Former Governor Arthur and First Lady Grace Link at their wedding in 1939. SHSND SA 10943-76

Fashion & Function: North Dakota Style, the upcoming exhibition at the North Dakota Heritage Center & State Museum, includes 19 thematic sections ranging from decorative and symbolic feather usage to graduation gowns. One section—dubbed “The Wedding March”—focuses on bridal traditions utilizing a selection of garments, photographs, and accessories. And while bridal white features prominently in the layout, it isn’t the exclusive color.

Drawn from the State Historical Society’s objects and photographic collections, the display captures a wide range of garments worn by North Dakota brides, including an afternoon suit, an evening dress, and an ensemble hand-crocheted by the bride’s grandmother over a three-month period.

Also included are two folk ensembles worn by Norwegian and Icelandic brides in the mid-19th century. The colorful Norwegian bunad includes elaborate embroidery worked with glass beads, while the Icelandic Skautbúningur features a national folk style introduced just prior to its wearing in 1861.

Wedding portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Dick Ramsey, Fort Yates, circa 1908. The bride wears a fashionable, flounced, white cotton batiste lingerie dress with a dotted Swiss motif, a floral headdress, and silk tulle veil. SHSND SA 1952-2037

The most formal gown in the grouping is also the “history mystery” within the exhibition, as it appears incomplete. The ivory wool flannel and silk brocade gown (SHSND 13405) was worn by Jennie Martha Kelley at her marriage to Oscar St. Clair Chenery, in Jamestown, during the late territorial period. The gown stylistically falls within the second bustle period of the 19th century.

Bodice and detail of the Kelley wedding gown, 1886. SHSND 13405

Beginning in the late 1860s the fullness of the period’s bell-shaped skirts began to shift—with the mass moving to the back—often accented with swaged overskirts and flared peplums. This silhouette collapsed in the late 1870s with the introduction of fitted princess-line gowns featuring long trailing fishtail trains. Then, in the 1880s, the bustle reappeared as a very prominent feature extending much like a wide shelf from the base of the wearer’s back.

The period was distinctive for the profuse use of upholstery trims, embroidery, draped swags, and knife-pleated ruffles, all accenting the mass of the bustle. It was the age of conspicuous consumption. Bustles (politely termed tournures) were supported by spring wire, horsehair, and hinged steel hoop understructures of a scale that made it impossible to sit back in a chair, forcing fashionable women to perch sideways when they sat. Ladies chairs were designed without arms to accommodate their full skirts.

The Kelley wedding gown dates to 1886. Its “history mystery” is that the distinctive bustled train is missing. The skirt has been modified yet retains a removable half-moon-shaped dust ruffle indicating the fullness of the original bustle and chapel-length train. The dust ruffle would have protected the underside of the train as it dragged across floors and the ground.

Two lace-edged silk brocade swags positioned over the skirt’s hips—known as a polonaise (in the Polish style)—indicate they led to an incomplete back arrangement that no doubt incorporated both a third swag (completing the polonaise), and a cascade of both silk brocade and lace forming the train. The bustle must have been made as a separate component attached to the back waistline of the skirt.

Another feature of the wedding gown is its rather deep neckline. As it appears, the bride would have had reason to blush as she would have gone down the aisle virtually bare breasted! The neckline’s deep cut and the presence of narrow lapels and lace ruffles indicate it was filled with a chemisette—much like a dickey—providing a more modest secondary inner neckline, probably fashioned of gathered silk tulle matching the dress trim.

Do you know the difference between a bodice and a blouse? A blouse—while it can be tailored—is unstructured. A bodice has a fitted inner lining often including boning and occasionally padding. The steel boning in the Kelley wedding bodice was intended to maintain a smooth silhouette. A separate corset would have been worn as part of the underwear to support the bride’s figure.

Fashion & Function: North Dakota Style will appear in the Governors Gallery at the North Dakota Heritage Center & State Museum in 2021.

While working from home the past two months, collection staff in the Audience Engagement and Museum Division started a long-needed data cleanup project. While often tedious, one part of this project I am truly enjoying is researching the first names of women who we only have recorded as “Mrs. Last Name,” or “Mrs. Husband’s Name.”

The New York Times recently published a series called “The Mrs. Files” discussing the same type of project. This article articulates the tradition of using a husband’s name to refer to a married woman.

Women using “Mrs. Husband’s Name” in a social and official capacity was very common, although it seems odd looking at it from a contemporary point of view. Many of the artifact donation forms from the early days of the State Historical Society are signed this way, and this continued well into the 1980s.

I believe it is important that these women are remembered as themselves, not only by the names of their loved ones. Researching and recording these first names ensures their work and contributions to the state’s history are remembered.

Mrs. Adams

In 1936, the North Dakota Federation of Women’s Clubs donated a sampler created by a Mrs. Adams from LaMoure. In this case, the artifact itself helped identify the artist, as Mrs. Adams embroidered her initials, “O.M.A.” I didn’t think many Adamses would be living in LaMoure during that period, so I looked through census records. In the 1940 census, three women with the last name Adams appeared in LaMoure County; one was Olive. To confirm this suspicion, I looked at the 1930 census, and listed below her husband Paul was “Olive M. Adams.” Digging a little further I learned Olive Marshall, born in 1879, married Paul Adams, a prominent LaMoure banker, in 1904. Looking into newspapers from the area would probably reveal even more about Olive M. Adams, but for now, her full name fills gaps in the sampler’s history.

Sampler by Olive Marshall Adams (the artist formerly known as Mrs. Adams). SHSND 1977.27

Mrs. William P. Zahn

There are beautiful pieces of beadwork in the State Historical Society’s collection attributed to Mrs. William P. Zahn. Researching Mrs. Zahn was not difficult because her son, Frank B. Zahn, donated the items. Frank, a prominent North Dakota judge and historian, was easy to find. According to his obituary, Frank was the son of William P. and Kezewin Zahn.¹ Kezewin was the daughter of Yanktonai chief Flying Cloud and appears in some Federal and Indian census records under the English-Christian name Mary Josephine Zahn (an assimilationist re-naming practice deserving of its own full article). I knew the State Archives had records from Frank Zahn, so I did a quick search and they have multiple photos of Kezewin and her family!

How striking is it to put not only a full name, but also a face to the woman who made this piece!

Soft cradle hood made by Kezewin Zahn. SHSND 2557

Mrs. John Kruger

In 1956, Mrs. Otto A. Matzek donated the wedding dress of her mother, Mrs. John Kruger. This one was harder. I had two people to find. Once I found that Mrs. Matzek was Edith Kruger Matzek, finding her mother became easier. Researching Gerahdina “Dena” Detmer Kruger revealed two things. First, we had the wrong date recorded for the dress. The donor misremembered her mother’s wedding date as January 1912. The Weekly-Time Record out of Valley City announced the upcoming wedding of Miss Dena Detmer and John W. Kruger on January 15, 1913.²

Dena Detmer Kruger’s time-traveling wedding dress. SHSND 13355

Second, it turns out that Dena Detmer was a postmaster for Lucca in Barnes County in the 1930s! How cool is that?!

Dena, the mail woman (Ancestry.com. U.S., Appointments of U. S. Postmasters, 1832-1971 [database on-line].)

The State Historical Society has artifacts and records attributed to women around the state using their husband’s names. We don’t know if they did this simply because it was the social norm, or if that was their preferred title. Perhaps early record keepers made the decision for them. Whatever the reason, documenting the women’s full names builds a richer and more complete picture of North Dakota’s history.

¹ “Frank B. Zahn, Historian, Judge, Dies Here Sunday,” The Bismarck Tribune, July 5, 1966, 10.
² The Weekly Times-Record (Valley City, ND), January 9, 1913, 5.

Summer is here, and there have been several changes of late. The biggest change has been the COVID-19 pandemic and adjusting to working from home for two months. As a reference specialist, I assist researchers in accessing the materials they need to answer their diverse questions. Being unable to access our physical materials because of the closure limited me in how quickly I could respond to requests, but our amazing patrons have been very understanding. That said, this situation presented me with opportunities as well. I entered data on a couple record groups when not handling the requests that could be answered with our online resources.

The first group of records I worked with were marriage records from Oliver County dating from 1896 to 1925. Marriage records are a popular request among our patrons, as genealogical research represents a sizable amount of our research requests. Most such requests revolve around naturalization records, marriage records, and obituaries.

You can learn much about an area from a group of marriage licenses. Seeing several licenses of the same last name for the groom or bride indicates a fairly large family lived in that area, and the children were settling down. Since these licenses spanned 1896-1925 with most being in the 1905-1920 time frame, which coincided with a sizable wave of immigration into North Dakota, several folks applying for licenses were possibly either new immigrants themselves, or the children of immigrants to the area. One interesting pattern appeared in that men with the same last name, who are assumed to be brothers, seemed to marry sisters of a family. This likely relates to immigration patterns, where several families from a community overseas will migrate to a specific location in the United States.

Marriage licenses from this time also note locations that are now memories in a county. Several unique locations were noted on the licenses for the place of marriage, with many being, according to Doug Wick’s book North Dakota Place Names, rural post offices in the various townships. In addition, they clue us into the differences in society at that time, especially the fragility of life, as there were a few licenses that have the same man marrying more than once. While divorce is a possibility for why the first marriage ended, life expectancy was much shorter at that time. With events like the Spanish Flu pandemic, other diseases, and the risks of death in childbirth, an untimely death for the spouse is also a possibility. Seeing these licenses made me wonder about the situation that caused the groom to remarry so soon after seeing an initial license bearing his name. Did he leave his wife, did she leave him, or did she die in an unfortunate situation? As the data entry was paramount on the group of licenses, this question could only be pondered for a moment.

One unique challenge to these licenses is those filling them out had handwriting that left much to be desired. This is one of the challenges when transcribing older documents and records for data entry, or to just understand the document better. Several times during the data entry for these licenses, consulting Census records via Ancestry was necessary to try to decipher a name, especially in circumstances where initials were used (usually the husband’s) instead of the full first name. This was a minor issue, but one that is worth noting. Overall, the addition of the data on these licenses will enhance ease of access to these records for our patrons in the future, as such records are quite popular.

The other group of records I am working with during this time away from the office is the facsimile files. These binders contain photocopies that allowed patrons to look at our photograph holdings before we began the digitization process. Information about the photo, including collection number, item number, a description of the photo, and, if known, the donor is noted. I am working with photos of schools arranged by county. Most are of rural schools and are roughly 100 years old.

There are some cool photos in these binders. The most unique was a photo from Valley City High School in 1905 described as “Boys Toilet Room.” Yes, someone took a photo of the interior of the boys restroom in Valley City High School in 1905. Fortunately, it appears it may be either related to the construction of the school or done at a time when nobody was in the building. It made me chuckle though and think of the popular rock song “Smokin’ in the Boys Room.”

While working from home has been an adjustment during these unique times, data entry on both the marriage records and facsimile files will provide greater access to our materials in the future. It will be nice to return to the North Dakota Heritage Center more often to catch up on requests and to help the public with their research questions. Someday, archivists will preserve and process material related to this time and helping researchers to answer questions about 2020, and there will be many. Have a safe and happy summer.

Disclaimer: No antiques or artifacts were harmed in the making of this project.

When I am not working at my job of helping our amazing state historic sites, I like to spend my time engaging in my hobby of painting. I don’t paint on canvas, nor do I consider myself an artist. I build and paint models, miniatures, and dioramas. It is a challenging hobby where you attempt to paint a chunk of plastic, metal, or resin to make it appear as a realistic representation of an actual item or person. Occasionally, I even get the opportunity to apply my hobby skills to my job. If you follow the 1883 Stutsman County Courthouse Facebook page, you might recall a post about my repainting the label on a Burrow’s Adding Machine that is part of the new civics exhibit. I also painted the handle on some surveyor’s tape and the finial on a couple of flag poles. My colleague and fellow Historic Sites Manager Rob Hanna had one more challenge for me. One of the pieces he purchased for the Stutsman Courthouse civics exhibit was a double inkwell. When it came in the mail, it did not look that great. It was shiny, full of flashing (remnants of the casting process) and some of the detail was missing. While the flashing was easy to remove with a metal file, adding a patina to it would require some thought.

This is the inkwell after the flashing is removed and before weathering.

When trying to paint a part of a miniature that represents metal, there are two techniques used: true metallic metal (TMM) and non-metallic metal (NMM). TMM is when you use a paint that has metallic flake in it. Thanks to the flake in the paint, it has a reflective look that mimics metal. It tends to be an easier technique to learn. NMM is using paint that lacks the metallic flake, so the painter has to create gradients, shading, and highlights with multiple thin layers that create the illusion of reflective metal. It can be a hard concept to wrap your mind around.

The knight is an example of TMM, and the thief is an example of NMM. Photo from the Bird with a Brush blog.

I bring up these techniques to explain what comes next. A couple of years ago, I learned a new recipe to add shading to my TMM painting. It is about creating a wash---paint thinned down to a watery consistency and painted over the figure to pool in the cracks and crevices---and then using it to weather the metal to make it look old and used. To make my wash, I am using several different paints that each have a specific purpose. Blue liner is the main ingredient in this recipe. Painters use liner paints to separate different colors on a model and have a specific consistency that fits that purpose.

For this recipe, the blue and brown liners add color to wash. I need to add a metallic paint to mix to help maintain the appearance of metal. I tried to find one in my collection that would match the metal of the inkwell, and I settled on polished silver. The last component is a gloss varnish that is an acrylic resin. Once the wash dries, it strengthens it so that it can stand up to cleaning and helps preserve the luminosity of the metal. Once I have these paints mixed, I add drops of water until the paint has the right consistency.

If you look at the lip of the pallet, you can see how the paint flowing back into the well is thin and translucent. That is the consistency that I want.

With my wash complete, I did a simple test to see how it would work on the inkwell. I chose a spot that was small and hidden away on the back of the inkwell. I applied the wash on a section, and then used a paper towel to wipe off the excess. What is left behind is a shaded metal where the raised portions pop out from the darker crevices.

I tested a section on the back of the inkwell.

After the success of the test, I began applying the process on the rest of the inkwell. I started at the bottom and worked my way to the top.

I applied the wash in small sections. Using a large brush, I slopped it on as I tried to make sure that if filled all the cracks and crevices.

I then used a paper towel to wipe the wash off the raised areas.

I continued this around the entire inkwell. Most places required two coats. In areas where I wanted to emphasize the shadow, I would wipe off less of the wash.

In-progress photo where you can see that the base of the inkwell now has a slight blueish tone, and the details stand out better than the upper parts of the inkwell.

Completed progress on the inkwell.

Overall, I am thrilled with how this turned out. If you want to get a closer look at this inkwell, you can find it amongst the other beautiful items in the new civics exhibit at the Stutsman County Courthouse.

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.

Documentation and housing are integral to museum collections work, and they make up a large part of my project as an intern at the State Historical Society of North Dakota. Last year during a storm, the roof was damaged at one of the State Museum’s offsite collections storage facilities, known as Storage East. During the recovery activities, the collections team noted that most of the objects in the facility had poor documentation, lacked current photographs, and were in need of cleaning and rehousing. That’s where I come in.

My job is to update the information we have about objects housed at Storage East. Most of the objects stored there are furniture: bookcases, desks, chairs, trunks, and the like. Big stuff. Stuff that’s mostly made of wood, glass, and metal, and used to furnish exhibits and tell stories. But the records we have for them are outdated or incomplete. For example, we have a large collection of trunks, and for a few of them their documentation has the word “trunk” with no further description. This sparse documentation doesn’t do us much good if we’re trying to find a specific trunk and have no idea what it looks like. My task is to write a more thorough description of the objects’ materials, color, dimensions, and style.

Measuring the dimensions of a shopping cart at Storage East.

I also need to conduct a thorough analysis of each object’s condition. Does it have any cracks? Any peeling varnish? Is the color faded? Or maybe the object is in great condition, almost as flawless as the day it was made. It’s my job to update this information, so we can track any future changes to the object, whether through another disaster or general deterioration.

Creating a movable workstation while updating documentation.

When the object has been described, photographed, and labeled, it is easier to track as it moves from storage to exhibit, or even from storage room to storage room. For example, while working my way through one of the rooms, I found a lampshade. The shade had no object number, and there were no shadeless lamps in that room. I made a note of it, and a few rooms later, I found a lamp without a shade. By checking the photo in the lamp’s file, I was able to verify that the shade belonged to it, and reunite them. Without the previous documentation of the lamp, the objects would have stayed separate, making it difficult to use the lamp for exhibits or research.

The separated lampshade is on the blue box, marked with orange flagging tape as a disassociated object.

Left: Original documentation photo of lamp. Right: Photo of the reunited lamp.

When I’m not describing the collections, I’m finding new ways to house them. Most of the objects have been stored on wood pallets, which is a good start. Museum objects should not sit directly on the floor, in case of flooding and to avoid any damage. Yet objects need additional protection from roof leaks and potential falling debris. Part of my project has been to research shelving options for the storage facility. I am using floor plans to measure how many shelving units we can fit into each room, using as much of our space as possible.

The progress on this project has been slow but significant. I’m always delighted when I locate a missing object or reunite pieces, and it’s a great feeling to do everything I can to make sure they will not be lost again. There’s a lot to do, but the project will help future collections staff, whether it’s through documentation, preparing for shelving, or dusting the objects. It all helps preserve these objects for the future.