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.