1881 Wedding Dresses

Both of these dresses are from the year 1881. The blue dress was donated by the Donegal chapter of the DAR in 1970 and the purple silk was donated by Mrs. William Fox in 1977.

During the Victorian period the white dress fantasy developed because of Queen Victoria in 1840. This fantasy became part of many young girls lives, but this was only for those who could afford such an elaborate wedding dress. In the 1870's there was an emergence of the middle class and many women began to copy fashions from Paris by Worth. Long trains and full skirts in the back were very popular during this time. You cannot see the back of the dresses in these pictures but they are both very full in the back. They also both include beaded designs. Women of the middle class would wear their best dress or make there wedding dress that would eventually be for special occasions for the year of visits after she was married. Most of the best dresses would be a solid color that was darker so it could be worn many special places after the wedding. Blue was seen as s symbolic color because of the virgin Mary and this tradition would continue with the saying something old something new something borrowed something BLUE. From the 1870's on dresses that were worn at a church wedding were required to have a higher neck line. When the wedding was over then dresses would be remade to be evening gowns. Many brides wore their best going away dresses because they would leave directly from the wedding for their honeymoon.

1870 Mennonite Wedding Dress

This dress is an 1870 Mennonite wedding dress worn by Fannie Frey when she married Henry B. Aierstock. This piece of clothing represents a lot of Mennonite wedding dresses because many conservative Mennonite women during this time were not all wearing the Victorian style of clothing with a large bustle and perhaps large train in a wedding. In many pictures I have looked at women of this time were beginning to move towards a much more conservative form of dress because the Mennonite revivals of a more strict movement were approaching towards the end of the 19th century and I believe that this form of dress was part of it. Other Mennonite women I looked at in pictures did follow some of the fashion trends of the time including frivolous lace or sleeves, as conservative Mennonites would have called it. More traditional Christian followers did not believe in wearing any form of jewelery or frivolous attachment on their person. Even having your photograph taken on your wedding day or other special occasions was thought to be frivolous by many Mennonites. A woman of this time would have hopes and dreams of receiving a perfect dowry to begin her life as a good wife, mother, cleaner, and cook. Fashion was based upon frivolous needs that didn't need to be fully met in the Mennonite culture. The fact that this dress is of a possible silk satin material with a little laces is the addition that would have been perfect for any conservative Mennonite woman on her wedding day.

1865 Wool Print Dress

This dress is from the Civil war or post civil war period. This dress would not have been an evening gown that was worn to a fancy ball. Like the dress before it it would have most likely been worn as a day dress. This would not have quite been for working purposes, but maybe more for an afternoon with friends because of the lightness in color. It is not an expensive fabric or print because of the small floral pattern this indicates that less was needed to make the dress and it could be paneled closer together. Geometric and floral prints were one of the most popular of its time because the grometric could be easily turned inside out and the small floral could be pieced together closely, in both cases using less fabric. During this period the trend of hoops was on its way out and a flatened front was coming into style moving the crinolines to the back. I am not sure who wore this dress but it most likely would of been a woman of middle class stance with the ability to sew and construct her own dress, which most women started to do at this time because of the sewing machine and the high textile industry that need women workers during the war. The large and wide silk southern belle dresses were not the everyday occasion dresses, a dress like this was for the everyday woman who wanted look nice for less. Wool fabric was one of the four most popular fabrics used during this time along with silk, cotton, and linen. Fabrics were being finished to look like others in textile factories, but it still wouldn't have been as easy to get them for an everyday middle class woman.

1860-1865 Plaid Silk dress

This dress is from about 1860-1865. It is a silk satin green plaid dress with fringe on sleeves and attached shawl. We did not find a particular wearer or donor of this dress. This type of pattern was very popular right before and during the civil war period. In the 1850's this dress would have been worn with crinolines or a hoop under the skirt with stockings being held up by garters. By the time the 1860's came about dresses were beginning to flattened out from the wide circular trend. Petticoats, bonnets, and capes were also important trends during this time. There were dresses for mourning, parlor entertaining, and walking dresses. This particular dress would have been a walking dress for the afternoon.

FIrst Dress of Five important from the LCHS costume collection: J. Buchanan's Inauguration

This dress is made of Blue silk and black velvet designs. There is a lace collar and a large bow in the back. It was worn at James Buchanan's inauguration in 1857 at the capital in Washington D.C. The lady who wore it was Mrs. Streeter, married to Judge Farris B. Streeter who was a friend of Buchanan's. They were from Towanda, P.A. where the donator was from, Mrs. Connie Humphreyville. We are assuming in our Research that they lived there after the inauguration because Mr. Streeter may have traveled before this time for political reasons. Streeter went to Franklin academy and became a lawyer before becoming a Judge sometime after 1860. We are not sure of the exact connection between Buchanan and Streeter, but it is possible they met at Franklin Academy, which is now Franklin and Marshall.

James Buchanan had been working on his statements at Wheatland leading up to his departure from Lancaster. Crowds cheered his departure from the Lancaster Depot. The Inauguration included the first procession ever seen in Washington including more people in the capital then there had ever been before. Buchanan spoke of slavery being on its way out and how the country should at last be at peace with it's movement away from slavery. The number of people was so tremendous that many could not see the newly elected President. It would have been a rather exciting event to attend, including banners and loud cheering. We are not sure of where this woman stood as she slightly or fully heard Buchanan give his speech, but this dress represents an event that changed the course of American history, as all presidential elections do.

Organizing and Continuing of Cataloging

I have been moving forward in the organization of the Military clothing we have. We have been trying to match some files to the uniforms without accession numbers. We were successful with some of the uniforms. There are also boxes on the shelves that we have not gotten to yet, except for taken down any military uniforms we can get out of the way. While finding some accession numbers for the boxed uniforms we added some uniforms to the boxes we know that were hanging up. This will help in the process of matching up. Once all of the hanging are cataloged with the IC number ,I am using as a new accession number, and those that we can identify with accession numbers are finished we will move onto the boxed clothing. There are many boxes and this included accessories.
I feel like there is success in matching things up and organization is getting better as I go along. I feel more accomplished each time I come in and I like that. I think my experience here is not only in the cataloging process but in historical knowledge on other things at the historical society. I love asking questions and becoming more knowledgeable on history in general, not just about clothing. I think it is helping with my classes to associate things I learn in class to hear and vice versa. In my African American class we are talking about this Civil war and there will be an exhibit here on civil war clothing. We actually just found a dress that was worn at James Buchanan's inaugural in 1857. I find it amazing as how good of condition it is in after 150 years. In international terms this is young, but finding treasures like these never ceases to amaze me. There will be pictures posted of the dress and cape that includes her lace hat and leather shoes I am still searching for. It seems as if I am involved in one big treasure hunt. I am really enjoying my findings.

Hanging verse Boxed White/Cream/Brown Clothing

I have moved onto the next color for the clothes that are hanging up. All of the clothes are not hanging, most of the pieces are in fairly well labeled boxes. By working on the hanging ones first and trying to match some accession numbers it will be easier to section out what we have left to determine. The boxes may be better labeled with numbers attached then the ones hanging and will start a new section of colors.

After we go through all of the hanging costumes we will separate them by ones that have exact accession numbers, donors, or wearers and the ones we cannot figure out. This way when we begin the boxes and find those numbers the hanging ones will be left over to be either matched up or left a mystery. Right now there are a good amount of mysterious pieces because previous catalogers did not use correct cataloging methods or simply gave two word descriptions that do not lead to any conclusion of what piece it matches with, (For example there are Many white Lawn dresses with out any specific numbers or descriptions). This obviously makes things slightly difficult, but it has been interesting playing detective to try and figure things out. Hopefully as we go on and section off the things we do have accession numbers, it will begin the mathcing up process and give us more to go on.

For now I am still using the same description tag method with a new accession number and old. This is sometimes including an exact object ID number. I have been lucky to match a little more than half of the clothing I have already cataloged with old accession numbers and descriptions. This gives me hope that as I go along the process may become easier, as far as matching up goes.

Pictures of Costumes/ Cataloging

This is one of the World War 1 military jackets that I cataloged. I liked this jacket because of the insignia. A lot of the Jackets had the insignia to determine the soldiers post or division.









This is a dress that I really love. It is from the 1920's, a black velvet with peach lining and a very beautiful broach on the side. It was a piece that stood out and was also in very good condition.

We are in the process of trying to match up more accession numbers with the women's black clothing because a lot of the accession files do not have exact descriptions and the clothing does not have accession numbers attached from previous cataloging. Descriptions will simply contain the word costume or black dress, which we have a lot of. Once I begin looking at the boxed clothing it will help narrow down the clothing that is hanging up. Most of the boxes have descriptions and numbers on the outside.






This is fringe on a cape from the later 19th century. I found it very interesting and creative because of how it was processed. I think that the fabric was woven in some sort of braid like pattern and covered in a glossy substance to make them appear more paper like, almost like confetti.

Women's Clothing-Black Theme

I moved onto Ladies clothing, keeping in one color, black. I have gone through many black tops or bodices as they were called that would go with long skirts. Many were missing the skirts to them, but there have been some pairs as well. I have found in the black women's clothing that there are many capes. This brings up the question of why have so many people donated capes. The one I could find a donating file for was from a man, probably a husband or son who donated it. This is interesting to me because it was not just women donating capes, but men as well. Its a curious reasoning for why we, Americans, keep certain things to late donate then others. Capes, maybe like top hats, were worn like an everyday jacket we have today. I wonder if they were simply kept because of this everyday use or possibly because they had a special fancy appeal that was worn only for special occasions, this might have compelled people to save them because they were only used for special evenings out.

Most of the capes are in good condition and a lot of them are of velvet fabric some with sleeve holes and others without. The black capes will be an interesting part of the collection to see assessed. I wonder if in our files and research we will find a cape worn by a prominent lady in Lancaster society back in the late 19th century, where most of them are pin pointed to come from. With each part of the collection that I catalog and research there will be interesting questions like these that will help lead me to my own assessment of the collection. The five hundred pieces or so that a yet to come may help answer questions about pieces in the beginning. I am excited to see my knowledge build.

Military Uniforms and Processes

My cataloging began with Military uniforms. The uniforms were some what unorganized as far as pieces that were donated together. I first had to pick a process of cataloging, which entailed more tags and my own IC # that I could identify. This was because there are other numbers and descriptions on the uniforms/clothing from years before. My job was to decipher whether the uniforms were from a certain war or just those who served in between. Many of the uniforms were from world war one and even some from the Spanish American war.

I found a very interesting peach type shirt that contained a very old sewing kit inside of it. It was just another small treasure that makes it neat to look through the clothing, even military uniforms that I never would have put on the top of my interesting clothing list.

The process is working well with cataloging and keeping a separate description with each piece I number. This descriptions contains the year, type of material, wearer, and donor. I include any other information that might help us to link the unknown pieces to other files later down the road. I have placed the military clothing in their own section at the beginning of the storage area. Some are put aside to make room for the next part of the clothing, which is women's clothing (black) now. I will be trying to organize by color and possibly style/year once mostly everything is numbered and organized better. I am moving through the clothing at a good pace and I am excited to see the next process come to life.

My only struggle is with the types of fabric. I am going to read up on different fabrics to get better at identifying them. Women's clothing will be a challenge in this respect because a lot of them are a mixture of many different fabrics. It is very interesting to have a puzzle to fit together and I am definitely up to the challenge.

Introduction to my CLothing/Material Independent study

I have begun my journey with cataloging and curatorial work. I started my independent study January 14, the same as my other in class courses. I volunteered here over the summer so I have a good idea of where most things are, which helped when I began to catalog the clothing collection. The decision was made, here at the Lancaster Historical Society, to catalog and organize the clothing so it can be assessed in August. This cataloging and organization is job with the help of the curator, Barry Rauhauser.

On my first day I jumped right into cataloging of the first rack of clothing, military uniforms. A lot of the jackets, shirts, and pants were with out specific owner tags or great accession numbers, so my job is to go on a research hunt for background information, without background information it will be hard to say whether a Naval Jacket from World War two is worth anything or not. Each item is special, not so much monetarily, but to Lancaster county in some way. This is most of what my job entails, finding out who, where, and why they wore it.

One of the first pieces I cataloged was a Red Cross uniform worn by a woman in World War one. The piece came with an envelope attached including a name written on the front. Inside the envelope was a picture of her and other women she served with during the war. This seemed so much more like finding treasures then just old pieces of clothing. When I describe my interest to family, friends, and fellow classmates I try to present it in that light because not everyone finds things such as these as fascinating as I do. Some day I hope to work in a museum to create exhibits or possibly serve the public as kind of a history informant. I like dealing with people so some how I want to be on the public aspect of historical or museum work. I hope this independent study will put me on a solid path to attaining a career that is right for me.