Wedding Dress of Margaret A. Heminway

VC1992087

Wedding Dress of Margaret A. Heminway

Dress of cream silk taffeta; lining made of off-white polished cotton; crinoline silhouette; boned bodice, barrel-chested, princess seams in back, three waist darts in front; high neckline, finished with fine piping of about 1/6"; cap sleeves with two ruffles; boning at center back and through the front; brass hooks and eyes at center back; piped waistline; very full skirt, required hoop skirt; floor length; at the waistline cartridge pleats in back and knife pleats at front; "Margaret A. Hemingway's Wedding dress, married June 21, 1854" handwritten on the boning inside bodice; dress was hand-stitched.

1854

Clothing and dress

31 inches (chest), 22 inches (waist), 56.5 inches (center front length), 56 inches (center back length), other measurements: Hem = 2 yards; 35

boning

metal

cotton

silk

taffeta

Physical Object

Pennsylvania

United States

1850s

1860s

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/

For Better and For Worse

© Vassar College Costume Collection. Images in this collection may be used for teaching, classroom presentation, and research purposes only. For other reuse, reproduction and publication of these images, contact costumeshop@vassar.edu.

VC1992087

Arden Kirkland 4/18/1993; Turpin, Thompson, Boesche, Starr 3/3/2010; Alexandra Figler, 1/24/14

cream

hand sewing

hoopskirt

hooks and eyes

center back closure

cap sleeve

natural waistline

pleated skirt

floor length

lining

31

22

56.5

56

Hem = 2 yards; 35

31 inches (chest), 22 inches (waist), 56.5 inches (center front length), 56 inches (center back length), other measurements: Hem = 2 yards; 35

"Margaret A. Heminway's wedding dress, married June 21, 1854" handwritten on boning inside bodice

Margaret A. Heminway

Bonder 385 (1850-60)Bradfield, 195-6 91856-7)Collard ???, plate after p. 21 (1861)Fe;ger 8 (1854, 1855)???

1854

1854

American

womenswear

costume

clothing

Wedding

wedding clothes

Vassar Girls and Other Women

One of the fascinations of this dress comes from the fact that the bride's name is recorded on the inside of the dress, with 'Margaret A. Heminway's wedding dress, married June 21, 1854'handwritten in ink on the boning inside the bodice. Genealogical records indicate that she married Alfred W. Sansbury in Palmyra, New York. Their daughter, Mary Louise Sansbury, married Herbert Elmer Mills who became Vassar Professor of Economics in 1890. Although the date of this dress precedes the founding of Vassar, this piece is in exquisite condition and therefore serves as a valuable example of the early crinoline period. The fullness of the crinoline skirt is balanced with simplicity elsewhere in the dress. While the mere size of the skirt would serve to focus attention on the bride, allowing her to take up a great deal of space on her very important day, the absence of elaborate trimmings would not draw further attention away from the bride's own beauty. 

very good

detached pleats at center front; staining at armpits, mostly at interior; discoloring near hooks and eyes

The padded wooden mannequin was re-shaped and re-padded to better fit this dress. A net hoop skirt was dressed on the mannequin to provide a foundation garment, but the shape was too conical and not rounded enough at the top, so tissue paper was inserted between the hoop and the skirt fabric to round out the shape over the hips and soften the edges of the metal hoops underneath (as a proper petticoat would have done).

Margaret

B1

Vassar College Costume Collection, Drama Department, 124 Raymond Avenue, Poughkeepsie, NY 12604

from 'Vassar Girls and Other Women: 1854-1925'exhibition, June 1993:241854 ivory silk taffeta wedding dress of Margaret A, Heminway1992.87Handwriting on the boning inside the bodice of the dress reads:'Margaret A. Heminway's wedding dress / married June 21, 1854.'In this, dress, the fullness of the crinoline skirt is balanced with simplicity elsewhere in the dress. While the mere size of the skirt would serve to focus attention on the bride, allowing her to take up a great deal of space on her very important day, the absence of elaborate trimmings would not draw further attention away from the bride's own beauty. Although the date of this dress precedes the founding of Vassar, as the earliest documented object in the VCCC, this piece is in exquisite condition and therefore serves as a valuable example of the early crinoline period.

dress