New Museum Website!

Sorry, this is taking the place of your usually-scheduled fashion plate. There is a new museum (partial) collection out there, available for your perusal! In the main, it consists of scans of photographs, especially ones of the Adirondacks taken by Seneca Ray Stoddard around the end of the 19th century, street scenes in Glens Falls, NY, and portraits of citizens of that town.

Caroline Agnes Ranger, 1887; CHM 1996.58.23

And I know about it because my job for the past couple of months has been to clean up the files and get the database ready for uploading. It's been a wonderful change from office work, believe me. I've gotten to know a lot of Victorian Adirondack hotels, and done a ton of genealogical research for the people files.

The benefit of having me do it is that whenever a photo is of interest to people looking for historical fashion details, it's been tagged with "Clothing & Dress" in the search terms. Check it out! I've made sure that there are even Pinterest buttons on each file, to facilitate pinning.

Friends in Council, ca. 1899; CHM 1980.77.2

At the moment, there are no objects from the collection in the online database, but that will change. On Monday I began to photograph a few smaller objects that would fit in the picture-taking area, and I hope to be able to dress some of the wedding dresses on mannequins before I leave. The Chapman has a fantastic costume collection for such a small, upstate institution, and the world needs to see it.

As you read this, I will be on the bus to New York City for a big interview. I may or may not be panicking.

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A Successful Day

Today I went down to Hudson to have lunch with a school friend (that sounds very 1930s-English, doesn't it?), and after we ate we went around to a few of the antique shops!  As I'd already bought four antique fashion magazines on eBay this morning - three were from the 1920s, so it counts as legit DressU research expenses - I didn't want to spend much, but in the last shop there were boxes of cartes-de-visite and cabinet cards.  They were priced at, respectively, $1 and $3, so I went through and picked out several that were useful research sources and a few more that were just aesthetically pleasing.

I didn't notice at first, but these two have the same backing and the same stamp on the back, so they're obviously from around the same date.  (I've included scans of all the backs with writing/printing, because it's helpful to be able to connect different typography styles with different periods.  And because they're cool.)

 

 

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Sorry, but ... Yay!

I completely forgot about posting a fashion plate this morning - because yesterday I suddenly found out that the Chapman's grant came through and they could hire me back for another three months to work on cataloguing!  I had to get up at 6:30 again and posting from the queue didn't cross my mind.  (If I could work out how to schedule posts to go up automatically, if that's even possible, that would be so great.)

And then I meant to make this apology post with a picture of this adorable Art Nouveau scale and a yarn holder, but of course I left my camera cord at work, because this is me we're talking about!  Instead I will leave you with a few older fan pictures.

These two are both from the 1910s.  The first is one of the very popular Neo-neoclassical fans which I love; the second is an advertising fan from Coney Island.

An 1880s fan with mother-of-pearl sticks and a heavy silk leaf, printed with an eighteenth century woman in a sacque.  Lovely silk tassel.

A cardboard hand fan from the Washington County fair (held in my hometown!), 1916.

More about → Sorry, but ... Yay!