Historic Speaker Series: Clothing and Textiles of the Meadowlands 1890-1915

This month, I gave a talk on Zoom as part of the Meadowlands Museum‘s Historic Speaker Series! This talk covered information from the 2018 exhibit at the Museum, A Stitch in Time: Clothing & Textiles of the Meadowlands,1890 to 1915.

A few highlights from the talk are shown in this month’s post for anyone who was not able to tune in virtually covering! The focus of the highlights is on bleacheries, silk production, and embroidery of the Meadowlands region.

The exhibit, and subsequent talk, is meant to emphasize the power and peak of the textile industry in Northern New Jersey during this period. While most might think of New York City as dominating the garment industry, Northern New Jersey’s silk production and embroidery work were unparalleled in the country at this time. NYC may have dominated the garment trade in terms of completing and selling finished garments, but Northern NJ was a giant in wool and silk fabric production, mechanized embroidery work, and played a significant role in other areas of textile and notion production. The exhibit and talk also bring to light some beautiful garments from the Museum’s collection and how these would have fit into the larger fashion picture, in terms of silhouette and style.

A close-up of the embroidery on this lingerie dress – discussed later in the post

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Threatening Style: Clothing Laws and Enforcement from 1880-1930

This month’s post follows suit from last month’s The Hat-Pin: Fashionably Dangerous. Below are laws and arrests as related to the hat-pin and other fashion items considered morally corrupt, impeding, or dangerous to society….

1 Shorten and Cap those Hat-Pins

Kantluze Hat Pin, “Cannot Injure Scalp, Ornamental Tops,” From @nypl digital collections. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e0-fe48-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

As the hat-pin became a formidable preventionary tactic from lecherous men, some long hat-pins became worrisome to the public for the potential damage they could inflict. Cities began enacting laws that would regulate the size of the hat-pins to prevent more serious damage. Check out some of the laws that were passed, most of which are noted in the book, The Hatpin Menace[1]:

• March 1910 – Chicago passed a law that banned any hat-pin longer than 9 inches.[2]

• April 3, 1913 – A New Jersey law stated that any hatpin which could inflict a laceration upon another person needed to be covered with a protective tip. Any violators would be fined between $5-$25.

• April 12, 1913 – In Massachusetts, a law went into effect that made it illegal to wear a hat-pin that extended ½” beyond the hat being worn, unless the end of the hat-pin was covered with a protective tip

Photographed in Tallahassee, Florida between 1885 and 1910, Alvan S. Harper (1847-1911), No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

Picturing Thanksgiving: A Stylized Past

American Thanksgiving will take place this week and this month’s post will celebrate imagery associated with the holiday. As you may have read in the previous FFF post on Thanksgiving, this holiday was instituted in the United States in part thanks to Sarah Josepha Hale – an extraordinary woman of here time (another great article on Hale from Time can be read here).

This post will explore romanticized images of Thanksgiving depicting women whose images seem to come from another era. These artistic renderings meld visions of previous decades or centuries with the date in which they were published in order to create a unique form. From these images we can see how the lines of fashion can be blurred between past and present, and at the same time, may even be part of a burgeoning new style.

Is there a more appropriate place to start than The Ladies’ Home Journal?

Costume and Fancy Dress in the 1880s

Halloween and costume were on my mind for research this month as I stumbled upon this book, Fancy Dresses Described; or, What to Wear at Fancy Balls, from 1880, by Adern Holt. “Fancy dress” was another name for costume or masquerade dress, and same for “fancy balls” as another phrase for costume balls. Fancy balls were an important part of society life in the 1880s as it was an opportunity for the well-to-do to enjoy their wealth in a playful manner and allowed some bending of the inherent fashion guidelines (while never straying too far into impropriety). Granted, these are certainly not specific to Halloween, and were more likely than not worn at other times of the year for the pure pleasure of costume dress at a social event unrelated to a specific holiday. All the same, I thought it would be fun to highlight some costumes from 1880 in contrast to the modern costumes in mind for those celebrating Halloween tonight!

Fashion history lovers will also appreciate the irony of the opening text where the author laments incorrect displays of historical dress. Too often popular media, films, etc. will produce a version of historical dress that viewers expect versus the historical reality — a modernized version that is more appealing. This author from 1880 aims to dispel any misguided ideas about “favourite” historical costumes, as well as costumes that are most suitable for “fair women,” “elderly ladies,” and “sisters,” among other categories (he is nothing if not specific). Undoubtedly though, these costumes were still designed through the lens of someone living in in the late 19th century and the influence of the 1880s can still be seen in those designs.

Anyone dressing up up as a witch or a ghost tonight? You might consider these options:

Plate XVI, Figs. 53 and 54

A Victorian Lady’s Guide to Fashion and Beauty, Book Review

A Victorian Lady’s Guide to Fashion and Beauty by Mimi Matthews covers the course of women’s fashion and beauty changes from the 1840s through the 1890s, basically the length of Queen Victoria’s reign and influence. The book speaks to a lot of what initially drew me into researching the period of 1880-1930 in terms of the dramatic changes from restrictive, complex clothing and social customs to riding bicycles and wearing looser, linear garments without even a corset for shaping (or at least without the appearance of one).

I like the opening dichotomy of the book, “Though a young and eventually transformative queen had ascended the British throne in 1837, ordinary women of the 1840s had very little freedom of their own” (Matthews, 3).  This would largely remain true throughout the reign of Queen Victoria. Women at this time anticipated that they would need assistance just to put on their clothing (which is why the closures were typically in the back) let alone doing much of anything on their own without a chaperone.