Clothing & Accessories - Overview
Work, play, fashion, economic class, religious faith, even politics—all these aspects of American life and more are woven into clothing. The Museum cares for one of the nation's foremost collections of men's, women's, and children's garments and accessories—from wedding gowns and military uniforms to Halloween costumes and bathing suits.
The collections include work uniforms, academic gowns, clothing of presidents and first ladies, T-shirts bearing protest slogans, and a clean-room "bunny suit" from a manufacturer of computer microchips. Beyond garments, the collections encompass jewelry, handbags, hair dryers, dress forms, hatboxes, suitcases, salesmen's samples, and thousands of fashion prints, photographs, and original illustrations. The more than 30,000 artifacts here represent the changing appearance of Americans from the 1700s to the present day.
"Clothing & Accessories - Overview" showing 11 items.
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Hospital Work is War Work
- Description (Brief)
- Triangular pin for insertion into a button hole. The red and white pin with an image of Caduceus reads: "Hospital Worker // A.H.A. // Hospital Work is War Work." A.H.A. likely stands for the American Hospital Association.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1941-1944
- ID Number
- 2006.0098.0269
- accession number
- 2006.0098
- catalog number
- 2006.0098.0269
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Fatherless Children of France
- Description (Brief)
- Pin for the Fatherless Children of France Society. The group was established to unite French orphans with American "godparents" through charitable giving. On the front is an image of a woman standing behind two children, against a green background. Green print on reverse reads, "10 cents a day // $3.00 a month // $36.50 a year saves a child for France." Mrs. Walter S. Brewster is listed as the chairman of the Chicago, Ill., branch.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1915-1920
- maker
- Whitehead & Hoag Company
- ID Number
- 2006.0098.0130
- accession number
- 2006.0098
- catalog number
- 2006.0098.0130
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Chinese woman pin
- Description (Brief)
- A molded celluloid pin, ivory-colored and tinted green, with green rhinestones. The pin is in the shape of a Chinese woman holding a parasol. The pin has a C-clamp closure, and is unmarked.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1920-1935
- ID Number
- 2006.0098.0836
- accession number
- 2006.0098
- catalog number
- 2006.0098.0836
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Mary Lincoln's Mourning Scarf Pin
- Description
- This gold pin with an image of Abraham Lincoln was among Mary Lincoln’s possessions when she died.
- Mary Lincoln never overcame the tragedies she endured. She came out of mourning on only one occasion, at the request of her son Tad for one of his birthdays. The two were almost inseparable until his death, possibly from tuberculosis, in 1871 at age 18. In 1882, at age 63, Mary died in Springfield, Illinois, at the home of her sister.
- Gift of Lincoln Isham, great-grandson of Abraham Lincoln, 1958
- Location
- Currently not on view
- associated person
- Lincoln, Mary Todd
- depicted (sitter)
- Lincoln, Abraham
- ID Number
- PL*219098.06
- catalog number
- 219098.06
- accession number
- 219098
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Jamestown Exposition - Garrett's American Wines
- Description (Brief)
- Advertising pin for Garrett & Company made specially for the Jamestown Exposition of 1907 in Norfolk, Virginia. The front features color images of Pocahontas, Virginia Dare and Minnehaha (described as "The Cousins") and a crest for Garrett's American Wines. An image of the Virginia Dare clock atop the Garrett and Co. building in Norfolk is on the back. The back also reads "Take Berkley ferry in Norfolk, Va."
- Garrett & Company, established in North Carolina in 1835, was a manufacturer of American wines using the indigenous Scuppernong grape. Virginia Dare was their most popular wine, named for the first child born in America to English settlers. Dare was born on Roanoke Island, which is also home to the Mother Vine, a Scuppernong vine known to be the oldest cultivated grapevine in the world. Pocahontas and Minnehaha were names of two other Garrett & Company wines.
- The company moved to Norfolk, Virginia, in 1903, after the growing temperance movement in the South made North Carolina an unfriendly environment for a wine business. By 1912, the spread of dry counties northward compelled the business to relocate for a final time to New York State. Eventually, nationwide Prohibition forced the company to abandon its wine manufacturing altogether. In the Dry years, the company diversified into Virginia Dare flavoring extracts and the sale of grapes for use in home winemaking.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1907
- depicted
- Pocahontas
- advertiser
- Garrett & Company
- maker
- Whitehead & Hoag Company
- ID Number
- 2006.0098.0141
- accession number
- 2006.0098
- catalog number
- 2006.0098.0141
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Fish pin
- Description (Brief)
- A pin made of ivory-colored celluloid in shape of a fish. The pin is decorated with rhinestones and the fins are colored brown. Designed in an Art Deco manner, style popular from 1910 through the 1940s. There are no markings.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1920-1930
- ID Number
- 2006.0098.0802
- accession number
- 2006.0098
- catalog number
- 2006.0098.0802
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Elephant pin
- Description (Brief)
- A pin made of ivory-colored celluloid in the shape of a running elephant. Rhinestones dot the elephant's back and its eye is also a rhinestone. In the Art Moderne style. There are no markings.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1920-1935
- ID Number
- 2006.0098.0808
- accession number
- 2006.0098
- catalog number
- 2006.0098.0808
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Golfer
- Description (Brief)
- Ivory-colored celluloid pin with hand-painted details in the shape of a golfer wearing plus fours. The pin, made in Japan, fastens with a C-clasp.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1930-1935
- ID Number
- 2006.0098.0830
- accession number
- 2006.0098
- catalog number
- 2006.0098.0830
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Spirit of St. Louis pin
- Description (Brief)
- Pin made of celluloid in the shape of an airplane. The body of the plane is cream-colored, with black wings and propeller. The pin bar is metal. Gold foil is on the wheels. The pin is a souvenir commemorating Charles Lindbergh's nonstop flight across the Atlantic in 1927.
- date made
- 1927
- referenced
- Lindbergh, Charles A.
- ID Number
- 2006.0098.1548
- catalog number
- 2006.0098.1548
- accession number
- 2006.0098
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Westinghouse World's Fair Pin
- Description (Brief)
- Souvenir pin commemorating the New York World's Fair (1939-1940.) The pin features the Westinghouse Electric Company's robotic mascot "Elektro."
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1939
- ID Number
- 1989.0438.1482A
- catalog number
- 1989.0438.1482A
- accession number
- 1989.0438
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
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