All good things must come to an end, as they say, and so it is with these Textile Tuesday posts. The last two weeks have been a bit hectic with new summer students and my having an opportunity to visit my family for the first time since the you-know-what and now I am back to say one final see you later. There’s no specific topic of today’s post, instead, I’m just going to show you how much progress we’ve made since we returned from the unavoidable break, give you a brief overview of a few neat pieces that have passed through into the new space, and generally wind things down.
We have made an enormous amount of progress in the last couple of weeks. Between Breanne helping with the cataloging and one of the Museum's new summer students, Calie, helping photograph and bag we are running at a much quicker pace and the new room is really starting to fill up. Now that we are in the sections of clothes that have been cataloged much more recently it is less likely that we will find something that has been inadequately cataloged or not cataloged at all and therefore the whole process goes quite a bit faster. So far, the new space is holding up incredibly well and I think we will have plenty of room for all of our hanging items and then some on top of that.
Throughout all of this, we have found a couple of really neat and/or gorgeous items in the last week or so that I would like to share with you here!
2008.115.2 – While it looks a little sad and droopy on the mannequin, this dress was once a honeymoon traveling outfit for Jennie Wylie after she married William Schwingler around 1890. The pair honeymooned in London, England before returning to Port Arthur where they owned the Mining Exchange Hotel on Water Street.
Check out the detail on those buttons – aren’t they gorgeous!? It’s also worth noting that the circumference of the waist of the skirt is maybe about 18” around; Jennie Wylie was a very small woman! Of course, she was likely wearing a corset at the time. This likelihood also baffles my mind because there is also boning inside the lining of the “vest” part of the top. So she would have been walking around London (in style mind you) with a corset and then with boning on top of that. How horribly uncomfortable! At least she looked good, right?
975.67.1 – This is another very old dress also from the 1890s. It was worn at a wedding in Scotland by Mrs. Mary Watson
994.71.4 – This gorgeous gown was worn by Mrs. John Paterson for an obviously very fancy event! John Paterson was the son of a local investor, Senator Norman McLeod Paterson. John enlisted into the Second World War in 1940 at the age of 20 and spent 4 years flying with the Royal Canadian Air Force. After the war, John joined his father in the shipping business which was eventually renamed N.M. Patterson and Sons Limited in 1950. John Paterson and his wife Mrs. Paterson were likely just as prominent in the community as his father had been and there were probably many opportunities for wearing a dress like this.
984.1.120 – Don’t let the badges deceive you, this was originally a standard-issue Second World War service dress uniform. There are a couple of other uniforms associated with this one and from examining them all I was able to put together a bit of a timeline for the owner, Capt. G. Smith. On this uniform, there are a number of medal ribbons above the right breast pocket, some of them are from the First World War. This indicates that Smith was involved in both wars however, his First World War medals include only the Victory Medal and the British War Medal which indicate that he did serve overseas in some capacity (it was a requirement for the British War Medal) but it was after 1915 because otherwise he would have been awarded the 1914-1915 Star as well. This indicates to me that perhaps at the beginning of the First World War Smith was still too young to enlist and had to wait until later on in the war to do so. The service chevrons on his battle dress uniform indicate that he served at least 5 years of active service and enlisted for the Second World War within the first year. He was a part of the 21st Army Group, a Second World War British headquarters formation which was assigned to Operation Overlord, the Western Allied invasion of Europe. He was also, somewhere along the line, promoted to Major. This happened after 1940 when his uniforms were tailored for him and he was still Captain G. Smith. Finally, sometime after he returned from the Second World War he became a Boy Scout Troop leader and adapted his service dress uniform to do so. It looks like he changed the buttons, added the boy scout tags, and removed most of his rank insignia just leaving his medal ribbons. From the amount of wear the uniform has on the inside, I expect he was a troop leader for quite a long time.
And there we have just a few more of the many interesting things within the collection! I hope you have enjoyed the textile Tuesday posts these past few months! I have a few weeks left at the Museum but will be shifting my attention away from social media so I can focus on getting as much clothing cataloged and processed as possible before the end of my contract at the end of the month! That said, I want to say one more big thank you to the Ontario Job Creation Partnership and the Museum Assistance Program for making this opportunity for both the Thunder Bay Museum and myself possible. And of course, an enormous thank you to the Museum itself and all the wonderful staff here for bringing me in on this project and giving me this experience. And finally, thank you all so much for reading and engaging each week; I hope these posts have offered a bit of a new perspective on some of those old clothes hanging in the back of your grandmother’s closet and all the stories they hold.
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