The Wedding Dress Book
by
Carolyn Saul Logan
A major objective of a museum is the preservation of its contents. In the past year, Director Connie Overby and volunteers have worked to protect the museum’s collections of quilts, hats, and wedding gowns. They have stored these items in acid-free paper and boxes and muslin covers that will keep them safe from wear, sun, air, and insects. Each item is labeled appropriately.
But what if you want to actually see and study the design of a quilt or a hat? What if you want to copy the design of your great-grandmother’s wedding dress? Yes, these items are labeled properly and easy to secure from their storage place, but you have access to only one or two items. What if you want to browse the whole collection?
The answer is simple. Photograph the items and put the photos in a binder, along with all the particulars of that item. Make the resulting book available to museum visitors.
That is exactly what Overby has done for the museum’s collection of vintage wedding dresses. She photographed each of dresses and the resulting 8x10 photos are placed in a binder, along with all the particulars of that item—who the dress belonged to, when it was donated to the museum, who donated it, and any other information the tells the “story” of the dress. For example, one of the wedding dresses belonged to a bride who missed her passage to America on the Titanic. A newspaper clipping and photo included with the photograph of the wedding dress tells the story. Plans are under way to search the local newspapers for further information about the wedding event and the people involved. This, too, will be included in the Wedding Dress Book.
Other collections are made available in the same way. Pat Baker has made copies of all the photographs in the museum and these binders are available in the Research Room in the Clancy Building.
Undoubtedly more collections will be recorded in this way. Overby is working on fur items this year so eventually we will have a book illustrating and documenting the fur coats, hats, gloves, capes, and rugs at the museum. If you would like to learn more about the preservation of vintage items and are willing to assist in the process at our museum, contact Connie Overby on 332-5280.