Every woman seems to search for that timeless black dress that looks fabulous and helps them feel fabulous, that they can wear for years and will never go out of style. Fortunately for Donna Weinrebe of Minot, she had no problem finding that elusive dress. In 1936, when Donna was a student at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, she wore this lovely gown to a college dance. While it was the height of fashion in 1936, this dress is still fashionable today.

Worn to a University of North Dakota dance, this timeless black velvet gown was donated to the museum collection by Donna Weinrebe in1990. SHSND 1990.253.7

This dress was made for drama. The floor-length, Grecian-inspired gown was created from a luscious black velvet fabric that one of my co-workers described as a “black hole of gorgeousness.” It is sleeveless with a scoop neck and a peekaboo slit down the back. Blousy and loose at the top, the dress is fitted at the waist and hips. A matching belt helps to accentuate the narrow waist. To not distract from the dress, the belt buckle and button at the back are covered in the same velvet fabric.

The matching bolero jacket is the one piece that dates the outfit. In the 1930s, puffed sleeves on dresses were in fashion to exaggerate the shoulder and make the waist appear smaller. These puffed sleeves were made with five rows of corded pleats to provide more volume.

Although not on exhibit in our upcoming fashion exhibit, Donna also wore this gorgeous coat made of the same black velvet and lined in white silk with the dress. The stylish, loose hood would help to keep the wearer warm and her hair in place on cold North Dakota nights. There is only one button at the neckline of the coat. The coat is held closed by ties and an interior loop at the waist.

Matching coat. SHSND 1990.253.276

The women of the Weinrebe family were quite fashionable in their day, and this dress is no exception. Few clothing pieces stand the test of time, but by leaving the bolero jacket off, a woman could still attend an elegant event wearing this dress today. No one would know her fashion dates from the 1930s. What classic pieces are in your closet?

The black velvet fabric that makes this dress so lovely also makes it nearly impossible to photograph and capture the details. It is a dress you need to see in person to really appreciate. So, visit Fashion & Function: North Dakota Style when it opens soon to see this timeless dress!

The Weinrebe women of Minot displayed an elegant sense of fashion. Here Ethel is receiving the Minot Sertoma Club’s Service to Mankind award in 1974 with daughters Nita (left) and Donna (right). SHSND 10560.0002.00

The Weinrebe women were stylish at an early age. Daughters Nita and Donna pose for a portrait with their mother, Ethel, circa 1920. SHSND 10560.0002.00026

Julius Weinrebe, Donna’s father (seated), and his friends were also sporting national trends in men’s fashion. Notice their sack suits featuring a boxy cut with a higher neck and shorter lapels. Julius’s bowler hat was also the style choice of the day. Circa 1907. SHSND 10560.0002.00016

We recently took down The Horse in North Dakota exhibit. Some colleagues and I have written about how we produce an exhibit (Part 1 and Part 2), getting the horse-drawn fire wagon into the building, trying to find artifacts for display, research about artifacts, and how we clean those artifacts. These blogs brought to your attention just a few of the artifacts we used in The Horse exhibit.

I thought I would share with you what happens to these pieces now that they are off exhibit.

For most artifacts, we check the condition report completed on the artifact prior to the exhibit. The condition report includes a description of the artifact describing all damage such as chips, dings, scraped paint, frayed edges, tears, fading of colors, insect activity, or whether something like a button on a garment is missing. When we see no changes to the item’s condition after being on exhibit, the object goes back to its storage location. We note that movement in the database and then move on to the next item. But for a few artifacts, it is not so easy.

The horse-drawn fire wagon was probably the most complicated piece to move. Bryan Turnbow, in his Jan. 27, 2020, blog, talked about how we had to use a forklift and our platform loading dock lift to get our fire wagon into the building. We, of course, had to reverse the process to get it out of the museum. It is a bit nerve racking to see such an important artifact suspended over the edge of the platform lift being held only by the tines of the forklift. Both lifts were slowly lowered with staff members standing by as spotters to make sure nothing went wrong.

Fire wagon being lowered with platform lift and forklift (1988.178.11)

I would love to say we have a wonderful enclosed trailer to safely transport the wagon to our off-site storage, but we don’t. Instead, we needed to wait for a nice day and use an open trailer. This also created moments of trepidation. An open trailer leaves the object open to many possible problems from a passing bird, to road debris kicked up from other vehicles, to the wind pulling on parts, or our worst nightmare, its falling off the trailer. All parts of the wagon were double-checked to make sure everything was secure. The tie downs were checked and double-checked to make certain they all were secure, and off they went . . . slowly. Bryan Turnbow said he “drove like I was driving Grandma around: drove slower, braked sooner and gradually, and took the smoothest roads.”

Fire wagon on trailer

Fire wagon going down the road

Fire wagon in its new home

With the skills and planning of our Audience Engagement & Museum team and just a little luck, the fire wagon reached the off-site storage, a 5.5-mile trip, safely. It now sits in preparation for the next exhibit or research opportunity.

When we checked the condition report on a few objects, the condition of some items had changed. Melissa Thompson, in her Aug. 6, 2018, blog titled “Primping and Prepping Artifacts for Exhibit,” showed how she cleaned artifacts that had green corrosion product and spue (fatty acid blooms). Most of these items that had been cleaned beforehand were great when we pulled them off exhibit, but a few were not. Stock saddle 2007.89.1 was found with a fresh outbreak of spue. According to our records, a condition report was done on the saddle in March 2008 when the item was initially brought into the collection, and spue was removed at that time. In preparation for the exhibit, another condition report was done July 2018, and it was cleaned again. When we took it off exhibit a couple of weeks ago, I noticed more white spue and had to clean it for a third time before I put it back into storage. These condition reports indicate that the item seems to have frequent fatty acid blooms, so now I have this item flagged so I can check it at least yearly to see if more spue shows up and clean it if necessary. While the spue is not damaging, it is unsightly and could attract and hold on to dirt that could be damaging. Cleaning it regularly is important for long-term preservation.

Stock saddle after second cleaning (2007.89.1)

Medora's riding habit (1972.383.1-.2)

Child’s cowboy shirt (2011.30.66)

Métis sash (1986.234.62) on capote (5301)

For a few items the condition reports were fine, and putting them away would not have been a problem; BUT we didn’t need to put them back into storage. They were going back on exhibit in the upcoming exhibit Fashion and Function: North Dakota Style. Visitors to The Horse in North Dakota exhibit will recognize Medora’s riding habit, the child’s cowboy shirt, spurs, leather cuffs and a few more. We see these as a bonus since we won’t have to put them away, nor do we have to put them on a mannequin. Of course, we did double-check the condition report to make sure that things were still good. We did change how the Métis sash is going to be displayed—we put it onto a capote (5301) to complete the look.

Artifacts going on exhibit go through many steps to ensure they can be safely displayed. When they come off exhibit, they go through more to make sure they were exhibited safely. There are many behind-the-scenes steps that happen for each artifact for every exhibit. When you see the new exhibit Fashion and Function: North Dakota Style (opening in January 2021), you will have a better understanding of how we have planned, primped, moved, and built another exciting exhibit for you to enjoy.

In preparing for our upcoming Fashion and Function exhibit at the State Museum, I was reminded of some interesting objects in our museum collection. They appear to be run-of-the-mill objects: a quilt, and a couple of dresses, pillowcases, Native American leggings, and a homemade sheet. These everyday objects have a very interesting connection—they are all made from flour or feeds sacks. People tend to say any items made with the small cotton prints in colors typical of the 1930s are made with flour sacks, but I find very few items that really are made from these. People also seem to forget that women went to stores and bought yardage, sometimes in the same design and colors used in the sacks. There are two ways that I know of proving that an item is made of flour or feed sacks. Firstly, are they printed with a label? A home-made sheet displays this well.

SHSND 1975.23.245

Leggings made by Anne Good Eagle, Lakota, sometime in the 1920s, show traditional materials of leather and dyed porcupine quills on the lower half —the part that was visible below a dress. On the upper part that is hidden by the dress, she used flour sacks from Rex Flour.

Front and back of leggings. SHSND 1986.234.222v

While having a flour sack logo where no one could see it was fine, women would try to bleach away the printing when the fabric would be more visible to others, usually with mixed results. A Dresden Plate quilt, made by Anna Johnson of Coteau sometime between 1925 and 1934, used flour sacks for the white background. If you look carefully around the plates, you can see the black printing of the Russell-Miller Inc., North Dakota Milling Company, Occident Flour logo.

Dresden Plate Quilt and close-up of flour sack printing. SHSND 1981.1.5

As we can see on the quilt, bleaching didn’t always work. Of course, women complained about the ink not coming out, so the mills started to use paper labels. Those could be soaked off, leaving a nice piece of fabric.

Dakota Maid Feed sack with paper label, SHSND 1982.197.11

From the 1920s to 1950s many flour and feed mills, including the North Dakota Mill and Elevator, used pretty printed cloth for the sacks to encourage reuse.

Woman wearing an evening dress made from feed sacks standing in front of a Dakota Maid promotional display. SHSND SA 2019-P-134-00046

With the printed labels gone, I rely on the second way of identifying flour sacks. I look for the stitch holes in the fabric. Sacks were sewn together with a large needle using string for thread. When the sack was taken apart, a series of small holes were left behind from where the needle broke threads in the fabric. Note the row of small holes along the edges of this pillowcase.

A pillowcase and close-up of sack stitch holes. SHSND 1976.00160.00093A

A pillowcase is the obvious item to make from a sack, and some sacks were made with a pretty border across the top for just that purpose. Looking carefully at the dress image above, you can see the same print used for the pillowcase. Other sacks having an overall design were more like yardage, perfect for creating clothing items. Wives would send their husbands to the feed store with strict orders to get bags all with the same design and color. Dresses could require five or more bags. Occasionally patterns would even indicate not only yardage but how many bags it would take to make the dress. A dress made by Carol Eklund in the 1950s as a 4-H project was said to be made from feed sacks given to her by a neighbor. Carol was diligent to avoid or hide most of the holes, but near the hem at the back a tell-tale row of holes is visible, confirming the story.

Dress made from flour sacks and close-up showing the holes. SHSND 2018.72.5

Many items might be legitimately made from sacks, yet we can never know for sure because the maker managed to bleach out the printing, or hide the holes, or used such small pieces they avoided the holes all together. Also, most of the items made from feed sacks were utilitarian. The items were used until they were no longer usable, so they were rarely passed down in families. Even so, we can’t discount our grandparents’ stories about using feed sacks for all kinds of things from dish towels to shirts and dresses. I have had more than one person who grew up in the 1930s tell me about having underwear with “Russell-Miller” across their bottoms. Unfortunately, we don’t have any in the collections for me to share with you. A few of these stories might be like the stories they told us of walking to school uphill both ways through 6-foot-high snow drifts. You’ll be able to view some of the pieces referenced in this blog in our Fashion & Function exhibit opening in 2021.

In 2017 we received Christmas ornaments from the North Dakota Former Governor’s Residence. The ornaments were gifts from local chapters of the Germans from Russia Heritage Society of North Dakota, Three Crowns Swedish American Association, Sons of Norway, and the Ukrainian Cultural Institute. Starting in 1985, different ethnic-themed Christmas trees were decorated at the residence as each year another group donated ornaments. I have mostly English ancestry and I am not a native North Dakotan, so I was a bit confused by some of the ornaments. A dala horse, stave church, or rosemaled coffeepot with “God Jul” (Merry Christmas) I could understand.

Scandinavian stave church, dala horse, and coffeepot ornaments (SHSND 2017.78.28, 2017.78.2, 2017.78.29)

But what is a tomte, and why were they on the tree? What was up with goat- and pig-shaped ornaments? Why would the Ukrainians put a spider’s web on the tree, or the Norwegians a stabbur (storehouse)? These just didn’t make sense to me, until I did my homework.

Scandinavian stabbur and tomte ornaments (SHSND 2017.78.30, 2017.78.10)

The tomte and the stabbur are related. The Swedes (tomte) and Norwegians (nisse) have similar stories of a small creature with a long white beard wearing a brightly colored conical cap living in the storehouse, or stabbur, on a farm. If the farmer and his family treated the tomte well, it protected the farm and the items stored in the stabbur. If they were bad farmers or were not good to the tomte, it would pull small pranks or even ruin the farm as punishment. Every Christmas Eve, a bowl of sweet porridge or porridge with butter was left for the tomte to keep it happy. Now the tomte figure and stabbur made sense.

I am familiar with camels and sheep, even a donkey or reindeer, on Christmas trees but had never heard of pigs, goats, or spiders. I found out that in Scandinavian countries the Yule Goat might help deliver presents or could be ridden by Santa Claus instead of a sleigh. This idea can be traced back to before Christianity, when it was thought the Norse god Thor had a chariot pulled by two goats. It makes sense how the story of a Norse god with his goats could have been reimagined to be Santa Claus and a goat.

Scandinavian goat ornaments (SHSND 2017.78.13, 2017.78.11)

The pig is a little more complicated. In Germany, marzipan pigs are often gifted as signs of good luck for the new year. In Scandinavia, pork is an important part of the Christmas feast. It is thought that this goes back to the Old Norse religion, where the boar Saerimnir was killed and eaten every night in Valhalla, and sacrifices to the god Freyr were made for a good new year. These stories were combined and reimagined with the introduction of Christianity to become the tradition it is today. This background gave me an understanding of why there is a pig on the tree.

Scandinavian pig ornaments (SHSND 2017.78.1, 2017.78.24)

I found the spider’s web to be a lovely story. According to Ukrainian folklore, a poor family had a Christmas tree, but they had no money to decorate it. The children went to bed sad on Christmas Eve. Early the next morning, the children woke to find the tree covered in cobwebs. When the first rays of sunlight touched the spider’s webs, they turned into silver and gold, and the family was never poor again. Supposedly, this is the origin of tinsel on the Christmas tree. Also, in many European countries, spiders are thought to bring luck, and to destroy a spider’s web before the spider is safely out of the way is bad luck.

Ukrainian spiderweb ornament (SHSND 2017.78.20)

In doing a little research, I learned a lot about Christmas traditions in different cultures and now have a greater appreciation for the diverse Christmas traditions of my adopted state. If you are in Bismarck, stop by the ND Heritage Center & State Museum through Jan. 2, 2020, to view these ornaments on our Community Tree.

People often have the misconception that objects we collect and preserve in the museum collection just sit around in the dark, and no one will ever see them unless they are on exhibit. On the contrary, the objects we hold have many purposes beyond exhibits. In my mind, research is one of the most useful purposes for an object in our collection. Our ethnographic collection has the most research requests, followed by our natural history collection. We have almost 4,000 specimens in natural history including large elk and bear mounts, small humming birds, fish, reptiles, insects, rocks, and fossils. Since many of our animal specimens were collected between 1900 and 1930, they represent species that are still common, some that are rare or no longer found in North Dakota, and a few that are now extinct.

Our natural history collection has generated myriad research projects. In 2001 our black-footed ferrets had their DNA tested by a researcher from the Smithsonian National Zoological Park. She was looking at the loss of genetic diversity in black-footed ferrets when they almost went extinct in the 1980s. In 2012, a student working on his master’s degree in natural resource management cataloged the Holton Shaw egg collection (1991.54). The Shaw egg collection had been in our possession since 1924 but was never cataloged into the database since we didn’t have a biologist on staff. His work made this collection usable for future researchers. In 2014 our passenger pigeon drew visitors because of the 100th anniversary of the pigeon’s extinction.

Recently the State Historical Society of North Dakota and the University of Mary have invested time into a mutually beneficial research opportunity. When Dr. Michael Lares, a biology professor teaching an ornithology class, asked if his students could have access to our bird mounts and egg collections, I said “yes” with a slight hesitation. My hesitation was not because they were students, but rather because most of our specimens are preserved with arsenic, and I wanted to make sure the students would be safe when handling them. From our over 350 bird mounts and study skins, Dr. Lares picked study skins for the first lesson. The students learned how to take measurements that a researcher would normally do in the field. Learning how to do this on a dead specimen is much easier than on a live one. The students were able to learn how similar species varied and about the variation between individuals of one species.

Study skins in storage. A study skin is typically stuffed with cotton with no attempt at a life-like pose.

University of Mary students measuring a bird.

During the second lab, the students looked at the eggs. With more than 800 clutches of eggs (a clutch could consist of one egg to more than a dozen), they had many to choose from. The students gained experience measuring and describing eggs. They learned how size and shape varied between species and how shape and color were related to the nesting habitat.

Bird eggs in their storage boxes.

Student measuring an egg.

Their third visit was set aside for a project to help the bird collection. I learned that as science progresses, the scientific names of birds have changed. The students checked the identification of a group of birds to see if they were properly identified.

Students checking on bird identification.

This past year I also had the students photograph the birds. Many of birds were brought into the collection before photographing artifacts became standard practice. These photographs allow us to track changes to any artifact over time.

Students photographing a duck.

This winter I was able to call on Dr. Lares and a few students to help me when I found some of the boxes that housed the eggs had been damaged during a water leak in our collections storage. I also found that all of the acid-free boxes had become acidic in the 27 years they had been used store the eggs. Dr. Lares and his students in one day made new acid-free boxes, transferred the eggs to the new boxes, put the eggs in numerical order, and did a box inventory. They found a few inventory mistakes including eggs in wrong boxes and clutches spread over two boxes. The eggs are now housed properly, and the database is up to date.

Dr. Lares commented, “I would not be able to teach the ornithology lab without the help of the collections at the Heritage Center, as study skins are difficult to obtain. Being able to work with the collection is a great opportunity for my students, and we also appreciate being able to give back through projects like verifying the identity of birds, photographing the specimens and re-housing eggs. It is a mutually beneficial collaboration.” In turn, I really appreciate all that Dr. Lares and his students have done to help the bird and egg collections. It is also good to know that these collections are being used for educational purposes.

There are still many opportunities for scientific research of all kinds in the State Historical Society’s natural history collections. For example, we are currently looking for someone who might be interested in working with our insect collection that has never been cataloged, nor have the insects been completely identified.

Students with Dr. Lares rehousing eggs.

Our current The Horse in North Dakota exhibit at the State Museum features one of my favorite artifacts in the museum collections, a display horse (SHSND 1972.1635). Visitors to the Chateau de Mores State Historic Site (Chateau), located in the town of Medora, in the 1940s through the mid-1980s might remember a dappled grey horse sporting one of Medora’s (the Marquis de Mores’ wife) side saddles (SHSND 1972.715). Over the years this display horse gained the nickname “Medora’s Horse,” and many stories about its origins have been told.

The display horse SHSND1972.1635 in the hunting or trophy room at the Chateau de Mores State Historic Site 1971. Photo by Norman Paulson

Medora, an experienced equestrian, and her husband built the Chateau in 1883 as their summer home for a few years. One popular myth claimed that this horse was a real horse once owned by Medora and it had been stuffed after its death. In addition to being wrong, the story never explained why Medora would want one of her horses stuffed. The real story about the horse and how the State Historical Society acquired it is just as interesting, though less macabre.

Medora’s horse is actually a display horse. Much like a mannequin in a department store, this horse was used to display saddles and harnesses. It represents a gelding, standing 15.2 hands (62”) high. It is made of painted gesso over a canvas “hide” stretched over a wood and metal frame, with a real horse tail attached to a wood dowel and a real horse hair mane. It has glass eyes and cast iron ears. Each wooden hoof has a real horse shoe attached. The whole thing is mounted on a wooden platform on wheels. The lower jaw, ears, and tail of the horse are removable to make “dressing” it easier.

The horse was on display at the Chateau from the early 1940s until the mid-1980s when it was moved to the North Dakota Heritage Center in Bismarck in preparation for renovations to the house. We knew very little about this horse or where it came from. A chance reading of the newsletter of the Maryland Historical Society in late 2000 gave us our first clue. The newsletter had an article in their “Recent Acquisitions” section about Frosty Morn, a model horse they had just received. Frosty Morn was a duplicate of our horse. I learned that display horses like this one were made in the late 1880s to 1890s by the Toledo Display Horse Company in Toledo, Ohio. We now knew who made our horse and when.

The next part of the story came when I told the Chateau supervisor at the time, Diane Rogness, about my find. She sent me a copy of an article written by Harry Roberts in January 1978. Roberts was the first Chateau de Mores State Historic Site caretaker from 1941-1966. Roberts wrote about how he bought the model from a woman who lived on the south side of Dickinson. Roberts bought it for $10, though she claimed she had “$150.00 tied up in it, but it was of no use to her…” He loaded the display horse on a flatbed trailer to take it to Medora. We can only imagine the odd looks he must have received from passing motorists by hauling what looked like a real horse on a flatbed trailer. Roberts also tells of meeting with a friend, Joe Fritz, who was the chief of Police in Belfield at the time. Roberts writes, “I said to Joe that I had a horse in my trailer, and I was going into Billings County with it, maybe I should have a ‘Brand Inspection.’ As quick as Joe saw the model, ‘Why that is the horse that used to be in the Zimmerman’s Harness Shop!’” This gave us another clue to pursue. While the woman in this story was unnamed, she was possibly Minerva Zimmerman, widow of William J. Zimmerman, the owner of Zimmerman’s Harness Shop.

State Archives was the next place to look. There we found information about M.T and William J. Zimmerman, the father and son who opened M.T. Zimmerman Harness Shop in Dickinson, about 30 miles from the town of Medora, around 1898. The business continued to operate until William’s 'death in 1928. Advertisements like the one below indicate that they also sold a variety of goods including Navajo rugs and pocket knives. A display horse like this one would have been an excellent mannequin for showing off the saddles and harnesses Zimmerman made and sold.

Dickinson City, Stark and Dunn Counties, North Dakota, Directory, 1914-1915, Vol. 3, (Norfolk, NE: Keiter Directory Co., 1915), p. 118. State Archives 917.84/D560

We now have a richer story around this display horse than the rumor that it was just a stuffed horse. We know where it was manufactured, who manufactured it, and when. We know who brought it to North Dakota and why. We know how and when it got to the Chateau de Mores State Historic Site, and the names of the people and businesses involved.

While the display horse has been a fun and interesting part of collections tours since the mid-1980s, we were waiting for the right exhibit to bring it out and show it off. Our current exhibit, The Horse in North Dakota, is a perfect way for you to see an item that is part of the Chateau legend, an integral part of the history of the West, and a symbol of the importance of the horse to the people of North Dakota.