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The Concord Museum Presents Fresh Goods Shopping for Clothing In a New England Town, 1750-1900, Final Day

July 8, 2018

- Admission

How do you shop for clothes? Do you go to a department store at the mall, buy online or through mail order catalogues, shop locally at specialty shops, or frequent consignment shops? How did Concordians in the 18th and 19th centuries acquire their clothes? Who were the style-setters?

As part of the state-wide MASS Fashion collaborative project, “Fresh Goods”, an exhibition at the Concord Museum, will examine these questions about the sources and context of small-town Massachusetts fashion and document answers by drawing on the Museum’s extensive historic clothing, textile, and decorative arts collection, as well as probate inventories, account books, advertisements, photographs, and letters and diaries of the period. Material culture historians Jane and Richard Nylander are the Consulting Curators for the exhibition. In careers spent reconstructing New England’s material past, the Nylanders have unearthed remarkable historical evidence and developed fresh and original interpretations on a wide variety of subjects.

Clothing conveys information about the wearer’s gender, age, rank, and wealth, as well as clues about subtler categories, such as taste, education, marital status, and aspiration. Through twenty evocative documented outfits, the exhibition will consider the shopping habits of Concordians in the 18th and 19th centuries. Included in the exhibition are pieces made at home with fabric purchased at shops on Concord’s main street, or made at the local workplaces of seamstresses, tailors, and milliners; or purchased in Boston, New York, London, or Paris. Through close looking at these rare and rarely-displayed artifacts, visitors will be encouraged to compare their own conventions for consuming clothing to people’s practices in the past.

The accessories and services available through the 18th and 19th-century shops on Concord’s Milldam (the main street of the town), including mantua (dress) makers, tailors, hatters, and boot and shoe makers, will also be explored. In addition, visitors will be able to virtually “shop” the Museum’s historic clothing collection through a specially designed interactive experience that utilizes an online shopping platform.

The title, “Fresh Goods”, is taken from a November 1816 newspaper ad for the Concord shop of Josiah Davis announcing the sale of fabrics such as figured flannels, crimson bombazettes, and white and black cambricks. The exhibition will be accompanied by a broad range of engaging public programs for both adults and children.

Exhibition begins March 2nd and ends July 8th

Details

Date:
July 8, 2018
Cost:
Admission
Event Categories:
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Website:
http://www.concordmuseum.org/concord-museum-coming-up.php

Organizer

Concord Museum
Phone
978-369-9763
View Organizer Website