Thursday, October 31, 2013

The Tableaux of Life Unfolds Before My Mask

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An 18 th  century English fan mask http://www.timetravel-britain.com/gallery/fans.shtml Hmm, the mask and all its...
Sunday, October 27, 2013

Silk Roads: Mapping Federal Boston at Mrs. Rowson's Young Ladies Academy

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Lydia Withington, Boston Harbour, 1799 Courtesy, www.BostonHistory.org The Bostonian Society It was one of those chance moments when...
Sunday, October 20, 2013

Victorian Architect Goes "Rogue": E. Bassett Keeling's Architectural Drawings at MIT

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During the course of my dissertation research on  William Robert Ware (1832-1915),  founder of the first architectural program i...

Is it the shoe, the stocking or the skirt?

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Each one of these vignettes from the Kyoto Costume Institute ( http://www.kci.or.jp/archives/digital_archives/index_e.html )  has the abilit...
Monday, October 14, 2013

A Quaker in China & Her 1845 Bonnet: "I long to show thee my very pretty bonnet"

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Silk moire bonnet, c. 1840 Courtesy, FIDM It was July 5th, 1843 and Rebecca Chase Kinsman (1810-1882) departed her home port...
Friday, October 11, 2013

"Such sleeves I never beheld -- complete frights!" Harriett Low and Fashion, 1830s China

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Harriett Low, 1833 by George Chinnery Courtesy, Peabody Essex Museum www.PEM.org “Such sleeves I never beheld – complete...
Tuesday, September 24, 2013

"Welcome, little stranger..though the port is block't up 1774" - Mary Rand's Pincushion

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It was Thursday, June 3rd, 1773, when Mary Simpkins married Robert Rand in Boston. Mary’s father, William (1704-1780), was a well-...