The Greene Collection-Men's Coats

This week, or selections from the Greene Collection features men's clothing for the first time.

It's important to note that one of the reasons that the collection is so important is because it includes a wide variety of mens clothing items from the 19th century. Typically, mens clothes are harder to find than women's, with work clothing, being particularly scarce. We'll highlight some typical work clothing in the near future.

Today, however, we are focusing on some beautiful men's coats.

Our first piece is from 1845-1855 and is made of a fine black broadcloth. It is double-breasted, has very wide notched lapels and is entirely hand stitched. The skirt and side back are lined with greenish wool or mohair brocade. The front and sides are padded and there are no pockets except for 2 hidden in the back. The buttons are cut velvet covered and the sleeve vents have 3 small satin covered buttons,, underarm seam.

Our second coat, from 1820-1825 is entirely hand stitched in a blue/white diamond twill check cotton. It is double breasted with a fairly narrow high-standing collar. There are 4 buttons on each side, round tails with self buttons at each side. It has pockets toward back. It has a relatively wide back and long, narrow sleeves with slight fullness near top. It also has a deep faux cuff with two small self buttons.

This coat, cuts a particularly fine silhouette for a gentleman.

The Greene Collection-A Child's Dress

Hello all! This blogger is back from vacation with a child's dress from the Greene Collection. While you may imagine that this lovely piece is for a young girl, you would be wrong! The actual dress is a little boy's dress, which was common at the time.

This dress is entirely hand stitched and made with a black and red spot pattern fabric. The bodice is gathered generously into the wide bound neckline which was intended to fit off the shoulder. The sleeves are short and flare slightly. The short skirt is gathered at the waistband and there is a drawstring in the back. There are 2 china hobnail buttons on waistband in back, and 4 more on bodice. Thes sleeves are edged with a dense, white hand made lace.

It came with an attached penciled note that reads: “Dress worn by Wm J. Dyer born Feb 16th -1850 June 1910”
and is from the family of Elisha Dyer, b 1811. Married Anna Jones Hoppin in 1833 and was the Governor of RI 1857-1859. His son Elisha Jr. was also the governor of RI from 1897-1900. Elisha Jr.'s son, William Jones Dyer b 1850 (original owner of the dress) married Lillian Pitman Greene. Their daughter, Anna Jones Dyer wrote some of the notes that accompanied the piece when it was aquired by the museum.

Dresses & Bonnetts-The Greene Collection

In honor of our upcoming Days of Laura Ingalls Wilder event, we have decided to showcase some items from the Greene Collection that little girls from Laura's time period would have worn. 

The first dress is a machine made pale blue cotton pinstripe from 1885. It has a princess-lined in front and is double breasted with large mother-of-peal  buttons. It has a 2-piece  belt around the back and sides where the skirt is pleated and is edged with white braid. It has elbow length sleeves with turnback cuffs and a small sailor collar that are each edged with white embroidered edging and white braid. It is for about an 8-year old sized child.

The second  dress is a more fancy (Nellie Olsen anyone? ) girl’s dress from 1875-1876.  It is a two piece princess dress of light blue and tan ‘ikat’ spot-printed silk taffeta. The top or bodice has 3/4 sleeves with ruched band above self-frilled end, finished with machine lace edging.  It has a small collar and bodice hem edged with the same lace.

 

The skirt is made of two horizontal ruched rows of blue ribbon printed with chine roses, heading a frill of same blue silk as bodice. The bottom frill is box pleated.  It is meant to be worn with hoops. This dress is from a private family with origins in Massachusetts.

 

 Next we have a simple girl's sunbonnet from 1850-1880 It is a yellow cotton print with tiny yellow-orange sprigs on buff. It is entirely hand stitched and has a narrow hem on  the 6” bavolet. The brim lining was brought around to finish the front edge. It has drawstring in rear casing. The crown is gathered at top and the brim is made of 2” sections filled with cardboard strips.

And finally, another girl's sunbonnet from 1865-1880. It is white cotton with tiny black sprig stripe. There are machine stitched rows in the brim, through a papery interlining. It has a long cape, narrow hand stitched hem,  and is front edged  with narrow hand stitched self frill. There is a bow on top back and the ties hand hemmed.

2 Ladies Hats From The Greene Collection

By special reader request, this week's look at the Greene Collection features 2 Ladies Hats. 

1845 Silk Bonnet

The first one is from 1845 and is made of a faded lavender silk satin. It is trimmed with feathers and a matching satin ribbon across head with different flat bows on either side and uses the same ribbons to tie at the neck. 

It has an unstiffened bavolet (ruffle) made of the same material amd a wired brim with a buckram form.

*Buckram is a material used for stiffening fabrics and would be used along with the wired brim to give the bonnet it's shape.

Our second example is a ladies mourning bonnet from 1845-1848.

It is  made of cane ribs and black silk taffeta and has a wired front, curved tunnel form and flared slightly at front. It has the original black taffeta ribbon draped across top with bow and streamers the left and pinned on ties The back half is lined with buckram. This bonnet originates from from Canisteo or someplace nearby.

War of 1812 Encampment / Regency Civillian Weekend June 26th and 27th

Please join us this weekend for our War of 1812 Encampment & Our Regency Civilian event this coming weekend. We have so much planned!


Visitors can enjoy a variety of live demonstrations, talk with the special 1812 village residents and witness life in the time of war in the pioneer settlements of the Genesee Country and Niagara Frontier.

The historic village will come to life with reenactors portraying shopkeepers, housewives, merchants and soldiers. Start the day off with a morning parade. Enjoy lively entertainment, military drills, live fire artillery demonstrations, military music, Austen-era dancing, games and lots of crafts and trades, many of which are unique to this era. Included among these will be the Museum's peddler's wagon! Those looking for some personal insight can even visit a Tarot card reader! Each day ends with an evening parade and Saturday evening there will be an after hours dance in the Village Square.

There will be many special ongoing activities in the village that include tailoring uniform coats, cartridge box construction, uniform and canteen construction, knapsack construction, frontier living, officer's quarters, period cooking, hornsmithing, a commissary and more.

We will also be debuting several pieces from The Greene Collection in the meeting center. Along with these pieces there will also be a display of regency costumes and military uniforms.

If you get hungry a light period tavern meal is avaliable at Hosmer's Inn for a donation. If you get thirsty, don't forget to stop in our Depot and Freight House restaurants where you can purchase our 1803 Fat Ox Ale by the pint or by the growler!


For a tentative schedule of events, click here.

A Tale Of Two Dresses

Today's features from the Greene Collection are two beautiful early 19th century ladies dresses.

The first is an entirely hand stitched turquoise green with copper roller-print on white cotton ground. It has a high waist, a gathered bust, and drawstrings at the center and base of the short sleeves and around the bust. It has a frill around hem and has a slight trained effect. Interestingly the back frill was not hemmed.

This would have been a simple day dress. It is considered important for the collection because of the use of the roller print in a day dress. For more information on roller printing, click here.


Our second dress, from the same time period (1815-1820) is also entirely hand stitched icy green plain weave silk. It has a very high waist and very long tubular sleeves which would have been worn slightly ruched on the arm. The skirt is in 3 panels and slightly gathered in front and pleated in the back.

It has a Vandyked neckline of little triangular tabs in the sleeve, forming a gorgeous cap effect which is accented with little white ribbon bows.

The stitching on this dress as well as the fact that it is made of silk indicates that this would have been considered a "good" dress and would have been worn for special occasions.

Introducing The Greene Collection!

Last week I spent some time with Patricia Tice, curator of the John L. Wehle Art Gallery and Sabrina Henneman, our collections registrar to discuss and view our recent exciting acquisition, the Greene Clothing Collection. The Greene Collection includes over 2214 pieces (it's estimated that there at at least 2300 pieces total) of 19th century clothing collected by Susan and Bruce Greene over a 25 year period.

The collection is important and special on many levels. It includes, not just dresses, but shoes, gloves, hats and much more. The collection can be easily assembled into complete outfits and things that have matching pieces, come with their matching pieces.

It is a complete collection as it contains men's and children's clothing as well. Generally men's clothing does not hold up as well as women's clothing and collections have typically focused on women's clothing because it's considered pretty and nice to look at. (Although we think the entire Greene Collection is quite nice to look at!) In addition, this collection focuses more on every day wear than formal wear which makes up many other collections.

The collection is in excellent condition and while there are a few pieces that may be in less than pristine condition, they are included because they are unusual or rare. Most have provenances that originate to Western NY and New England, as many of the New England settlers moved to the Genesee Region.

The collection came photographed and cataloged with information about each piece including historically relevant details and origins when known.

As a part of our War of 1812 Encampment, June 26th & 27th, we will have at least 20 pieces of the collection on display (and possibly more) in our meeting center. This will be the first time the museum has displayed any of the pieces publicly. Parts of the collection will also be featured in an upcoming book by Susan Green on printed dress fabrics.

This week starts our look at individual pieces of the collection.

White Cotton Dress With Tassel Ties, 1815

The first piece of clothing from the Greene Collection that we are highlighting is a gorgeous White Cotton Dress with Tassel Ties, 1815.

This dress is entirely hand stitched fine white cotton. It has a stomacher front opening with a very high waist and long tubular sleeves and a small collar. The skirt is gored and the plied string ties with tassels fasten in the front. It has domed Dorset buttons which are a masterpiece themselves!

This dress is from an Interlaken antique dealer. There are many pieces from this dealer in the collection and they all came from the same attic!

National Endowment For The Hummanities & Institute for Library and Museum Service Awards

We are pleased to announce that we have recently received two major grants that will allow us to build a state-of-the-art storage center in our John L Wehle Art Gallery for our collections of fine art and historical artifacts, including our recent historic clothing acquisition, the Greene Collection.

The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded us a $400,000 grant. In addition to that, we also received a $150,000 grant from the Institute for Library and Museum Service.

Currently objects must be stored in different areas across the museum campus. This project will allow us to more efficiently organize objects for research and exhibition in the renovated galleries and provide the storage and conditions we need to properly store them. The work will be done as part of a larger $2.5 million renovation of our John L.Wehle Art Gallery and will create the environmentally controlled conditions necessary for long-term preservation and collection care in a sustainable and energy-efficient manner.

"We're absolutely delighted," said Peter Arnold, our president and CEO. "Our storage facilities are very inadequate, that's our main motivation for getting this done. We'll begin construction in the fall. I assume it'll take a year."

The gallery is closed this season in preparation for the renovation.

Trained day dress of heavy watered silk, c1865

You can still see some of the Greene Collection here THIS season! Starting next week we will be highlighting items from the collection on a weekly basis as the collection will be unavaliable for public viewing until the gallery renovation has been completed.

For another sneak peek at the collection, check out, The Collecting Gene's interview with prior collection creator, Susan Greene.