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Weaving Stories with the Costume Collection
Historic New England’s costume collection—which includes dresses like those pictured above—offers extraordinary details about more than three hundred years of life in the region.
The costume collection at Historic New England contains more than seven thousand items ranging from seventeenth-century christening mitts to late twentieth-century Cub Scout uniforms. These garments tell stories of how people from all walks of life dressed themselves and used clothing to express their identities, status, occupations, and circumstances. The costume collection has long been a key site of collaboration with members of the public, including researchers, artists, designers, and technicians. Over the years, these individuals have generously shared their passion and expertise with staff, strengthening our understanding of these garments, their makers, and their wearers. Whether they visit Historic New England for a day or for decades, their lives become permanently woven into the stories we tell about the collection. In the following pages, Stacy Brannan recounts a recent experience studying historic garments at Historic New England and its influence on her work as a costume producer. Julie Solz shares her memories of Sharon Ann Burnston, who left an indelible mark on the costume collection at Historic New England.
-Erica Lome, Curator
Fashioning Stage Costumes
by Stacy Brannan
Stacy Brannan has fifteen years of experience in theatrical costuming and is currently a graduate student at Boston University pursuing an MFA in costume production and a graduate certificate in museum studies.
As a costume producer, I fabricate period-appropriate costume designs for theater through patternmaking and sewing. There is no better way to learn about the ingenuity and artistry of historic garment construction than studying those within museum collections. While researching two projects, I visited the Historic New England Center for Preservation and Collections. During my visits, the staff made garments available to me to study, photograph, and measure.
My first visits were part of a yearlong study on 1830s clothing. First, I examined underpinnings and foundation garments, such as pantaloons, petticoats, and corsets. I took measurements and scaled them up to create underpinnings for myself. I returned to view dresses from the same period. While studying the dresses, I observed a recurring detail—a small section of tightly folded cartridge pleats on the back of a skirt, something I would have been unlikely to see in printed sources that typically show only the front of a garment. This year, I returned to study early nineteenth-century gowns for my thesis, “Imperialism and New England Dress.” Handling the fabrics and viewing the embroidery of historic garments revealed not only the incredible workmanship and finery of early nineteenth-century clothing, but also how colonialism introduced new materials and designs to the New England wardrobe.
My goal as a costume producer is to use my research to fashion a new garment which could have existed in the same period as those I studied, not to recreate historic garments. Most sources of historical dress provide written descriptions and front photographs, a poor substitute for the construction details revealed by viewing the actual garments. With all the information I collected during my visits, I completed an 1830s gown and am beginning an 1810s gown and pelisse (long coat) true to the period. The clothing collection at Historic New England has been an invaluable resource for research and an inspiration for my costume production.
For Good Measure
by Julie Solz, Team Leader, Collection Services
As museum staff, our favorite activities are working with the objects—caring for them when they are donated, preparing them for exhibition or photography, or retrieving them for researchers for further study. We have provided access to researchers interested in looking closely at our collections of spectacles, lighting devices, schoolgirl embroidery, wallpaper, hair jewelry, transfer-printed ceramics, and all types of clothing. They come for different reasons—for publications, lectures, exhibitions, and reproduction. It has always been an important way that we share our collections.
One such expert was Sharon Ann Burnston (1946-2022), who worked with us for many years as she meticulously examined and measured eighteenth-century clothing and accessories in our collection. Sharon came to us after she had published Fitting and Proper, her seminal volume on eighteenth-century clothing from the Chester County (Pennsylvania) Historical Society collection.
Sharon hoped that she would publish a companion book on Historic New England’s collection detailing the everyday garments of New Englanders. Together with our staff, Sharon examined eighty-five collection items including gowns, stays, petticoats, shifts, cloaks, aprons, waistcoats, breeches, banyans, pockets, ruffles, gloves, mitts, wallets, caps, and shoes. She was exacting and tenacious, counted threads by the inch, and was generous in sharing her knowledge. She created detailed patterns of the clothing so that accurate reproductions could be made. Sharon was particularly interested in the wedding dress of Deborah
Sampson (1760-1827), who disguised herself as a man and enlisted in the Continental Army in 1782. Sharon created an exact replica of the dress, part of Historic New England's costume collection, for study and one for her own use for Revolutionary War reenactments. Sharon’s estate recently gave both dresses to Historic New England. We are thrilled to have them in our collection because they are important documents for educating the next generation of textile historians and are reminders of Sharon’s exuberant spirit.
Sharon’s patterns and research can be found on her website, sharonburnston.com.
