The Girl Next Door

           When assigned the blue and brown wedding gown from Drexel University’s Historical Costume Collection, there was an article that went along with the dress. The article is from The Richmond News Leader on August 26th of 1974. The article talks about how Mrs. Donald Buckley formally Martha Elizabeth Lees wore this gown that has been passed down through the generations but making her only the second woman to wear the dress. The article has the name of the married woman who originally wore the dress on the date of January 22, 1856 in Lancaster, PA. The woman’s married name was Mrs. Martin Peiffer. ("Wedding Dress Spans Generations" 1974) Newspaper records from the Lancaster Examiner and Herald and The Lancaster Intelligencer and Weekly Advertiser confirm that on the 22^nd of January in 1856 that Martin Peiffer of West Hempfield, PA married Fianna Grube of East Hempfield, PA. The originally owner of this wedding gown is Miss Fianna Grube.

            According to the records in the “Personal Records of J.J. Strine” the Mennonite Reverend Strine married the couple on the date of January 22^nd, 1856. It does not say or suggest where the ceremony took place and how many people attended. During this time era you did not need to have a Pennsylvania marriage license to get married. Strine was known to always be ready and willing to marry people that you could knock on his front door and he would marry you there. Due to the fact that Reverend J.J. Strine was a Mennonite other evidence provides us to believe that both Fianna Grube’s family and Martin Pieffer’s family were Mennonites as well. (Weiser et al. 2001) Mennonites have been known to be people who live a simple life where most live and work on farms (Durnbaugh 2003).

            When researching Fianna Peiffer (formally Fianna Grube) in the 1880 East Hempfield, Lancaster, PA Census it displays the Peiffer family members, their age, and occupations. The document indicates that this information was recorded on June 1^st, 1880 in East Hempfield Township, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. This lets us know that Martin and Fianna have been married for twenty-four years since they were married in 1856. It shows that Martin Peiffer (Fianna Grube’s husband and the head of the household) at age 61 and his occupation is a farmer. Fianna is listed at age 43 as the wife and her occupation is “keeping home.” There are five children listed on the census. Emma Peiffer (age 22), Martin Peiffer (age 20), John Peiffer (age 19), Fianna Peiffer (age 12), Mary Peiffer (age 11). All of the children are listed as “at home”. Another woman was listed on the census as Elizabeth Grube (age 81) under “Mother-in-law”. There was one last person listed under the Peiffer household and that was Annie Becker (age 22) under “servant.”  (CENSUS)

            After finding this information I was able to find the 1864 Bridgens’ Atlas of Lancaster, Co. that had the names of families and where they lived. As I found the area of Salunga, Pa and East and West Hempfield, there was something extraordinary to the story of Fianna Grube. The name Grube and M.B. Peiffer are located right next to each other on the map. This could mean several things. Considering this map was recorded in 1864 the couple had been married for almost ten years. It could have been a possibility that Fianna’s father had moved next to the Peiffer farm within those ten years or that the Peiffer’s moved next to the Grube’s farm. However the likely case is that the Peiffer and Grube families had lived next to each other and that is how and why Fianna and Martin Peiffer met and came to marry each other. Fianna could be considered as “The girl next door,” to Martin or “The little girl next door” considering the census records displays that the couple was 18 years apart.

            Since the wedding was in January of 1856, I looked back at newspaper articles in 1855 to see if I could find anything that had to deal with fashion and why Fianna might have had a wedding dress as she did. I came across a small article in the Lancaster Intelligencer on November 6^th, 1855 titled “Still Greater Attraction.” This article discussed a book and magazine that was basically a guide for women. The magazine is called Godey’s Lady Book. The article described the upcoming magazine stories that would be out in January 1856 where it talked about fashion. Considering that Fianna was getting married then, this means she would have had to get her dress made before that Godey’s Lady Book Volume 52 came in out. With this information I then looked up “Godey’s Lady Book Volume 51: From July to December 1855.” Since the Lancaster Intelligencer was a newspaper that was available to Fianna it would be possible that by seeing the ads for Godey’s Lady Book she decided to get the issues herself.

            With Godey’s Lady Book and Magazine we are able to compare the style, design, and color to Fianna’s wedding gown. There is a picture in the magazine that has the same style of sleeves that Fianna has on her gown. The sleeves are layered with fringe on each layer just as Fianna’s sleeve are. There is also another picture of a woman wearing a dress with the skirt of the dress alternating colors just as the skirt of Fianna’s dress is. The designs on Fianna’s under sleeves match designs that are displayed in this magazine issue. All of this indicates that Fianna’s gown was fashionable. Although we can not be sure if it was her who saw these designs or a friend or family member, we can be sure that she was fashionable due to the fact that her gown resembled pictures in Godey’s Lady Book. Along with that we can not be certain if it was Fianna or another member of her family or friends who made this dress we are pretty certain that the dress was handmade. The stitching in the dress is not straight resembling that this was not factory produced. Having a dress such as the one Fianna had means that most likely her family had a good amount of money in order for us to be able to compare it to designs in Godey’s Lady Book and Magazine. (Hale et al. 1855)

            In the article from 1974 from the Richmond News Leader along with the dress there is a reference of a woman who was the owner of it at the time that it was given to Drexel University and the name was Miriam Kendig. However the name Miriam Kendig was then crossed out. This could possibly be the previous owner since I found in the book Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage that Emma Peiffer (the oldest daughter of Martin and Fianna Peiffer) married Benjamin Emmet Kendig a doctor in the Salunga area. This could mean that Fianna passed down her wedding gown to her oldest daughter Emma and it was then kept in her family and passed down to her daughters making its way to Martha Elizabeth Lees of Chester who was the second person to wear the dress before it came to Drexel University’s Historic Costume Collection.

Works Cited

1. Bridgens, H.F. “1864 Bridgens’ Atlas of Lancaster, Co. Penna from Actual Surveys by H.F. Bridgens and Assistant. H.F Bridgens No. 38, Hudson Street Philadelphia. Pg 26.

2. Durnbaugh, Donald F. “Mennonites.” Dictionary of American History. Ed. Stanley I. Kutler. 3^rd ed. Vol. 3. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2003. 309-310 Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 27 Oct. 2012.

4. Hale , Sarah J., and Louis A. Godey. Gode'ys Lady Book and Magazine: Volume LI.From July-December 1856 . Philadelphia: 1855. http://books.google.com/books?id=K8ZMAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0

5. "Marriages.." Lancaster Examiner and Herald (PA), January 30, 1856.

6. "Marriages.." Lancaster Intelligencer & Weekly Advertiser, January 29, 1856.

7. Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage Volume 25-Number 1. Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society, 2002.

8. "STILL Greater Attractions." Lancaster Intelligencer & Weekly Advertiser, November 6, 1855. http://digitalnewspapers.libraries.psu.edu/Default/Skins/civilwar/Client.asp?skin=civilwar&AW=1351450368212&AppName=2 (accessed October 26, 2012).

9. “Wedding Dress Spans Generations." Richmond News Leader, Monday 08, 1974.

10. Weiser, Fredericks, and Debra D. Smith . Personal Marriage Records of Reverend J.J Strine 1815-1870. Apollo, PA: Closson Press, 2001.

11. Year: 1880; Census Place: East Hempfield, Lancaster, Pennsylvania; Roll; 1141; Family History Film: 1255141; Page 1A; Enumeration Disctric; 122; Image: 0004.

Clothing: It Does Speak To Us

Have you ever looked at someone or a picture of someone and judged them by what they are wearing? Most likely we are all guilty of this. This has been going on for hundreds probably even thousands of years. We go back to the story of Marx’s Coat by Peter Stallybrass and how in the 1850’s Marx, who had to pawn his overcoat knew that it would affect his status in society and even opportunities. Since it was winter time and the weather was cold, without an overcoat to wear people who did not know Marx would classify him as a poor, unworthy, uneducated man. Although he may have been poor Marx was a writer, which meant he was at least somewhat educated. Marx needed to make money and he needed to go to the British Museum in order to research to help him write.  However without that overcoat he would not be allowed in. This reminds me of certain places we have today. Certain places such as restaurants, dance clubs, country clubs, and lounges have dress codes. If you are not dressed a certain way than you are not allowed in the establishment. Even if you have a ticket you will be denied access and most likely judged by people around you who are going in and out, just as Marx would be without his overcoat.

This brings me to the other reading from this past week and that is the “Clothing as Language: An Object Lesson in the Study of the Expressive Properties of Material Culture” by Grant McCracken. Think about the first three words of this chapter, “Clothing as Language.” Isn’t it true? Clothing is like a language. When you see an article of clothing anywhere, whether in a store or on a person, does it not speak to you in some way? You interpret something from it. In McCracken’s research he surveyed several people by showing them articles of clothing and gave them a list of vocabulary words to choose from to identify what type of person they think would wear it.

The first time I saw the wedding dress assigned to me I thought about who I thought would wear this. Since it is blue and brown and somewhat shiny I thought that probably a middle class woman wore it. That was all just going off what I first saw. When we first see an article of clothing we get a first impression. We need to remember that just like a first impression with a person that after the first impression with an article of clothing there is still so much we do not know. If we take the time to get to know and research the piece we may uncover things that have been waiting to be uncovered for years. This past week I went to the Historical Society in Lancaster, PA where I have uncovered things about the dress that by just looking at it you would never be able to tell.

8 Outfit Changes a Day!

I used to think I was crazy when I would change my outfit three times of day, when I went to work, when I was working out, and clothes to wear after I was done working out. After reading Fashioning the Bourgeoisie: A History of Clothing in the Nineteenth Century by Philippe Perrot I am enlightened to know that changing my outfit three times a day is nothing compared to the amount of times women in the nineteenth changed their outfits. These women of “high society” changed their outfits anywhere from seven to eight times a day. They changed them depending on the time of the day. Outfits differed from breakfast to walks to lunch to shopping to dinners and so on. There was an outfit for every occasion. These is really fascinating considering that in our costume collection that will be exhibited at Drexel University we will have on display many of these types of outfits that women changed into throughout the day.

Another thing that caught my interest that is discussed in Perrot’s book along with the article “Dress” in the Oxford Art Library is the garments that were made in order to shape a person’s body, especially women. Going back to all of those women who changed their outfits numerous times a day there was a process to all of this madness of dressing and looking the way they did. Before they put on the outer garments they put on garments underneath, garments that shaped their body to what was in style at that time. In my opinion the most outrageous garment was the corset. The corset shapes the mid section of the body changing throughout the years. Although it might have made the woman look beautiful and elegant it wasn’t always that safe. It could and in fact did damage the bodies of young girls and women. There will be a corset on display in the costume collection at Drexel University.

When analyzing the wedding dress that I am researching I can only imagine that the bride was very petite considering that an article I have on the dress describes it being a size 5. Could it be that the bride was actually a size 7 or 8 but was squeezed into a corset? Absolutely, considering this dress was worn in 1856 and corsets were worn more often than not during that time. 

Here Comes The Bride

When I was a child I was never interested in museums except for the ones that were hands-on especially when museums where I didn’t have to read much. However as I got older I began to appreciate museums and wanted to learn from the exhibits and displays that were in them.

It takes a lot of time, thought, and dedication when it comes to putting a museum exhibit together. Museum exhibits want to create interest in people in order for them to learn about the object or objects and somehow relate to them. That is very difficult to do considering every person has different interests. That is why labels are extremely important when creating an exhibit. Museum labels are not as easy to write as someone might think. There are label-writing competitions in order to help writers enhance and get ideas on how to create labels that will interest their visitors.

In Exhibit Labels: An Interpretive Approach by Beverly Serrell, she talks about how title labels are what captures a visitor to become interested in reading more about the object. This got me thinking on what I should title the wedding dress I am studying in order to really gain the interest of the visitors to want to read and learn more. Perhaps something such as “Here Comes the Bride.” I’m thinking that this could lead people to get the song in their head that goes “Here comes the bride all dressed in white,” and as they sing it realize this dress is not white, why not? This could cause them to wonder and want to read more as Ken Yellis points out in is an important factor in “Fred Wilson, PTSD, and Me: Reflections on the History Wars.”

This interest can cause a person to become so interested and want to know everything about the dress, which is the goal. In the article “Exhibit Makeovers: Do-It-Yourself,” by Alice Parman, she describes the theories of Alfred North Whitehead and his ideas on how a person who falls in love with an object will want know everything about it, which he calls the stage of Romance. In order for a person to read any further into it they need to fall in love with it. I think that if you first look at my wedding dress you would not think that it was a wedding dress. When I first saw it I was shocked at the colors it was, brown and blue. Since today’s society tends to think of a wedding dress as white or ivory I think that the title of “Here Comes the Bride,” will intrigue visitors to read more on what they are seeing.