to a dress code of sorts, but they were aware of changing fashions and made modifications to their dress. They look old-fashioned to us because by the turn of the twentieth century, the Shakers were dying out. Most of our images of them show them in their nineteenth century clothing.

This large building is the Center House where the Shakers all lived, women on one side and men on the other. There was a kitchen, dining room, infirmary, and laundry in this building as well. Construction began in 1822, and this was always the main building in the village. Unfortunately when the village closed in the early 1920s, the land and buildings were sold and many were torn down.

There were several huge auctions of the contents of the buildings, and so the Shakers’ things were dispersed throughout the region. When interest in restoring the remaining buildings happened in the 1960s, the non-profit in charge began collecting back things that were made or used in the Shaker Village. This task was helped by the organizational habits of the Shakers. They believed that everything had a proper place, and things were labeled to show where things belonged.

A great example was in their textiles. Over the early years of the village the Shaker women produced wool, cotton, linen, and even silk textiles. Each was identified as to where it was used and stored.

We were quite privileged to see these textiles as they are not normally on display. The director got them out of storage just for our group.

Of particular interest were the silk kerchiefs. The Shakers began working with silk worms starting in the 1820s, and the project was mildly successful at South Union. In 1832 they had produced enough silk fabric to make each female member a silk kerchief, and each male member a silk tie.

As you can see, the Shakers were not opposed to using color in their clothing. They used both natural, and when they became available, aniline dyes.

After manufactured textiles became available, the Shakers started buying them instead of continuing with the labor-intensive process of making their own. Some of the equipment they used has been located and is on display in the Center House.

In the early years of South Union, the rooms and furnishings must have looked similar to this room. Most of the furnishings seem to be made by the Shakers.

As time went on and the Shakers were able to purchase goods, their rooms looked more like fashionable Victorian bedrooms. In the process of buying back the items that were used at South Union, items that were not made by the Shakers were also acquired. The re-acquisition started about only forty years after the village broke up, so they were able to buy back many items from the people who had bought them from the auctions in the early 1920s.

When not in use, chairs were hung on pegs to get them out of the way.

Before visiting South Union, I reread the wonderful Shaker Textile Arts by Beverly Gordon. It really helped me understand what I was seeing during the visit. There are Shaker villages scattered throughout the Northeast and eastern Midwest. Another one in Kentucky is Pleasant Hill. It even allows for overnight stays. I highly recommend it.

Whitework at the Kentucky Museum

Another exhibition I saw on my recent visit to the Kentucky Museum in Bowling Green was a presentation of the museum’s collection of 19th century whitework. I learned that whitework encompasses quite a few techniques – weaving, quilting, tufting, and embroidery. The common factor is that the work is white on white.

Many of the pieces have been recently conserved by Margaret Ordonez, who taught conservation for many years at the University of Rhode Island. She has retired, and is back in her native Tennessee where she has set up her own textile conservation service. Margaret presented her work at the Costume Society Symposium, giving us a good look at the work involved in conserving the pieces.

The building housing the Kentucky Museum was built in the 1940s, and this room was once an old-school type display area with shelves to hold artifacts. Some time ago it was renovated to make a gallery specifically for the display of textiles. Today it has areas that are enclosed in glass, slanted boards to more safely exhibit textiles, and raised platforms. I especially loved that many of the quilts and coverlets on display were shown as they were meant to be seen, dressing beds.

To visitors passing through an exhibition like this one, it must seem that people of the past sure did take great care of their stuff. What’s not seen are the many hours of cleaning and stabilization it takes in order to be able to display a two hundred year old textile. Part of this exhibition actually addressed the process of conservation, and there were several unconserved bed coverings on display.

This embroidered counterpane was made by Sallie Darrough and is in the collection of the Kentucky Historical Society. As you can see, it had not been cleaned. This is closer to the condition textiles of this age are most likely to be found.

So how does one clean a fragile old textile? Because these are cotton and cotton/linen blends, wet cleaning is appropriate. That does not mean Margaret threw them into the washing machine. Conservators use large tables with an edge (like a very shallow tub) for wet cleaning. The textile is spread out on the table and water and cleaning agents are introduced. This is a job for a chemist, as it’s important to use things that will not do any further damage.

Not every conserved textile ends up looking brand new. Stains can be stubborn, and lightening and neutralizing it is sometimes the best that can be done. There are also rips and holes to deal with. Often the best solution is to back the textile with a similar fabric and use stitches to stabilize the rip.

This is a closeup of a whole cloth quilt made circa 1805 by Rebecca Smith Washington. She used a technique that mimicked British woven quilts. This quilt looks to be made of cotton, but Margaret’s microscopic analysis shows this to be a cotton/linen blend.

Some of the bed coverings were simply one layer of fabric that were embroidered.

Others were tufted, similar to the 20th century colonial revival bedspreads made in north Georgia.

This coverlet is woven, and it’s the only piece in the exhibition known to have been made by enslaved workers. According to family history, this was woven by enslaved workers for the wedding of Mary Strange in 1823.

It was fun to see a few items of white clothing in the display cases. According to the family story, these linen trousers were worn by Abraham Miller in 1800 for his wedding.

Often, artifacts are donated to museums along with long-told family stories. This early 19th century Empire style dress was said to have been worn by Catharine Whitesides on her wedding day. But Margaret was not born until 1824, and by the time she married the dress would have been twenty-five or so years out of fashion. Perhaps it was worn by her mother.

Mammoth Cave Costume

Unidentified Mammoth Cave Costume, Library Special Collections, Western Kentucky University

Another presentation that focused on the history of southwestern Kentucky was given by Donna Parker, recently retired from the Western Kentucky University Library. Like most Americans, I knew of the great Mammoth Cave system, but it was a real surprise to learn that for close to a century, women visitors to the cave wore a special costume provided by the owners of the cave.

The cave was well-known by the 1840s. It was just one of many natural wonder destinations that well-off tourists traveled to experience, along with Niagara Falls, the Natural Bridge of Virginia, the Hudson River Valley, and New Hampshire’s White Mountains. Early on it must have been obvious that fashionable dress was dangerous in the cave. The owners developed a woman’s costume, consisting of a shortened dress with bloomers or trousers worn beneath.

The wearing of these costumes is well-documented in photographs, diaries, letters, and personal travel accounts. Many women expressed embarrassment at being forced to wear trousers, others saw it as just part of the experience.

Jennie Ray Younglove at Mammoth Cave

The Kentucky Museum has an exhibition on Mammoth Cave, and in it they included this photograph of a woman visitor. You can barely see the trousers beneath her skirt. One of the best sources of information were the photos taken of visitors to the cave. The WKU Library Special Collections has a nice selection of these, dating from the 1850s to the 1930s when the practice of providing costumes ended.

Kentucky Museum and Library Digital Collection

This photo is from the digital collection of the Kentucky Museum. Though undated, this photo is from around 1905, and maybe as late as 1912 or so. It’s interesting in how the costume has changed. The skirt was abandoned, the bloomers shortened. It could be that these women were accustomed to wearing bathing suits, were at that time were very similar to the cave costume.

Unfortunately, the museum has not been able to locate any extant cave costumes. It’s possible that as things changed and women became more accustomed to wearing bloomers, the oldest costumes were remade into the more abbreviated versions seen above. At any rate, there was a fire in 1916 at the Mammoth Cave Hotel, and it is possible the remaining costumes were destroyed then.

I like to think that somewhere, in an obscure collection, a Mammoth Cave costume still exists. The problem is one of identification. How would one distinguish the cave costume seen in the first photograph from a bloomer outfit worn by a dress reformer? How could the bloomers in the third photograph be distinguished from a 1905 gymnasium suit? I’m not sure it could be done.

I can only hope that somewhere one rests in a box with a note attached, confirming the garment as the elusive cave costume.

Carrie Taylor, Bowling Green Modiste

Besides presenting my own paper at the Southeastern Region Costume Society of America Symposium, I learned a lot from the other presenters and from the museum exhibitions at the Kentucky Museum where the symposium was held. Much of the content of the first day of the symposium was centered around some artifacts in the museum’s collection – clothing made by the dressmaking business of Mrs. A.H. (Carrie) Taylor. Located in Bowling Green, Kentucky, Mrs. Taylor’s was THE fashionable dressmaking establishment in town. In fact, it had clients from not only southwestern Kentucky, but also around the country.

So much of fashion history has been written through the famous designers. If you think of nineteenth century design, Monsieur Worth of Paris comes to mind. But by the 1870s when Carrie opened her business, fashion was still more of a local thing, with the town’s dressmakers reigning supreme. Not that Paris wasn’t important, it was. But fashion magazines and sewing patterns made it possible for women around the country to feel fashionable. This was especially true in a place like Bowling Green where the favored dressmaker, Mrs. Taylor, traveled yearly to Paris and to New York to see the latest styles and to purchase the latest fabrics and trims.

Carrie Burnam was born in Bowling Green in 1855. She attended the local college, and in 1878 after graduation opened a dressmaking business in her parent’s home. Even after she married and had children, the now Mrs. Taylor continued to work, expanding her business along with husband Aaron, to where at its height, they employed 300 women workers. Mrs. Taylor directed the business, advising her clients on the styles, colors, and trims for their new dresses. Trousseaux were a specialty.

The Kentucky Museum holds several Carrie Taylor garments. Interest in her work dates back to at least 1980 when Western Kentucky University professor Sallye Clark wrote and published a study of Mrs. Taylor in Dress, the journal of the Costume Society of America. Several years ago I heard an updated report on Mrs. Taylor written by WKU professor Carrie Cox at a Charlotte, NC symposium. Dr. Cox’s interest led to the Taylor garments in the Kentucky Museum being conserved with the end result being the current exhibition of the Taylor clothing.

What made the experience so great was that not only did Dr. Cox talk about the importance of Mrs. Taylor’s work, we also heard from the conservator, Colleen Callahan, who did a presentation on the work she performed in order to stabilize the garments and to make them safe for display. She had photos of the before, during, and after of the conservation process. And the icing on the cake was that Ms. Callahan was available in the exhibition, pointing out the conservation. It was an enlightening experience to see a gown go from shredded silk to display on a dressform.

This lovely silk gown was in sad condition. The bodice was very shattered, with the sleeves being thoroughly tattered. Colleen removed the off-white insets and replaced them with matching silk. Here was where having an extensive stash of old fabrics came in handy. The patterned silk was also splitting so conservation netting was used to encase the fabric, preventing any further fabric loss. The dress had been made with large facings so some of the fabric from them was used to fill in larger spaces that were missing fabric.

The skirt was in better condition, but there are a few spaces where action had to be taken. What is really amazing is that unless one knew where to look, the conservation would have totally escaped notice.

This stunning blue silk dress looks pristine at first look, but Colleen worked hours to stabilize the fabric, to rework the caps of the sleeves, and to replace shattered places with matching fabric. Fortunately, when the dress was donated to the museum it came with a length of the original fabric.

Look carefully to see the conservation net. The sequined trim was probably bought already made, and was simply applied to the dress.

Best sleeves ever.

Glass cases can be annoying to people like me who want to take good photos to share, but having these encased meant that the visitors could see the dresses from every angle, and could get close up without risking touching the fragile textiles.

Not all the clothing in the exhibition required extensive conservation. These two evening coats are in fairly good condition with just some treated holes on the white, and some adjustments made for a missing lining on the orange.

The white coat was worn by and donated to the museum by Nelle Travelstead. Nelle attended nearby Potter College and when it came time to plan her trousseau for her 1906 wedding, of course she turned to Mrs. Taylor.

There were other garments on display, including two bodices, a 1910s dress, and some undergarments. All were finely made. The Kentucky Museum is always looking for Carrie Taylor garments and paper items from the business. The label reads “Mrs. A.H. Taylor, Bowling Green Kentucky.”

In 1905 the Taylor company published a short-lived magazine. There were only two issues published before bank problems formed them out of the magazine business. As part of the exhibition, a facsimile of the Spring 1905 issue was available to visitors to look through.

The exhibition was greatly enhanced through the careful telling of Carrie Taylor’s story. Many photos and quotes from Carrie and those who worked for her really brought her to life. And for those visitors not familiar with the styles of over a hundred years ago, there were explanations of what women wore in Carrie’s day. My thanks to the Kentucky Museum for hosting us, and congratulations on a beautiful exhibition!

The Fabric of a Town, Fountain Inn, South Carolina

I recently met friend Liza in the little town of Fountain Inn, SC. We were there to see an exhibition at the local museum, The Fabric of a Town: What We Wore from 1860 – 1960. Neither of us had ever been to Fountain Inn, which is just a few minutes south of Greenville, so we didn’t know what to expect. Small, local museums like the Fountain Inn Museum try very hard, but resources are slim, and there’s a lot of making do with what one has.

That said, we were delighted with what we found in Fountain Inn. The director of the museum, Kenzie Galloway, wanted to do a clothing exhibition, but the museum’s collection did not have enough garments to put on a good show, so she reached out to long-time members of the community and asked for loans of their clothes, and those of deceased family members. The result was a well thought out exhibition, with every piece a part of the story of the town.

This is not just a clothing exhibition; it is a collection of the stories of the people who are Fountain Inn. The wearer of each item is identified, any there are short stories about the wearers presented through the exhibition space. With the exception of exhibitions that feature the clothing of one person, you just seldom get this type of provenance.

Another advantage of this type of show is that you usually can get a good, close-up look. We were especially lucky because Kenzie walked through the exhibition with us, telling us even more about how she planned the show, assembled the garments, and recorded the stories.

This dress was one of my favorites, partly because it is so pretty, but mainly because of the woman who wore it. Emmie Stewart was in her mid thirties when she agreed to marry town dentist Doc Fulmer, provided he built them a large house and that he did not expect more than one child.

The dress was bought after the wedding and was Emmie’s afternoon receiving gown.

As you can see, she got the house and the one little boy.

This garment appears to me to be a dressing jacket, or a combing jacket. There is a matching corselet and petticoat (or skirt). It was made by one of the Mock sisters, Mattie and Maggie who were born in the 1860s. Both were accomplished seamstresses, which you will see once you know that the eyelets were all hand embroidered.

The sisters never married and lived together until Maggie died in 1940.

There are also men’s garments in the exhibition. This is a class coat from Furman College (now University) worn by Fred Wood. Fred graduated from Furman in 1930.

Furman’s college colors are white and purple, and the use of them has been traced to the early 1890s. My guess that the use of light blue and black for Fred’s coat indicate this was his class’s colors, which were different from the college colors.

And yes, there was a bit of sportswear, including this circa 1915 swimming tunic and bathing shoes. Unfortunately the bloomers were missing.

And there was this perfectly charming 1960s Jantzen swimsuit with matching cover-up or blouse.

Jantzen and Catalina made a lot of these matching sets in the 1950s and early 60s. It was fun to see a set that has remained together.

This is a beautifully preserved wedding gown from 1942. It was made by Carolyn White’s mother for Carolyn’s wedding to Luther White. Note the painting. This is Carolyn’s self-portrait of herself wearing her gown.

The display includes the sewing pattern!

You really can’t take us anywhere. Liza thought the veil was obscuring the beauty of the neckline. She was right.

A big challenge to small museums in displaying clothes is that mannequins and dress forms greatly enhance the way the garment looks, but these are not always available. Some of the plainer garments were hung on padded hangers, which pretty much worked. But some of the garments were much too fragile to hang and so were put in display cases. In the case of this late 1800s dress, there was no way it could have been displayed any way except flat. The silk is disintegrating, as you can see. It’s a shame, as this was a lovely dress.

This dress sparked a lively conversation about the stories that are often attached by family members to heirlooms. According to the story this dress was worn to a garden party in 1925. I’m not saying the story is not true, but if it is the wearer must have felt dreadfully out-of-date and overdressed.

There was a bassinette full of cute little baby things. Gwen Walton’s little feet wore these beautifully crocheted slippers.

I want to congratulate Kenzie for a job well done! The exhibition is running until July 30, 2021, so there is still time to see it if you are in the Greenville area.

White Christmas: The Exhibition at the Upcountry History Museum

I’ve talked a lot about nostalgia here in the past, especially how Baby Boomers were brought up with a sense of nostalgia, not for our own past, but for that of our parents and grandparents. Growing up in the 1960s and 70s, I was fascinated by my mother’s stories of her Christmases, especially when she was a young woman living in Asheville in the early 50s. Maybe that’s why I love White Christmas so much.

I was thrilled to discover that Greenville, SC’s Upcountry History Museum was presenting an exhibition of clothing, props, and ephemera from the movie. Like most movies from the past, the costumes from White Christmas were reused, sold, and scattered over the years since the movie was made in 1954. I was surprised to learn that the Rosemary Clooney House in Augusta, Kentucky has been collecting items from the movie for fifteen years. What they have achieved in assembling a collection of costumes from the movie is remarkable. I’ll talk more about this as I show the collection.

Let me start with the costumes that probably are the most iconic – the red Santa costumes worn in the finale. These are both replicas, as the whereabouts of the originals are unknown. It is suspected that the gowns were actually repurposed into other costumes, but the evidence of this does not exist other than the fact that repurposing was a common studio practice. The Clooney House has worked closely with Paramount Studios to locate lost items, but the bright red suits and gowns seem to have disappeared.

Note the color of the replica, and the color red in this original poster. More on that later.

Here are Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen as they performed “Sisters” in the movie. The Clooney House is lucky to have both dresses.

This is the dress worn by Clooney. It evidently had been displayed in bright light and the top, while original, is badly faded. The skirt was in shreds, and had to have a complete restoration. The fan is one of two found in storage at Paramount. The other was badly broken, perhaps due to Crosby and Kaye slapping one another with it.

Vera Ellen’s dress was found in the holdings of a private collector in Texas. The bodice had been cut and badly altered into a sweetheart neckline. But the skirt was intact. Having both dresses made the needed restorations clear. Matching lace was found, and Vera Ellen’s high neckline was restored.

Note the difference in color between the studio photo and the actual dresses. Some of it is due to fading, but it seems a bit more is at work here.

Here is a set of costumes from an ensemble dance number featuring Vera Ellen. In true 1950s style, the song is about marriage, and Vera Ellen as Mandy, is a bride.

As a bride should be, Mandy is attired in white, and her chorus-girl bridesmaids are in red. But look at the costumes on display. The color difference is most obvious in the bridesmaids’ costumes, but all are considerably different in reality than in the movie. The difference could be partly due to dye degradation, but a more likely explanation was that color had to be adjusted for the technicolor process.

I tend to go with that explanation because even the matching accessories were the same color as the outfit. And I’ve never seen dye fade that uniform.

The two men dancers’ outfits are the most recent additions to the collection. We were told that the museum is actively adding to the collection, and sadly, the museum was recently outbid for a desired object on eBay

Greatly adding to the exhibition was the inclusion of enlarged photos of the actors wearing the costumes.

Another scene well-represented in the collection is the party scene where Vera Ellen and Danny Kaye announce their “engagement”. Rosemary Clooney wore this lovely dress, which is a much deeper green in the film.

This is Vera Ellen’s dress. At this point I need to point out that Edith Head was the designer of the costumes. At the time, Vera Ellen’s weight had fallen quite low, so Head used tricks to beef her up a bit. The high neck hid a thin neck, the white added a few pounds, and the swag across her hips help disguise her thinness. In recent years some have tried to blame her weight on anorexia, but there’s no supporting evidence that her weight was due to any medical condition.

This dress and the pearls were worn by the great Mary Wickes, the busybody housekeeper.

Costumes from the men in the movie are much less represented. But they were able to locate the uniforms worn by Dean Jagger, Bing Crosby, and Danny Kaye near the end of the film. The uniforms had been reused and altered by Paramount, so the museum had replica patches and ribbons made to match the ones worn by the stars.

The hat was worn by Vera Ellen, and the gloves were worn by Clooney in her famous solo night club act. The gloves were found at Paramount, but the dress has disappeared from sight.

There’s more, but these were the highlights. After watching this movie every year for decades, it was such a treat to see these costumes, and to know they are assembled in one collection. It would have been nice to see any one of these costumes individually, but how much more impactful it was to see them together. As a collector, I tend to not think of garments as “museum quality”; I tend to think more in the lines of how does a garment fit into a collection.

There are many collectors of Hollywood costumes, and I salute them for saving so many artifacts that would have otherwise been lost. The leader in this area was Debbie Reynolds, who not only saved many items, but inspired others to do the same. Hopefully, some other White Christmas items are thriving in these collections, and that they will someday make their way to the Rosemary Clooney House.

As always, seeing an exhibition is more fun with a like-minded friend. Thanks to Liza for meeting me at the museum!

Brunswick Town Historic Site, North Carolina

One thing I’ve learned about historic sites is that the smaller and more obscure places often end up being the most interesting ones. Not that Gettysburg and Mount Vernon and Independence Hall aren’t interesting – they are. But when one visits the “big” sites, one often enters with preconceived notions. On the other hand, when one visits a place barely known, then the tablet is clean, and one is free to learn about the place without the voice of one’s high school history teacher echoing through one’s head.

I did have knowledge of Brunswick. After all, I taught one year of North Carolina history to fourth graders. But in an elementary school study of our state, the story of Brunswick was just a footnote. And now I know that the importance of the site is worth more than a passing nod. And I bet that children in Eastern North Carolina get a better look at Brunswick, just as students in the western part of the state are more likely to study about Thomas Wolfe and the Cherokee Nation.

Spanish Attack on Brunswick,by Claude Howell, 1964-1967

I’m not going to try to tell the entire story of Brunswick here, because my point is actually more generic. In a time when travel is risky, seek out the out of the way places, off the main tourist trail. Brunswick Town State Historic Site is only twenty-two miles from Wilmington, but it’s a bit off the beaten path. The only people there were the few people who sought it out. That made for a great experience both inside the museum and the grounds of the village.

But calling it a village is not really accurate. To see the town of Brunswick you would have to go back in time to around 1770. Today, all that’s left are the excavated foundations of some of the sixty-odd homes that were there in the eighteenth century, plus the walls of St. Philip’s Church. What was once a thriving port on the Cape Fear River was done in by a British attack in 1776. The town was once the winter quarters of the royal governors, and one, Governor Dobbs is buried under the ruined church.

Brunswick was still a thriving port when in 1765 the local merchants staged a revolt against the Stamp Act. Why do students not learn about that in history? It’s always Boston, Boston, Boston!

But upriver Wilmington was gaining in importance, and in 1770, royal governor Tryon moved his quarters to a new “palace” in New Bern. The decline of little Brunswick was sealed when the British burned it in 1776.

The site was abandoned until the Civil War. The port of Wilmington needed protecting, so an earthen fort, Fort Anderson, was built on the bank of the Cape Fear River. It did not fall to the Union until February, 1865. That led to the fall of Wilmington several days later. With its capture, the last important port of the Confederacy was closed.

Today the earthen banks of the fort are still there. It’s easy to see from the position just how important this obscure fort was for the survival of the Confederacy. Between this fort and several others along the river, Wilmington was well protected.

The trail that circles the site of Brunswick and Fort Anderson also includes a bit of a walk by the river and a small adjacent swamp. There’s a sign, “Caution, Be aware of wildlife.” In case you didn’t realize, there are alligators in this part of North Carolina.

And we were lucky to see two babies in the swamp. Look closely! I was just glad that their mama was nowhere around at the time.

Our visit to Brunswick encourages me to see more of out state historic sites. I have a few already in mind. Brunswick was hard hit, first from Hurricane Florence, and then from the coronavirus shutdown. When visiting these small sites, visit the gift shop and spend a few dollars to help out. Books are always a favorite with me.

I felt like the museum could do a better job of telling the story of all of the inhabitants of Brunswick. There is practically no mention of the women, and the people enslaved there were mentioned mainly as being “stolen” during a Spanish raid (seen in the mosaic above} and as workers at Fort Anderson. Of course, this is how history has been interpreted for the past millennia, but let’s hope that money will become available that will allow public funded sites to do a better job of including the stories of all people.