72 minute read
Screen Time
SEARCH, WATCH, DOWNLOAD
ONLINE Hear architect, professor and “perpetual student”
Toshiko Mori share why she’s fascinated by the way textiles and traditional textile techniques like weaving might be used in buildingsc
Textiles might be seen as a predominantly feminine sphere — from the preindustrial era, when women made clothing for their families and crafted quilts to keep them warm; through the Industrial Revolution, when women made up a great deal of the booming textile factory workforce; and even today, when many women enjoy textile-based hobbies such as quilting, needlework and weaving.
Textiles also provide a historical lens through which to explore ways women have pushed the envelope.
WATCH This video to learn how a blouse, made for women working on farms or in factories, and other wartime clothing can represent the wide range of roles women played in World War IIc
PORTFOLIO OF PATTERN
Ruth Adler Schnee designed colorful textiles for homes and offices at a time when those interiors were predominantly white — and at a time when most designers were men.
Explore dozens of her fabric designs in our Expert Set.
QUILTER WITH A CAUSE
Today, some women choose to use their textile skills to recognize causes they believe in or activists who inspire them. Selftaught artist and retired schoolteacher Yvonne Wells created this pictorial quilt honoring Rosa Parks in 2006.
Visit our Digital
Collections to zoom in on the details illustrating Parks’ story and the common indignities and dangers that faced African Americans.
FIGHTING INJUSTICES
In the early 20th century, the Kalamazoo Corset Co. employed a workforce of mostly women. These workers gained national attention when they formed a local chapter of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union and went on strike to protest unequal wages, unsanitary working conditions and sexual harassment.
Learn what happened on our blog.
INNOVATION GENERATION
The Henry Ford is committed to ALL audiences and to inspiring the next generation of inventors, entrepreneurs and innovators, regardless of backgrounds or barriers. Our Archive of American Innovation serves as the cornerstone for all of our innovation learning experiences, programs and curricula, which are designed to accelerate the innovative mindsets of all learners from across the globe.
Carver-Carson Society 14 Programming, Resources + Events 16
CARVER-CARSON SOCIETY
TASTE OF PLACE
Goat farmer views membership in The Henry Ford’s Carver-Carson Society as opportunity to teach others about where their food comes from
The Carver-Carson Society is The Henry Ford’s newest donor society. Dedicated to agricultural and environmental educations, it was formed in 2020. Inspired by the pioneering work of agricultural scientist George Washington Carver and environmentalist Rachel Carson, the society provides financial support for agricultural and foodways initiatives throughout Greenfield Village, including the new Detroit Central Market.
The Henry Ford Magazine had the opportunity to speak with Carver-Carson Society founding charter member Amy Spitznagel of Idyll Farms, a goat farm and creamery in northern Michigan. Spitznagel is excited about this season in Detroit Central Market in Greenfield Village and optimistic about the potential impact of future foodways programming at The Henry Ford.
MEMBERSHIP IN THE CARVER-CARSON SOCIETY
Interested in becoming a lifelong member of the Carver-Carson Society? With a $25,000 contribution to The Henry Ford, which can be pledged over five years, Carver-Carson Society members receive unlimited access to Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation and Greenfield Village for their financial support of The Henry Ford’s agricultural and foodways initiatives. To learn more, visit thf.org/
carver-carson-society.
DID YOU KNOW? / Idyll Farms opened the first and what owner Amy Spitznagel believes is the world’s only goat cheese vending machine in 2021. It is located in Northport, Michigan, at the corner of Third and Rose streets.
“IF YOU WOULD HAVE ASKED
me 15 years ago if I was going to be a goat farmer, I would have thought you were crazy,” said Amy Spitznagel, owner and marketing manager of Idyll Farms.
It’s a fairly common response when successful entrepreneurs like Spitznagel are asked about their beginnings. “It happened organically,” she added, “becoming more complex and much bigger than we envisioned in the beginning.”
What she and her husband, Mark, did know out of the gate after purchasing their former cherry/apple orchards and farm in Northport, Michigan, was that they wanted their children to know where their food came from. “We discovered that raising goats would be fun for our young children, and goat cheese would fit into the area as well — as a food reflecting the terroir or ‘taste of place’ that pairs well with other products of the region,” said Amy.
Her passion to educate others about the origins of the food we eat, the downfalls of today’s large-scale commercial farming practices and the urgent need for more regenerative farming made membership in The Henry Ford’s Carver-Carson Society an easy decision. Dedicated to growing and sustaining edible education in Greenfield Village, the society will help ensure the next generation has the tools necessary to address the critical issues around food security, food and agricultural ethics, and environmental sustainability.
Spitznagel and the other Carver-Carson Society members — a diverse group of 65 United States and internationally based individuals with a common passion for food, sustainability and building a brighter future — visited The Henry Ford in 2021 for an initial meet-and-greet. Today, foodways programming is being developed to showcase Greenfield Village and the new Detroit Central Market (see sidebar on Page 15). In the coming months, Spitznagel and the rest of the Carver-Carson Society hope to brainstorm and innovate around what additional programming could look like moving forward.
“As we practice regenerative farming at Idyll Farms, I would like to be an advocate for regenerative farming in foodways education — educating others about how rotational grazing methods increase the soil’s fertility and sequester carbon, improving the Earth’s environment,” said Spitznagel. “Farming regeneratively gives us the healthiest food and improves the planet for a win-win.”
Spitznagel sees a lot of promise for foodways programming for all ages at The Henry Ford, whether it’s talking to elementary school students about where milk comes from, sharing the science of cheesemaking or educating the general public on biodiversity and regenerative agriculture. “Just the simple act of milking a goat can make a huge impression,” she added. “I love the idea of being a part of The Henry Ford’s foodways education that teaches others more about where their food comes from and how it’s made.”
— JENNIFER LAFORCE
— AMY SPITZNAGEL
DID YOU KNOW? / Idyll Farms has won 25 American Cheese Society awards, nine World Championship Cheese Awards, five U.S. Championship Cheese Awards and a 2020 Good Foods Award.
TOP, MIDDLE AND RIGHT PHOTOS BY AMY SPITZNAGEL; BOTTOM PHOTO BY ASHLEY WIERENGA dCarver-Carson Society founding charter member Amy Spitznagel of Idyll Farms
READ The Dao of Capital by Idyll Farm’s Mark Spitznagel, who shares his appreciation of Henry Ford as a hero of capitalism and outlines what he calls Ford’s “roundabout” approach to investingc
DETROIT CENTRAL MARKET
Opened to the public in April 2022, Detroit Central Market is a reality long in the making (see story in the January-
May 2021 issue of The Henry Ford
Magazine). Built in 1860 in Detroit, the market was saved from demolition and acquired by The Henry Ford in 2003. Under construction in Greenfield Village since 2019, the market is the first permanent building addition to Greenfield Village since the DT&M Roundhouse opened in 2000. The structure is now one of the premier venues for many of The Henry Ford’s historic foodways and edible education initiatives.
For more information about general programming and events taking place in and around Detroit Central Market this summer and fall, visit thf.org.
PROGRAMMING, RESOURCES + EVENTS
What to watch, read, do to inspire big thinking
VILLAGE GOES MOBILE
THF Connect adds Greenfield Villagespecific features
THF Connect, The Henry Ford’s mobile app, is being expanded to include Greenfield Village for the 2022 season. Previously limited to just Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, THF Connect will now contain a digital version of the village map that features turn-by-turn directions and provides new access focused on the stories within Greenfield Village. This update comes first to iOS and will be available soon on Android devices. To learn more about THF Connect, the addition of Greenfield Village and how to download the app, visit thf.org/connectapp or scan the QR code.
DID YOU KNOW? / The Henry Ford has joined Museums for All, a signature access program of the Institute of Museum and Library Services administered by the Association of Children’s Museums. With this access program in place, all SNAP/ EBT and WIC cardholders, plus four guests, can gain access to Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation or Greenfield Village for just $3 upon presenting their card at any ticketing counter.
THE HENRY FORD’S INNOVATION NATION
Website makes deeper connections between TV show and collections
The Henry Ford team has been hard at work making the Innovation Nation episode web pages on thf.org a richer resource for online users, members and guests. Explore, for example, the page dedicated to the latest season — No. 8 — and you’ll find connections and links to The Henry Ford’s stories of innovation showcased on each episode. Plus, you’ll discover easy access to related blog posts, expert sets and digitized artifacts. Discover The Henry Ford’s Innovation Nation episode web pages at
thf.org/explore/ innovation-nation/
episodes. Watch the TV show on Saturday mornings during CBS’s block of educational programming called CBS Dream Team — It’s Epic. Check your local listings.
Competition returns to in-person event
In 2022, Invention Convention U.S. Nationals was back on-site and in-person at The Henry Ford. Held June 1-3, the event invited hundreds of inventors from around the country with their problem-solving inventions to compete on the floor of Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation alongside the greatest innovations in American history. To learn more about the competition and see a list of past winners, visit inhub.thehenryford.
org/icw/competitions/ us-nationals-landing
THROUGH THEIR EYES
The Henry Ford partners with local tattoo artist to broaden reach and interpretation of its collections
Carrie Metz-Caporusso is part of something new at The Henry Ford. They are one of the first local innovators and artists to help create an apparel design that will be available for purchase in The Henry Ford retail shops this year. As Zachary Ciborowski, administrative assistant and project coordinator at The Henry Ford, clarified, this partnership goes much deeper than T-shirts and tote bags. “This collaboration is fueled by a passion and a love for learning and growth,” said Ciborowski. “We are working with Carrie to create an apparel design that comes from someone local who has seen the magic of The Henry Ford and can convey their unique experience to generate new thoughts and perspectives on the collection.”
Metz-Caporusso is an established tattoo artist in Ann Arbor, Michigan, that identifies as nonbinary. They are an individual The Henry Ford has observed as always looking for ways to better themselves and their craft while challenging exclusionary traditions and practices. “It goes beyond technique into the deeply rooted elements of the tattoo world and culture, which is a topic many people are interested in today,” said Ciborowski. “Carrie firmly rejects outdated ways of thinking in favor of learning, teaching, lifting up others and daring to try new.”
Earlier this year, The Henry Ford invited Metz-Caporusso to tour the campus and search out experiences and artifacts that spoke to their sensibilities. A collection of early 20th-century tattooing materials, credited to professor Percy Waters, in the Benson Ford Research Center was eye-opening. “Having access to the Percy Waters tattoo machine and the entire associated kit was helpful in understanding the history and technique of our profession,” they said. “Access to this type of artifact has concrete benefits to the growth of our professional culture. Plus, the perspective of artists can give an institution like The Henry Ford access to a wide range of lived experiences.”
Ciborowski couldn’t agree more. “Having been with The Henry Ford for a decade, at times things can feel familiar. Moments after beginning our tour, Carrie pointed out unique patterns and textures on artifacts I have viewed hundreds of times. This perspective is so heartening and breathes new life into things and experiences.”
Metz-Caporusso is eager for the next steps. “I am excited to take the past and smash it up with the future and see what that looks like,” they said. “I think that institutions often get stuck — so it is nice, probably vital, to have a fresh perspective.”
— JENNIFER LAFORCE WITH CONTRIBUTOR ZACHARY CIBOROWSKI, ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT AND
PROJECT COORDINATOR, THE HENRY FORD
cAn artist and tattooer that identifies as queer and nonbinary, Carrie Metz-Caporusso is committed to challenging traditions in tattooing culture that sometimes stigmatize
LGBTQ+ and larger-bodied people. Celebrating — rather than concealing — plus-sized body types with custom “roll flower” tattoos, Metz-Caporusso recently donated their “roll flower” tattoo flash designs (right top and middle) to The Henry Ford. In addition, they have created original illustrations (bottom) for new The Henry Ford apparel items, inspired by their appreciation for the Predicta Television Receiver, 1958-1960 (at right), which is on display in Fully Furnished in Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation.
ONLINE Learn more about Carrie Metz-Caporusso and their tattoo art on Instagramc
ONLINE Purchase apparel inspired by Carrie MetzCaporusso designs at The Henry Fordc
ONLINE Read the blog post by Kristen Gallerneaux, curator of communications & information technology at The Henry Ford, to learn more about The Henry Ford’s tattoo-related artifacts and archivesc DID YOU KNOW? / In addition to work by Carrie Metz-Caporusso, four known tattooers are represented in The Henry Ford’s collections: Percy Waters, Harry V. Lawson, John A. Walker and William Fowkes.
A STORY WORTH TELLING
The Henry Ford acquires a massive, historically significant textiles collection and aims to share it as well as care for it
By Jennifer LaForce Photos by Nick Hagen (except where noted)
bThe Mason Machine Works Power Loom, circa 1900 is one of thousands of objects
The Henry Ford was gifted by the nowclosed American Textile History Museum.
Curate, catalog, care for and store. A somewhat simplistic summary, but with any collection at The Henry Ford, these are certainly core guiding principles and practices. After learning the story of the American Textile History Museum (ATHM), which sadly shuttered in 2016, and The Henry Ford’s mission to become a new home for a significant portion of ATHM’s collections, there is one more word crucial to this simple series — share.
As Jeanine Head Miller, The Henry Ford’s curator of domestic life, said about the landmark acquisition from ATHM, “The legacy of ATHM remains in their carefully gathered collections, now preserved in places like The Henry Ford. Our ability to tell more full textilerelated stories of design, manufacture and use has been strengthened immeasurably.”
Before closing its doors, the Massachusetts-based ATHM spent more than 50 years telling America’s story through the art, history and science of textiles. It held one of the world’s largest and most important collections of tools, spinning wheels, handlooms and early production machinery as well as more than 5 million textile pieces: printed fabric samples, domestic textiles and clothing. The ATHM staff thoughtfully and carefully placed as much of its collection as possible in appropriate museums and libraries. Today, some 95% of its holdings are now part of more than 100 other institutions’ collections — with The Henry Ford among the top three in terms of volume and diversity of what it was able to absorb.
The Henry Ford Magazine recently talked to The Henry Ford staff members — curators, conservators, collections managers, registrars, archivists and librarians — critical to this massive undertaking that began nearly seven years ago. For them, it’s a passion — one not only about preserving important objects and inspirational stories but sharing them in Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, Greenfield Village and, through digital content, with people around the world.
THE PEOPLE
WHO WAS INTERVIEWED AND WHAT WAS ASKED
Kathleen Ochmanski Assistant Manager, Collections Management
Sarah Andrus Librarian
Brian Wilson Senior Manager, Library & Archives Jeanine Head Miller Curator of Domestic Life Why us? What belongs? How do we share it with the world?
Meredith Long Director, Collections Operations
How do we get it here? What’s its condition? Where do we store it?
Lisa Korzetz Registrar Who were its previous owners? How do we identify it? How do we describe it?
Mary Fahey Chief Conservator Can we improve its condition? Should we improve its condition? How do we protect it?
How do we create space? How can we best balance density with accessibility?
THF Magazinec
Why do artifacts from ATHM belong at The Henry Ford?
MillercWe had long been aware of ATHM and they of us. Both ATHM’s and The Henry Ford’s collections tell stories of the design and manufacture of goods from the preindustrial era to the age of factory production, though ATHM’s focus was on textiles. So, when we learned that ATHM was closing and looking for homes for their collections, we reached out.
Our textile-working machinery had included some looms, spinning wheels, cotton gins and carding equipment. ATHM enabled us to make strategic additions to our collection, including a very early spinning frame, hand and power looms, and machinery and equipment related to wool production.
The Henry Ford already had a substantial textile collection, including over 2,500 garments for work, play, social events and life milestones — from humble homemade clothing to stunning couture. The ATHM acquisition doubled our clothing and textiles, adding thousands of items from the 18th century to present day. We especially loved receiving garment types we didn’t have but should as well as 18th- and late 20th-century garments less wellrepresented in our collection. Like us, ATHM valued and collected the clothing of everyday people — clothing that doesn’t always survive in museum collections in great numbers — as well as fashionable garments of the wealthy. We also received domestic textiles like linens and quilts along with furnishing fabrics.
ATHM’s rich textile collection included not only garments that people wore and/or used in their homes but also provided a window into nine New England 19th- and 20th-century textile mills through hundreds of print sample books. These books, now part of our collections, are filled with samples of printed fabric, offering a rich look at the broad range of fabrics and designs produced by an increasingly mechanized textile industry. In addition to machinery and print sample books, the textile industry story plays out in archival material we received from ATHM, such as trade literature and periodicals.
The textile industry is key to the story of the Industrial Revolution, which brought about sweeping changes in the economy and within society — transforming lives and livelihoods. ATHM is a landmark acquisition for us, one that enables us to more fully document American innovation.
bDress worn by a 15-year-old girl when she emigrated from Greece in 1914
Child’s dress, 1845-1855c
dDress with matching jacket worn by
Massachusetts mill worker, 1904 dNovelty Print, 1960s bWaitress apron, 1940s
dSample Book for Cocheco Brocade Prints,
“Thunderbolt 7764,” 1880-1885
— JEANINE HEAD MILLER, CURATOR OF DOMESTIC LIFE
PLAYING DETECTIVE
When an American flag without an ID was discovered in storage at The Henry Ford a while back, it was registrar Lisa Korzetz who was put on the case to solve the what, why and where of the mystery artifact. Luckily, she had a clue. A ghost of lettering was on the flag that read “Lincoln” and “Hamlin.” That gave Korzetz all she needed to start digging.
“I discovered there was a flag donated to us in 1941 that was related to an Abraham Lincoln/Hannibal Hamlin [Hamlin was vice president under Lincoln, 1861-65] presidential campaign event in Indiana. It had come to us with a donor letter that outlined how the flag had also been used by townsfolk as part of an honor guard when Lincoln’s funeral train made a stop in that same city years later.”
While that donor letter spent years separated from the flag it described, the two are now reunited in The Henry Ford’s collections database, giving the flag more meaning as an artifact of great significance. It is also a cautionary tale supporting why it is so important to The Henry Ford team to do its due diligence while processing the large collection acquired from the American Textile History Museum. “It’s going to take us some time,” said Korzetz. “We have over 4,000 objects that we need to physically handle, number, ID and create a record for in our database.”
dLincoln Campaign Flag, 1860-1865
THF Magazinec
What challenges did acquiring such a large collection bring to the team?
LongcThe Henry Ford is a large museum, and it’s not unheard of for us to take on such a large collection. We’ve done it before with the Michael Graves Product Design Collection, the Bruce and Ann Bachmann Glass Collection, the Hallmark® Keepsake ornament collection. We know how to move things and then manage them once they get here. What was unique about this situation was that collections don’t usually come to us because another museum is dissolving. That was heartbreaking, and we understood for everyone at ATHM that these objects were like loved ones, like a family they didn’t want to break apart.
MillercIt was a careful, complex process of decision-making that took us about a year. Most of the objects were selected on-site at ATHM during four separate trips, especially clothing and accessories. Where possible, other objects, such as machinery and tools, were selected at The Henry Ford from lists or images I took or that were provided by ATHM. Most of the decisions fell to me [as curator of the textile and clothing collections] and Marc Greuther [chief curator, vice president of historical resources and curator of design and industry], assisted by textile historian Chris Jeryan, whose knowledge of weaving and knitting machinery and tools was invaluable.
At one time or another, each curator at The Henry Ford was consulted in the decisionmaking process.
There were difficult decisions to be made. We couldn’t take everything that caught our eye. Our choices were always guided by our established collecting plans — broader stories of American life we feel are important for our collections to tell, covering industrial history, clothing and textiles as well as design, marketing, retail, agriculture, decorative arts, transportation and communication. Objects were also chosen with exhibit or programmatic possibilities in mind.
And we tried as much as possible not to duplicate things already in our own collection. Condition, of course, was an important factor in the selection process.
LongcIt took hours of logistical planning and several professional riggers to get things here. Once everything was on-site, stable and safe, we started the long process of staging, assessing, cataloging, gathering stories and building records. Things have to be looked at — for infestation, mold. Are they broken? And then everything must be cataloged. It’s like putting a wristband on a patient when they first get to the hospital. You need a record associated with every single object. It’s the vital work of the registrar. Without that first step, nothing can move forward.
KorzetzcFortunately for us, ATHM was kind enough to transfer their database, but we still have to physically handle every 3D object and create an object record in our database that includes the object name, where it was made, when it was made, who made it, its measurements. If we have it, we also record who wore it, used it or how it was made. Every object gets an ID and is numbered, providing not only a link to its provenance and description but a tracking mechanism for locating the object.
LongcAnd then there is always the issue of space — where do we put these objects that is both safe and accessible. It’s not good enough to just say we have the room. That’s like saying you have the space in your basement to safely store all the objects from your home but then nothing is usable or accessible.
Today, we are hard at work doing rehab work on storage areas in our Main Storage Building (MSB) to make them more environmentally sustainable for textiles. Much of it is currently being stored at Benson Ford Research Center (BFRC) for the time being.
A CAREFUL PROCESS
Hours of consideration and planning among curators and textile experts, including (bottom from left) textile historian Chris Jeryan, Marc Greuther, chief curator, vice president of historical resources and curator of design and industry, and Jeanine Head Miller, curator of domestic life, led to the acquisition of thousands of artifacts from the American Textile History Museum. Today, The Henry Ford staff continues the arduous process of giving every object a new ID, number and object record (right) so they can be properly tracked and located.
TOP PHOTO BY JILLIAN FERRAIUOLO; BOTTOM PHOTO COURTESY OF JEANINE HEAD MILLER
OchmanskicSpace is definitely one of our biggest challenges with an accession this size as well as one so diverse, including machines and furniture to sample books and clothing. BFRC is certainly our most modern facility, and for textiles, which are very sensitive to environmental changes, you have to have stable storage that is humidity, light and temperature controlled. To make room at BFRC, we moved items that were more robust, we added hanging racks and organized things together in different ways.
It’s a lot like a game of Tetris with the added challenge of looking for the best balance of storage density with accessibility.
Luckily, we had also just finished some of our major renovation plans at MSB when shipments from ATHM first started arriving, which gave us much-needed staging areas, especially for the machinery. FaheycWhen the collection arrived, we conducted remedial evaluations to determine condition. In coming years, we plan to more thoroughly evaluate condition and determine the best way to store them. BFRC has reliable temperature and humidity levels, which is crucial for preserving textiles. Many fabrics are inherently fragile and become increasingly so as they age. This makes them prone to fading from light exposure, mold growth from high humidity and insect infestation, which is a constant threat. Conservation, collections management and cleaning staff are constantly keeping a sharp eye open for factors that can damage these collections. It’s not uncommon for me to find a carefully labeled bag of bugs on my desk for review to determine if they pose a risk to collections.
ONLINE Read about The Henry Ford’s efforts to make the Main Storage Building a safe and sustainable facility to store artifactsc
PHOTOS ABOVE FROM THE HENRY FORD ARCHIVE OF AMERICAN INNOVATION
THF Magazinec
What are some of the key techniques used to preserve and conserve these fragile textile-related artifacts?
FaheycMuch of the conservation focuses on cleanliness. Textiles are usually vacuumed with a low-suction HEPA vacuum using soft brushes and micro attachments to remove dust, dirt and pest damage. When repairs are required, fine sewing remains the primary method of repair. When the textile is very fragile, we often cover it with a fine layer of sheer fabric that is barely noticeable to the eye. This holds fibers in place.
THF Magazinec
While a large portion of the items acquired from ATHM were 3D objects, like clothing and machinery, a great deal of the collection was 2D objects — paper, photographs, books, periodicals, trade catalogs, etc. What happens to those?
WilsoncArchives and Library staff are the stewards for those items. Archives received somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,000 cubic feet of material from ATHM, our largest single acquisition since the early 1960s. We are still in the process of understanding everything we have received. There are 42 separate collections within the larger body of archivable materials. That’s like 3-4 years’ worth of accumulation all coming to us at once. We spent a good deal of 2017 just creating space in our stacks.
We are now working on getting a handle on what we have from an intellectual standpoint, creating descriptions for those 40-plus collections and doing initial digitization of selected items, and have talked to curators and librarians at some of the other institutions that received materials from ATHM to discuss ways to digitally link our collections online. AndruscWhat’s most important to remember is that, while we process all of these materials, we are not gatekeeping them. Everything is open for research and access. It’s just a matter of improving the amount of information we have available so we can provide meaningful support. Consider that we received some 5,000 trade catalogs or that there are a thousand boxes filled with materials and fabrics from between 1850-1870. It takes time to know where to start.
THF Magazinec
What is the overall status of the project now, nearly seven years after it began?
MillercWe continue to document the collection, digitize objects, create finding aids, assess condition and rehouse objects as needed. These activities are key to preserving and making the collection accessible. A curatorial research assistant is also gathering stories of individuals associated with the objects.
LongcWith COVID-19 now hopefully transitioning from pandemic to endemic, we can really start to pick away at the process and push the concept of access. We can tackle the skeletal database records that have no depth and flush out content associated with an object.
WilsoncWe are also working with Joshua Wojick [The Henry Ford crafts and trades program manager] to create some new retail products inspired by designs and fabrics from this collection. And I’m on the hook to create a web page later this year that will help connect our materials with institutions like Cornell and Harvard, which have also acquired materials from ATHM.
CAUTION: FRAGILE
Textiles are sensitive to environmental conditions and their conservation can be challenging. Vacuuming (right) and fine sewing (above) are the primary methods The Henry Ford conservation team uses for cleanliness and repairs. Very fragile items (far left) are often covered with a fine layer of sheer fabric to help hold fibers in place.
RETAIL INSPIRATION
Joshua Wojick, crafts and trades program manager at The Henry Ford, confesses to being a bit selfish when it comes to immersing himself in The Henry Ford’s collections, especially in all of the new sample books and trade catalogs recently acquired from the American Textile History Museum (ATHM). “I love being in the collections,” admitted Wojick. “The books — you can open them and it’s just one page after another of patterns, designs and inspiration.”
Wojick has been investing time in ATHM materials since 2019 with a primary interest in textile patterns from the late 1800s to early 1900s. “What is really surprising to me is that, when you look at these items, you see how contemporary they feel. Some of these fabrics are 150 years old, but they look like they came off the line today. So much color, pattern and vibrancy,” said Wojick, who is taking that inspiration to work directly with The Henry Ford’s retail team to design unique items — such as apparel, note cards (below) and water bottles — for purchase this spring/ summer. “It really comes down to our passion for creating products tied to who we are and what we do,” he added.
To purchase products inspired by ATHM materials, visit
giftshop.thehenryford
.org. To learn more about other new retail items inspired by outside resources and artists, see story on Page 17.
ONLINE Purchase note cards inspired by ATHM materialsc
THF Magazinec
How will ATHM’s collections enrich The Henry Ford’s storytelling in the future?
MillercThey already are. Visitors can see the 1830s Throstle Spinning Frame — one of the earliest surviving American industrial textile machines — in the museum’s Made in America exhibit. Next to it is a circa 1900 power loom built by Mason Machine Works, the same firm that built the Torch Lake locomotive on the Weiser Railroad ride in Greenfield Village. A late 20th-century AVL handloom from the ATHM collection has been added to the production looms in Greenfield Village’s Weaving Shop and is used to weave fabric for making pillows. ATHM garments have appeared in our What We Wore exhibit in the museum, from an 1880s wedding dress to a man’s 1950s cabana bathing suit set. ATHM’s clothing collection has inspired designs for reproduction garments created by our Clothing Studio, including an exact copy of a lovely 1890s velvet skating dress. This reproduction garment can be seen during Holiday Nights in Greenfield Village.
And this is just the beginning. ATHM’s objects will provide rich resources for formal and informal learning opportunities for on-site and online visitors, teachers and students, through exhibits, educational experiences and our Digital Collections.
aAn 1880s dress from the American Textile History Museum collections (in held photo) was recently recreated by The Henry Ford’s Clothing Studio and worn by an actor playing the role of Mrs. Cleveland in The Disagreeable Customer, a play staged at the
J.R. Jones General Store in Greenfield Village.
1830s THROSTLE SPINNING FRAME
Made in America, Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation
COLLECTIONS SPOTLIGHT: SOPHIE & HARWOOD STEIGER
Sophie and Harwood Steiger’s Southwest-inspired textiles are a treasure trove of mid-20th-century design. In the early 2000s, nearly the entirety of the Steigers’ Tubac, Arizona, studio was donated to the American Textile History Museum. The Henry Ford eagerly took stewardship of the collection in 2017, which includes hundreds of the silk screens used to print the Steigers’ textiles, design sketches, rolls of printed fabrics, finished pieces like dresses and headbands, even the aprons they worked in — still covered in ink! The collection is a snapshot of a working textile print shop as well as insight into Sophie and Harwood Steiger’s remarkable body of work.
Harwood Steiger (1900-1980) studied design and painting at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York and then the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. His work was featured in exhibitions and art publications, and he also taught painting. In 1940, Sophie Halbwachs (1895-1979), a business teacher and avid gardener, married Harwood Steiger. In a seamless dovetailing of their interests, the Steigers formed a fabric screenprinting business. Sophie’s business acumen provided a solid foundation for the business and her knowledge of botany provided inspiration. Harwood was responsible for designing the textiles, with Sophie’s input and advice. They opened a studio and store in Tubac and focused on creating affordable artwork for locals and visiting tourists. The Steigers remain relatively unknown today because they chose not to advertise or work with interior designers. Instead, they focused their efforts on the joys of creating and of sharing their art with those who visited — an approach to be admired alongside their marvelous textiles.
— KATHERINE WHITE, ASSOCIATE CURATOR
— MEREDITH LONG, DIRECTOR OF COLLECTIONS OPERATIONS
1900 POWER LOOM
Made in America, Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation
AVL HANDLOOM
Weaving Shop, Greenfield Village
TRAVELS OF A MUSEUM OBJECT
Objects acquired by The Henry Ford from the American Textile History Museum — or from any institution, auction or private donor — go on a maze-like journey before they are put on display, digitized or placed in storage. Follow an object's potential paths.
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Curator assesses item
Shipped or dropped off Accessioned by a Registrar
WE’LL TAKE IT
Most of our collection isn’t on permanent display
We’ve loaned pieces of our collection to countless museums, including the Smithsonian Institution
Offered by donor
Pass Does it match our collecting plan?
NO
YES
Can we store it?
Pass
NO
YES
Pass Curator writes a justification and pitches object to
Collections Committee
YES
Can we appropriately care for it?
NO
Exhibit built and installed by Exhibits Team (Preparators, Installers, Conservators, Registrars, Collections Managers)
Imaged and digitized
Unpacked by Collections Management
Taken to Archivist
Is it a priority to digitize?
YES
Put in storage in Benson Ford Research Center
Cataloged by a Registrar
Most of our collection is made up of books, photographs and papers
After an object is cataloged, every move it makes is tracked in our Collections Database
Is it in stable condition?
YES NO
Taken to a Conservator for treatment
Is it a priority to digitize?
Taken to
Photography
to be captured
YES NO
Object narrative researched and written by a Curator
Managed by the Digital Team on thf.org
Viewed by independent Researchers
Selected by Curator to put on exhibit
Conservator prepares object to go on display
Exhibit created by Experience Design
2D 3D
VIEWED BY YOU
Deinstalled by Exhibits Team
Put into storage by Collections Manager
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Condition is checked by a Conservator
Sent out on loan to another museum
Loan process coordinated by a Registrar
DID YOU KNOW? / In 2021, this 1955 cabana set with shirt and swim trunks from the American Textile History Museum was part of the rotating What We Wore exhibit in Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation. The exhibit gives curators the opportunity to continually display objects from The Henry Ford’s rich collection of clothing and accessories. Read more about this cabana set and other sporty attire on the blog.
FROM THE HENRY FORD ARCHIVE OF AMERICAN INNOVATION
A CLOSER LOOK
The collections The Henry Ford acquired from the American Textile History Museum were both substantial in volume and diversity, from machinery and tools to clothing, blankets, furnishing fabrics and linens. Here are some of The Henry Ford staff’s notables so far.
DRESS TELLS A TALE
Mollie Herrington wed Rev. William Canfield on a summer evening July 1, 1886. Like most brides, this 26-year-old schoolteacher was married at her family’s home in a dress that was not white. Brides wore their best dress — whether newly made or already owned — and continued to wear it after the wedding. Shirley Powell (left) was married on Oct. 18, 1969, in her great-aunt Mollie’s wedding dress, a choice both practical and sentimental. This 23-year-old bride loved the cherished family heirloom and didn’t think she would find anything more finely made or beautiful at a price she was willing to pay. In 2019, Mollie’s and Shirley’s wedding dress and generational story, gifts from the American Textile History Museum (ATHM), were shared with thousands of visitors at Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation in the rotating What We Wore exhibit (above). Three of the four dresses displayed in the wedding-themed What We Wore came from ATHM.
1
WOMAN’S DRESS, 1970-1975
This polyester dress featuring multicolor geometric circles, squares and lines was created by Jonathan Logan, a popular manufacturer of younger women’s dresses and one of the largest ready-to-wear companies in the United States in the 1960s.
CLOSER
2
COCHECO SAMPLE BOOK, 1890
During the 19th century, New England textile mills manufactured billions of yards of fabric for the mass market, producing roller-printed cottons using increasingly complex mechanized processes. Colorful cotton prints, like those made by Cocheco Manufacturing Co., became affordable to almost everyone. The Henry Ford’s Cocheco Manufacturing Textile Print Sample Book Collection from the American Textile History Museum consists of fabric and print samples in a variety of forms, including engraver’s sheets, sample sheets, salesman’s folders and individual fabric pieces.
3
MASON LOOM
Displayed next to the Throstle Spinning Frame in Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation (top right) is this power loom (below), circa 1900. What makes it special? It was built by Mason Machine Works, the same firm that built the Torch Lake locomotive on the Weiser Railroad ride in Greenfield Village. According to Marc Greuther, chief curator, vice president of historical resources and curator of design and industry, both artifacts represent the emergence of the Industrial Revolution’s “technology transfer” — the idea that the same innovations could be used to build a locomotive as well as a loom.
4
MAN’S SUIT, 1777-1783
While the creator of this silk suit remains unknown, the ensemble’s look and design are quite stunning. According to American Textile History Museum records, an independent costume consultant observed that the breeches have a full-drop front extending from hip to hip — an unusual characteristic for breeches of this time period.
5
THROSTLE SPINNING FRAME, CIRCA 1835
One of the earliest surviving American industrial textile machines. When curator Jeanine Head Miller first saw it on-site at the American Textile History Museum, she remembers thinking, “Oh wow!” See it today in Made in America in Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation.
HARD WEAR
Entwined with a powerfully inclusive statement, workwear is a center point where music and fashion meet
By John Doran • Illustration by Janelle Barone
A
American workwear brand Dickies celebrates its centenary this year. It’s reasonable to assume C.N. Williamson and E.E. “Colonel” Dickie did not predict the epic narrative arc of their “overall company” on founding it 100 years ago. After riding out the Great Depression and switching to the production of army uniforms during World War II, the Texas firm became a national brand during the 1950s and then made inroads into Europe and the Middle East. (Texas oilmen didn’t just pack Hershey’s chocolate and 501s when they went to strike wells abroad.) But it is this clothing’s duality and durability as fashionable streetwear that makes it all the more interesting.
The brand first strode purposefully off the factory floor during the 1980s. Young fashionconscious Latinx were the first to appreciate Dickies as an aesthetic. This look was, in turn, coveted by rappers during the late 1980s/early 1990s golden age of hip-hop, with Beastie Boys, Snoop Dogg and Ice Cube embracing the logo. The thick material, designed with protection in mind, also had an almost preternatural ability to repel creases and looked great straight off the peg, especially when worn several sizes too large.
During the 1980s, skaters also developed a Dickies habit. (Way before anyone had thought of servicing this market with specifically designed attire, skateboarders also favored military and police surplus kit and kitchen uniforms — pretty much anything with a reputation for tough, cushioning, warm fabric.) And in turn, the trend found its way to pop punk fans via Blink-182 and Sum 41 and nu metal fans via Korn and Deftones. The brand remains a hit with some of music’s top names in 2022.
There are both functional and symbolic reasons for the brand’s success. Workwear, by its very nature, is hard-wearing, of course. Outfits that are designed to protect a worker from cuts are ideal for life lived on the road, where the environment of the van, the gig venue and the filling station for weeks on end, could destroy lesser garb. On this level, workwear has become something of a replacement for the leathers of the ‘60s and ‘70s. And when a brand is not only worn in factories but in takeaway restaurants and even in many public schools, it is a relatively easy way of cementing blue-collar credentials with a literal show of relatability.
It says clearly: “We may not work on the shop floor or flip burgers, but we come from the same place as you.” And even after the select few make it to the upper echelons of the music business and enjoy the luxury of nightliner buses, an extensive road crew and roomy backstage hospitality, the retention of workwear maintains a powerfully inclusive statement. In hip-hop and heavy metal, for example, where authenticity is an essential commodity, workwear suggests that the artist remains connected to their roots. In terms of fashion, workwear is quite simply an antifashion statement, similar to wearing exmilitary or thrift shop gear, not quite a militant no-logo stance, but one that is still broadly anti-capitalist and anti-materialist. These shirts are cheap and built to last after all.
Everything changes when the workwearclad musician exits stage left and heads for the catwalk or the society ball, however.
STATE OF DRESS
Dickies’ connection to music is decades in the making, crossing generations and genres, from (clockwise from top) the early days in the 1920s with Dickies’ cofounder E.E. “Colonel” Dickie (center), who had a lasting love of music, to the late ‘80s and ‘90s with pioneering rapper Ice Cube and hip-hop group the Beastie Boys.
PHOTO COURTESY OF DICKIES
PHOTO BY MARTYN GOODACRE/GETTY IMAGES PHOTO BY AL PEREIRA/GETTY IMAGES/ MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES
THE 5 “MOST TRUSTED” DICKIES WORKWEAR STYLES SINCE 1922
DID YOU KNOW? / To celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2022, Dickies created its 100th Collection, an apparel portfolio that revisits and reimagines Dickies’ heritage pieces, such as denim overalls. The apparel giant is also making a documentary in partnership with Vice TV, publishing a special-edition book with artist and illustrator Lucas Beaufort that features iconic Dickies apparel and launching a digital maker marketplace. Learn more by following the brand on Instagram and TikTok @dickies and visiting dickies.com.
EISENHOWER JACKETS
874 WORK PANTS WORK SHIRTS
BIB OVERALLS COVERALLS
YESTERDAY, TODAY
Dickies apparel (being sewn in the vintage photo at far left), has always been known for its ruggedness and durability, qualities that first attracted skateboarders in the 1980s. Dickies celebrates this affinity with its official Dickies Skate Team, which includes skater Vincent Alvarez (left).
PHOTOS COURTESY OF DICKIES
MAKE A STATEMENT
Arguably the next symbolic shift in the meaning of workwear in a music context happened on May 6, 2019, when Kanye West attended the Met Gala wearing a $43 Dickies jacket. That year’s theme of camp had driven other attendees to even greater extremes of extravagance than usual, making red carpet footage from the event look like a deleted scene from a highbudget Luc Besson sci-fi movie, throwing the rapper’s utilitarian, monotone outfit into terrifyingly sharp relief. The fashion industry had been circling around workwear, poking it gingerly with a stick, for decades, but Kanye’s calculated iconoclastic statement made it a talking point, and many designers followed suit with extremely expensive adaptations of the functional style.
Fashion analysts have spun this as a consumer shift rather than just their industry’s insatiable desire to break into new markets, claiming that people are now less interested in conspicuous displays of wealth than they are in indicating a life better lived, and workwear — even if it is a costly spin on the style — signals that one is not indolent, much as an Apple watch signals a life of fitness or a Canada Goose jacket (or a luxury gas-guzzling truck) signals a life lived outdoors, no matter what the actual truth might be.
As night follows day, controversy broke out online with commentators accusing designers of promoting “class face” or the appropriation of working-class culture, seemingly unaware that some of the biggest designer names in the boutique workwear trend, such as Kiko Kostadinov, come from staunch working-class backgrounds themselves. Elsewhere the rich and comfortably off hipster demographics who buy workwear have similarly been accused of “blue-collar stolen valor” — and, for once, this is a heated social media debate that my workingclass upbringing in Britain several decades earlier has actually prepared me for.
UNIFORM OF VALUE
I was born in the northwest of England at the start of the 1970s. I spent my childhood in a small suburb of east Liverpool that was notable for one thing: It was the site of the Rainhill Trials in 1829, a competition that saw George and Robert Stephenson’s novel locomotive, Rocket, usher in the age of steam-powered passenger transport, one of the wonders of the Industrial Revolution. The world’s first train line designed for public use, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, ran past my childhood home, its momentum, aesthetic and potential, I felt, steering the direction of my life, taking me away from the colorful Celtic warmheartedness of Liverpool (where my family emigrated from Ireland) and toward the altogether more austere, monochromatic industriousness of Manchester.
From as early as I can remember, I realized there was a great symbolic value to clothes. My dad, who was born in 1934, spent every day of his working life on a factory floor operating heavy-duty compressors in a furniture factory, but he was proud of the fact he was a skilled professional in a highly stratified working-class environment. The overalls he wore every day were left in his locker when he clocked off. At all other times, he wore a pressed shirt and smart slacks with shoes. Denim — as he told me on very many occasions — was the uniform of laborers, so it boggled his mind that people chose to wear it in their spare time. He could just about handle seeing children wearing denim but would greet an adult in blue jeans with the kind of contempt that would normally be reserved for a mourner arriving at a funeral in a scuba-diving outfit.
On the few occasions popular culture crept into our unnaturally somber household, it was met with extreme hostility. All of the artists I expressed an admiration for were rebuffed primarily because of their mode of dress. Adam Ant (a naive and highly theatrical mix of Native American, Regency-fop and piratical styles) and Gary Numan (a glamorous nod toward science fiction and alienation) both spoke of a potential escape from my dour surroundings into the imagination, one childishly utopian, the other more chilly and dystopian.
But then, during my teens it dawned on me that this idea of escape may have been a mirage. The stylistic cues offered by my musical heroes became more realistic and downbeat, narrowing the distance between me and my surroundings as I drifted toward factory work myself. As an unskilled production line operative, I didn’t really draw a distinction between the clothes I wore in and out of work: All of it was pretty functional. Always too restless to submit to the tribalism of the late 1980s and early 1990s, I moved between indie rock, goth, punk, industrial and hip-hop. While punk and goth stole some of their moves from prison uniforms, hip-hop and industrial had a fascination with paramilitary outfits, and the anti-rockist indie scene favored an old-fashioned thrift store style, there was one thread that linked them all: workwear. (The style remains highly adaptable and mixable. The discerning Japanese trend for ametora, which pairs heavy workers’ denims with high-quality Ivy League jackets, coats and tops, is pretty much responsible for the worldwide revival in selvedge jeans.)
FROM THE HENRY FORD ARCHIVE OF AMERICAN INNOVATION ONLINE See more Liverpool and Manchester Railway artifacts in The Henry Ford’s Digital Collectionsc DID YOU KNOW? / The Henry Ford has one of two historic replicas of George Stephenson’s Rocket locomotive (left), which won the Rainhill Trials in Lancashire, England, in 1829. The competition was spurred by Stephenson’s argument that locomotives would provide the best motive power for the then nearly completed Liverpool and Manchester Railway (far left). With its horizontal boiler and cylinders directly connected to the driving wheels, the Rocket set the standard for subsequent locomotives. Henry Ford commissioned the replica in 1928.
dAuthor, broadcaster and music aficionado
John Doran now (top) and as a small child with his father, John Kevin Doran (above left).
The younger Doran credits his father’s views on clothing and the working class with how he drew his own distinctions growing up about workwear’s powerful place across music genres.
TOP PHOTO BY AL OVERDRIVE; PHOTO ABOVE COURTESY OF JOHN DORAN
Cargo pants with numerous pockets for tools could be picked up cheap from builders merchants or army surplus stores. There was no heavier signifier of class consciousness than the donkey jacket: the unlikely fashion item transferred directly from miners and refuse workers to politically conscious post-punk fans. The footwear that everyone wanted was the ubiquitous, but more politically ambiguous, DM. The Dr. Martens shoe or boot, which sold itself on the toughness of its leather upper combined with a cushioned AirWair sole was ideal for a life spent on one’s feet, whether working on machines or crowded into a packed gig venue. The style, especially the steel toe-cap variety, was also, unfortunately, ideal for running and street fighting, and was just as popular with Neo-Nazi skinheads and police as it was with the punks, goths and indie kids they often harassed. Dr. Martens still trade on this idea of durability and comfort combined, but they have long since solely become a high-street fashion brand. Just as England has deindustrialized on a mass scale since the 1980s, the modern, less hardy DM boot is no longer fit for its original purpose of working hard and playing hard.
By the time I finally managed to leave factory work behind and become a writer in my late 20s, most of my youthful stylistic quirks had been abandoned bar one: workwear. As I write this, two decades later, I am wearing heavy raw selvedge jeans, a Dickies work shirt and a heavy-duty Army Gym hoodie. Before I collect my son from school later, I’ll put on 16-hole cherry red DM boots and a waxed Barbour great coat. I don’t know that I need to wear these clothes in order to write, but it has, over several decades, become my uniform nonetheless.
The jeans I buy are made by Hiut, which reopened an old denim factory in the unemployment-hit Welsh town of Cardigan, reemploying clothes makers as master craftspeople in order to produce luxury jeans. As such, this clothing doesn’t speak to my working-class heritage at all but is a functional aspect of my support for craftsmanship, representing a belief that clothing should be sturdy enough to last for years, if not decades, for environmental reasons.
We now live in a postindustrial age but still suffer greatly from a misconception industrialization helped create: that it is in any way natural or sustainable for people to buy full new wardrobes of clothes several times a year.
Durability and comfort mix with a high-street fashion feel in today’s rendition of a “work boot” from Dr. Martens (above) and this reinterpretation of the donkey jacket from Simmons Bilt Clothing Co. (left)
JACKET PHOTO COURTESY OF SIMMONS BILT CLOTHING CO.; 1460 BOOTS COURTESY OF DR. MARTENS
RESEARCH The Gee’s Bend quilters to see how they have taken old work clothing, worn-out blue jeans and just about any kind of fabric they could get their hands on to make celebrated abstract quilt designs that have led to fashion collaborations with the likes of Greg Laurenc
NO IRONY INVOLVED
Steve Albini — of rock band Shellac and producer of albums by Nirvana, Pixies and PJ Harvey — wears overalls when working at his studio Electrical Audio in Chicago, but no one should assume he has his tongue in his cheek.
“The overalls came about in a natural way. I bought the building that houses Electrical Audio in 1995, and we put together a crew for demolition and construction, including Bill Skibbe, an energetic punk from Michigan. Bill wore overalls for that job, and we carried on with the habit once we opened the studio. In a construction site, overalls have a lot of advantages; they provide an extra layer of protection from scrapes, keep you warm and give you plenty of pockets for tools. It’s just a good way to dress when working in a dusty and jagged environment. I still wear one every day at work. I’m wearing one as I type this.
“I love wearing a jumpsuit at work. A lot of making a record is working with your hands, sometimes crawling or kneeling, and all the same benefits accrue. I keep my tape machine calibration tweaker in the breast pocket along with pens, a drum key in the pants pocket and a bandanna for wiping things down in the rear pocket. When I dress for work in the morning, I put on a jumpsuit and I have everything I need to get through the day. I always have a free pocket for whenever my hands are full, and if I’m on my back fixing the mic under a snare drum or piano, I never worry about losing my keys or whatever. It’s great. I recommend it. I couldn’t do my job as well without one.
“And that’s it. There’s no irony involved. It’s good, practical workwear. My philosophy about making a record has always been that you should spend your time and energy making the record, not getting in the mood to make the record. Sort your mood out on your own time; we have work to do. Spit on your hands and make the record.”
aMusician Steve Albini often wears a jumpsuit in his Chicago-based recording studio
Electrical Audio.
BRIAN CASSELLA/CHICAGO TRIBUNE/TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE VIA GETTY IMAGES
PARALLEL WORLDS
These ideas are not new, of course. You could say that making tough, good-looking, longlasting clothes suitable for work and leisure while providing meaningful employment for skilled craftspeople has long been the benchmark of Carhartt.
In many ways, the story of this American company, founded in Michigan in 1889 to make overalls for railroad workers, is similar to that of Dickies, even to the extent that their coats became popular with fans and performers of hip-hop in the late 1980s and 1990s. Around the same time, Carhartt Work In Progress was founded by Swiss national Edwin Faeh. Originally a distributor of Carhartt within Europe, in 1994 Faeh acquired the license to begin producing his own clothing collections, based on Carhartt originals. This coincided with the brand’s burgeoning association with subcultures such as hip-hop and skateboarding as well as underground European films like La Haine. In turn, this saw the two brands branch away from one another, with Carhartt catering to its original workwear audience and Carhartt WIP speaking to a more fashion-conscious crowd. By the time Carhartt WIP made its way back over the Atlantic, with the opening of a store in Soho, New York City, in 2011, the original brand was selling more clothing per capita among the workers of Alaska than any other region on Earth.
The clothes available looked ostensibly similar but were now worlds apart, having traveled along parallel evolutionary branches for quite some time. The fashion brand Carhartt WIP has been involved in many collaborations with other labels, and some, such as their recent hookup with record label Ghostly International, have been very smart, emphasizing the links between Michigan’s creativity (in this case, Detroit techno) and its 20th-century tradition of heavy industry.
Those wanting to brand workwear as a fashion statement problematic nearly four decades after the trend first emerged are — at best — looking at the situation in an oversimplified manner. Times have changed since my dad was a factory worker, and today I sincerely doubt that there are arc welders in Anchorage who care if Kanye West (or some hipster) wears a similar jacket as them. The real problems with fashion — which all of us should be concerned with today — is how the manufacture of clothes impacts the environment and how this process affects the lives of the people who make them. l
ONLINE Stream Carhartt Work In Progress Radio for a curated selection of shows from some of the world’s top music makers, label owners and DJs. New immersive shows are added every month, with track lists, artwork and interviewsc
FACES OF A BRAND
Carhartt as a brand has evolved in two distinct directions. Its foundational workwear audience remains, represented in the 1900 advertising banner and through the utilitarian design of its overalls as shown in the archival pair circa 1900 (opposite page at top). Adopted by the hip-hop culture in the late ’80s, including the likes of icon Snoop Dogg (opposite page at bottom), the brand’s Carhartt Work In Progress (modeled above and at right) was officially licensed in 1994, speaking to a more fashion-conscious, statement-driven crowd.
SNOOP DOGG PHOTO BY RAYMOND BOYD/MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES; BANNER AND OVERALLS COURTESY OF CARHARTT; CARHARTT CLOTHES COURTESY OF CARHARTT WORK IN PROGRESS
RESEARCH Carhartt Work In Progress’ latest collaboration for spring/ summer 2022 with Converse CONS. The two have created two skate performance styles building on the roots both brands have within the world of skateboardingc
REPRESENT YOURSELF
Ghostly International is a record label founded by Sam Valenti IV in Michigan in 1999 to promote electronic music but also as a lifestyle brand that would produce fashion. In 2020, the label launched a collaboration with Carhartt Work In Progress to produce a series of tops. Valenti rejects the idea of “blue-collar stolen valor” or that this clothing is a form of cultural appropriation. “I always saw the idea of Carhartt and the idea of wearing a shirt supporting Detroit music as being related in a good way. It allows the wearer to represent themselves through a sound and an image combined. When I was growing up, there weren’t that many opportunities to represent myself like this, and when I looked to the UK’s rave culture, the sound and the fashion seemed tied together. I grew up near Detroit, and the techno scene didn’t have a fashion, but the guys in [pioneering Black Detroit techno collective] Underground Resistance wore Carhartt and workwear legitimately because they were hard at work and the music they made had an undeniably labor-based energy. To them, Carhartt wasn’t a costume. They wore it in a no-nonsense way. It said, ‘I might work on my car today, and I might work on some techno tomorrow.’ It’s the same thing.
“So the clothes for the musician are the same thing as they would be if they were an operative working in a factory or a scientist working in a lab.”
ARTISTICDISRUPTORS
Indigenous fashion designers care for their communities, crush stereotypes and give voice to their culture through their craft
By Meghanlata Gupta
Across Indian Country, Indigenous peoples carry the centuries-long traditions of our communities while continuing to grow, change and imagine new futures for ourselves and the next generations. Indigenous fashion designers embody this role on a daily basis. Grounded in their cultures, these skilled artists seek to preserve and pass down the practices of their communities — such as beadwork or weaving — while developing new designs and techniques that transform the fashion industry.
This story takes a look at how three Indigenous fashion designers use art to build fashion brands, care for their communities and celebrate their traditions. In doing so, they also disrupt stereotypes about Native people and build more accurate knowledge of contemporary Indigenous life among nonNative audiences.
aFashion designer Naiomi Glasses (left) finds great inspiration from a legacy of Diné textile artists and weavers in her family. Her personal story recently took a breakthrough turn when she helped create woven pieces for luxury fashion designer Gabriela Hearst’s spring/summer 2022 collection. They debuted during New York Fashion Week last fall.
ART, Maggie Thompson / Fond Du Lac Ojibwe / Founder of Makwa Studio
EDUCATION + COMMUNITY
Every evening, Maggie Thompson takes a break from a busy day of knitwork to watch the sun go down through the two big windows at the back end of her 600-square-foot studio in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
“It’s something that I try to incorporate in my daily practice,” she said. The sunlight reflects off every inch of the cozy room, which is filled to the brim with a loom, knitting machines, cones of yarn, fabric samples and a fitness pole. Her “inspiration wall” is covered with quotes and countless photos of loved ones.
Thompson’s family has always been integral to her work as an Ojibwe textile artist and designer. Her artistic journey began at a young age, growing up in Minneapolis — a city with one of the largest urban Indigenous communities in the country — with two artists for parents. A year after receiving a bachelor’s degree from Rhode Island School of Design, she returned to Minneapolis and started her business and creative space, Makwa Studio. The word “makwa” is the Ojibwe word for “bear,” which is her father’s clan and reminiscent of her childhood nickname “Cubby.”
“I really wanted to hone in on my own design and take control of the narrative of what Native art and fashion is from my own perspective and hands,” Thompson said. The Makwa Studio website currently features outerwear pieces like beanies, cowls and hoodie scarves as well as tops and tunics that are imbued with cultural designs and references.
To create her beautifully designed clothing, Thompson uses high-quality, sustainable materials. “I don’t use any synthetic materials,” she said. “It’s wool, so it’s biodegradable. It’s water resistant, and it’s antimicrobial. So I’m really thinking about what I’m using.”
Thompson’s work challenges misconceptions about Native people. She recalled a time when a college professor asked her to put a Navajo print on an Ojibwe floral dress she made so that it would be a more “recognizable” Indigenous design, a comment that diminished the complexity and diversity of Native art practices.
“Ever since then, it’s been about education for myself and for others,” she said. “Just talking about existing today as a Native person and dealing with stereotypes and projections.” For example, she hopes to do a project that explores the differences among Ojibwe, Dakota and Lakota floral patterns.
Thompson also creates art to serve her community. At the beginning of the pandemic, she started to make cloth masks featuring ribbon, a fabric that is culturally significant for many Indigenous communities.
“The concept behind the use of the ribbon mask is to speak to the strength and resiliency of Native people,” she wrote on the Makwa Studio website. “This is not the first time we have had to survive such an event.”
She wanted the project to help people connect during difficult times of isolation. “If someone saw someone else wearing a ribbon mask out in public, whether they were Native or an ally, they would have that bond,” she said.
During the protests in Minneapolis after the murder of George Floyd, she started the Protest Mask Project. “I say ‘protest mask’ because we screen-printed the words ‘I Can’t Breathe’ on them for solidarity and gave them out at all the protests to make sure that people were masked up because COVID was still so new,” she said.
In collaboration with other Native artists in the area, Thompson put together a team of more than 40 people who worked day and night to sew and distribute over 6,000 masks.
Thompson’s work illustrates the many ways that Indigenous artists and fashion designers produce high-quality and innovative works, educate others and serve their communities.
To learn more about Maggie Thompson’s work and to shop at Makwa Studio, visit makwastudio.com and @makwa_studio on Instagram.
bArtist Maggie Thompson is set on smashing misconceptions about Native people by pairing her passion for textiles with her need to serve her community.
PHOTO BY JAIDA GREY EAGLE
ROOTED IN THE NOW
As an Ojibwe textile artist, Maggie Thompson (above) is eager to celebrate her history and heritage but equally embraces today’s technology as a viable tool of expression, too. Her work speaks to this dichotomy, including (opposite page from top) the piece In Loss, which is composed of two self-portraits weaved together and distorted to demonstrate her hysteria and anxiety over the loss of her father; the symbolic Family Portrait, representing her genetics and her exploration and questioning of ideas and systems of authenticity; and her ready-to-wear accessories, such as this colorfully patterned rickrack cowl, hand loomed on a knitting machine.
Maggie Thompson is excited to incorporate more digital approaches into her work to “move Native art and fashion forward.” In 2019, she went to Germany to study industrial knitting, which allows her to combine computerized weaving techniques with her own designs and patterns. She is currently fundraising to buy a Stoll industrial knitting machine for Makwa Studio. “Although many Native artists do create work rooted in culture and history, we are still contemporary people, moving forward just like everyone else,” she writes. “There is no reason why what is considered to be Native art cannot change or shift with the advancement of technology and new processes.”
To learn more about Maggie Thompson’s fundraiser, visit makwastudio.com/ stoll-industrialknitting-machinefundraiser.
— MAGGIE THOMPSON
KEEP THE
TRADITION
ALIVE Elias Jade Not Afraid / Apsáalooke / Beadwork Artist
Elias Jade Not Afraid realized his life’s calling while standing in a gas station in Arizona.
“They had a little magazine shelf with a copy of a magazine that had Jamie Okuma on the cover,” he recounted with a smile. “Seeing what she did with her beadwork and how she developed it into what it is today, I was like, ‘I want to do this. I can do this. I can try it and see how it goes.’”
Not Afraid started beading at the age of 12 while growing up in his great-grandmother’s house on the Crow Indian Reservation in Montana. He saw his beadwork only as a hobby throughout middle and high school, but after seeing Luiseño beadwork artist and fashion designer Jamie Okuma’s magazine cover, he realized it could be a profession. In 2016, he applied and was accepted to the Santa Fe Indian Market, one of the largest and most prestigious Native arts shows in the world — and that first year, he won two ribbons and sold out. He has participated in the Santa Fe Indian Market and various others every year since then.
If you were to stop by Not Afraid’s booth, you would see a brightly colored collection of beaded earrings, necklaces, medallions, cuffs and bags characterized by new spins on traditional designs.
“With their beadwork, the way our ancestors did things is that they just used what they had around them and evolved it as they went on,” Not Afraid said. “I took that concept and added it to my work. Why not try to innovate it and shift it, but yet keep the tradition of beading alive.”
Not Afraid’s unique designs — skulls, animals, florals and even a Star Wars stormtrooper — feature materials ranging from antique beads, smoked deer hide and elk ivory to rhinestones, spikes and Kevlar ballistic fabric.
In doing his work, Not Afraid wants to emphasize the substantial value of Native art and fashion.
“When people think about Native beadwork, it’s always like tourist and gift shop trinkets,” he said. “Beaders are trying to put out there that these are actually luxury items and heirlooms because they have been passed down generations and they are still in pristine condition.”
At the same time, he worries about the impact of climate change on the future of beadwork. Rising water temperatures and over-dredging have threatened the availability of pink conch and dentalium shells, two important materials for beadwork art.
“It’s getting harder and harder for us to get those,” Not Afraid said. “So now, whatever of the shells are left out there is what’s left. Eventually, they won’t be here anymore.”
Yet, despite these challenges, Not Afraid is excited to continue revitalizing traditional techniques, such as beading on buckskin and leather. He also encourages other Native people who may be interested in beading to try it. His advice for starting out? Collect beads, do research and do not be afraid to ask for help.
“Go for it,” he said. “The possibilities are really endless.”
For more on Elias Jade Not Afraid and to shop his work, visit ejnotafraid.com and @eliasnotafraid on Instagram.
DID YOU KNOW? / 2022 marks the 100th year of the Santa Fe Indian Market, widely recognized as the world’s largest and most important Indigenous art market. To be held on August 20-21, 2022, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the century-old market brings together the most gifted Native American artists from the United States, along with millions of visitors and collectors from around the world.
PHOTO BY THE BILLINGS GAZETTE
dBeadwork artist Elias Jade Not Afraid uses a wide range of materials to create his stunning designs, from antique beads and smoked deer hides to rhinestones and Kevlar ballistic fabric.
DID YOU KNOW? / Fashion designer and artist Jamie Okuma has work in the permanent collections of the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the Denver Art Museum and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. See a gallery of her work online at jokuma.com/gallery.
CAN I WEAR THIS?
Indigenous designers are often asked about who can wear their work. “If we’re selling it publicly, it’s for everyone,” said Elias Jade Not Afraid. “Wearing it on a daily basis is not appropriating, it’s actually appreciating the culture. Now, if the person sees something that a Native artist is selling, and then they go and replicate it, then that’s appropriation.” Artist Maggie Thompson emphasized supporting Native artists and groups, asking questions and researching the artists and their designs before purchasing. “If people are doing their research, they can educate people further,” she said.
ELIAS JADE NOT
AFRAID has always wanted to create clothing based on his beadwork. He bought a camera and taught himself Adobe Photoshop in order to take photos of his work and edit them to make printouts of his designs. In July 2021, he released his first ready-towear collection, and it quickly sold out. “I’m glad I did it,” he said. “Now I’ve kind of shifted into that realm of fashion.” He plans to release another collection in summer 2022.
BE TRUE TO YOURSELF
Elias Jade Not Afraid blends his own style and talent for beadwork with his ever-growing appreciation for his Native culture in his pieces. Clockwise from top left: Warrior women cuffs beaded on and lined with Kevlar; rosette pendant; beaded bolo cord with pink conch shell, elk ivory and antique and vintage glass seed beads with horse hair tassels; Apsáalooke-style rosette bag with fully beaded strap on smoked deer hide and lined with Italian leather; beaded earrings on and lined with smoked deer hide; and spiked ermine tail clutch with Italian embossed leather.
— ELIAS JADE NOT AFRAID
“WEAVING
WILL MAKE
A LIFE Naiomi Glasses / Diné / Seventh Generation Textile Artist
FOR YOU”
The first step is shearing the sheep, Naiomi Glasses tells me. She then shakes the dirt off the wool fleece and cards it, a process that creates even pieces of long fiber called rovings. Next, the main event: spinning the rovings into yarn using a traditional wooden spindle. Finally, after washing and dyeing the yarn, it is ready to use in her next project.
Glasses lives on the Navajo Nation and descends from a long line of Diné textile artists and weavers — seven generations, in fact. She started learning to weave at age 16 when her grandmother would ask her and her brother to help close rug ends. After graduating high school, she finished her first full rug and decided to take a gap year to explore the art further. Now, at 25, Glasses has turned it into a career.
“I ended up really falling in love with the art of weaving and trying to figure out new things about weaving,” she said. “And now we’re here, and all these opportunities have come.”
One such opportunity brought Glasses and her work to the New York Fashion Week runway last fall. During an internship with Creative Futures Collective — an organization that empowers people from underrepresented communities to be leaders of creative industries — Glasses connected with luxury fashion designer Gabriela Hearst. In partnership with Hearst and Diné weaver TahNibaa Naataanii, Glasses helped design woven pieces for Hearst’s spring/summer 2022 collection.
“The whole experience was amazing,” Glasses said. “I’m so excited that I was able to be part of the collection, and I still don’t have any words for it.”
Glasses has also designed a blanket collection for Sackcloth & Ashes, tamarack boots for Manitobah Mukluks and rugs for American Dakota. Foundational to these collaborations is Glasses’ commitment to and investment in her community. One hundred percent of the profits from her Sackcloth & Ashes blanket collection are donated to Chizh for Cheii (Diné for “firewood for grandpa”), a grassroots organization that provides firewood and COVID-19 supplies to elders in need in the Navajo Nation and surrounding areas.
“I like helping others and trying to find ways to help people in everyday life,” Glasses said. “That’s why it resonates so much with me. In a way, I can help take care of elders with the profits.”
In her free time, Glasses loves to skateboard. She started when she was 5 years old as a way to have fun and decompress after being bullied at school for her bilateral cleft lip and palate. In 2020, she went viral on TikTok after posting a video of her skateboarding down sandstone in a velvet blouse, colorful skirt and turquoise jewelry. The video attracted almost 2 million views and has prompted Glasses to post several more videos of her “sandstone surfing.”
“Before I started doing TikToks, I was more known as being a weaver,” she said. “I think that’s what shocked people when they found out I skated. They didn’t know that side of me had existed.” Most recently, she has been a voice of support for a proposed skatepark in the Two Grey Hills chapter of the Navajo Nation.
Glasses is looking forward to seeing where weaving, designing and modeling will take her in the coming years. Reflecting on the path ahead, she recalls her grandmother’s words: “Weaving will make a life for you.”
Learn more about Naiomi Glasses and shop her woven work at naiomiglasses.net and @naiomiglasses on Instagram and TikTok.
RESEARCH The Creative Futures Collective brands are dedicated to unearthing the next generation of creative leaders from disenfranchised communitiesc
NAIOMI GLASSES DESCRIBES HER
personal style as “honoring grandmas.” “I feel very inspired by how my grandmothers dress,” she said. “There’s an importance of always showing appreciation for my family before me.”
One of her favorite accessories is turquoise jewelry. “To me, my turquoise collection brings back fond memories with my grandma Nellie,” she said. “It reminds me of the women before me and their strength, and each piece of mine has a story to tell.”
WATCH Luxury fashion designer Gabriela Hearst’s full
spring/summer 2022 show, which features woven pieces that Naiomi Glasses helped design, on YouTubec
DID YOU KNOW? / The Henry Ford’s Innovation Nation episode 165 has a segment about wool carding in Greenfield Village. Learn more about this process and other artifacts related to the wool industry at thf.org/explore/
innovation-nation/episodes/wool-carding
A CELEBRATION OF ALL SIDES
Artist Naiomi Glasses is intent on expressing herself in many fashions, whether it’s by (clockwise from top left) weaving bags and blankets for sale at the Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market, doing a kickflip on her skateboard, creating patterns that morph into a blanket collection for Sackcloth & Ashes, going hands-on to shear a goat for its mohair (inset) or appearing at New York Fashion Week last fall with Gabriela Hearst (left) and TahNibaa Naataanii (right) where Glasses contributed woven pieces to Hearst’s spring/summer 2022 collection.
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