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 794 items.
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Compact
- Description (Brief)
- A compact made of ivory-grained celluloid with a decorative disk glued to the lid. The disk is also plastic (perhaps celluloid) and is made to look like mother-of-pearl. The compact contains a powder puff and powder residue. It is unmarked.
- date made
- 1890-1929
- ID Number
- 2006.0098.1687
- catalog number
- 2006.0098.1687
- accession number
- 2006.0098
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Compact
- Description (Brief)
- A compact made of imitation tortoiseshell celluloid. The mirror is set into the outside of the lid. The compact is empty and appears to have been unused. It is unmarked.
- date made
- 1900-1929
- ID Number
- 2006.0098.1688
- catalog number
- 2006.0098.1688
- accession number
- 2006.0098
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Salve boxes
- Description (Brief)
- Two small round salve boxes made of white celluloid with green pearlescent lids. They may have been part of a larger set. One of the boxes has a glass insert. They are unmarked.
- date made
- 1925-1935
- ID Number
- 2006.0098.1714
- accession number
- 2006.0098
- catalog number
- 2006.0098.1714
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Comb
- Description (Brief)
- A novelty folding comb. It is cream celluloid and laminated with a pink pearlescent celluloid sheet. The pearlescent sheet is decorated with rhinestones and an Art Deco motif. It is unmarked.
- date made
- ca 1925
- ID Number
- 2006.0098.1717
- accession number
- 2006.0098
- catalog number
- 2006.0098.1717
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Buckle
- Description (Brief)
- A belt buckle made of brown celluloid and decorated with rhinestones and bars of black celluloid. The style is Art Moderne. It is unmarked.
- date made
- ca 1930
- ID Number
- 2006.0098.1731
- accession number
- 2006.0098
- catalog number
- 2006.0098.1731
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
American Watch Company Prototype
- Description
- The first firm to mass-produce watches by machine was the American Watch Company of Massachusetts. Oliver B. Marsh, one of the firm's earliest watchmakers, designed and made this watch as a prototype.
- The appetite for watches in the United States in the early part of the 19th century was huge; about $46 million worth were imported between 1825 and 1858, especially from England Switzerland. To tap into this market, a few Americans attempted to develop watches domestically, but probably no more than two thousand watches were made in the United States before the 1850s.
- In that decade, watchmakers at what would become the American Watch Company of Waltham, Massachusetts, developed the world's first machine-made watches. They completely redesigned the watch so that its movement could be assembled from interchangeable parts made on specialized machines they invented just for that purpose. They also developed a highly organized factory-based work system to speed production and cut costs.
- The firm was launched in 1849 in a corner of the Howard & Davis clock factory in Roxbury, near Boston, where Edward Howard and Aaron Dennison experimented with completely new designs for watches and the machines to make them. With expert help from a cadre of experienced mechanicians and funding from Howard's father-in-law, the Boston mirror maker Samuel Curtis, the enterprise got under way.
- Dennison had absorbed techniques for the mass production of firearms with interchangeable parts during a visit at the Springfield Armory. The primary measures the new firm adopted from arms making were a tight organization, a critically important machine shop, and a manufacturing system that relied on models. Waltham designers made a model watch and a master set of gauges to fit it, and every watch part made thereafter was measured against the corresponding model part.
- In its first decade, the firm's work was largely experimental, but by late in 1852, Howard and Dennison finally had products-seventeen watches, made mostly by hand by brothers Oliver and David Marsh. One of these prototypes, a watch made by Oliver Marsh, survives in the collections of the museum.
- O. B. Marsh's watch was large compared to other pocket watches of the time. The white- enamel dial indicated minutes around the rim and featured four smaller dials indicating hours (at 6:00) seconds (at 12:00), days of the week (at 9:00) and date (at 3:00).
- The design of these first watches, eight-day movements with two mainsprings, gave way to a simpler one, a watch that ran on one mainspring for a little more than a day. Although superficially similar to English watches of the time, the new American watch featured a mainspring in a "going barrel." This meant a watch without the traditional fusee and chain to equalize the force of the unwinding spring. This was a watch with fewer parts to make.
- The next hundred Waltham watches, built on the new model, took until the fall of 1853. The third batch of nine hundred sold for just $40 each, cased. An imported movement of the same quality cost twice as much.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1849-1851
- Date made
- ca 1852
- manufacturer
- Waltham Watch Co.
- maker
- American Waltham Watch Co.
- Oliver B. Marsh
- Oliver B. Marsh, for American Watch Co.
- ID Number
- ME*334625
- accession number
- 310796
- catalog number
- 334625
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Metal and Rhinestone Peacock Button
- Location
- Currently not on view
- ID Number
- 1960.233749.0155
- accession number
- 1960.233749
- catalog number
- 233749.0155
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Black and White Plastic Penguin Button
- Location
- Currently not on view
- ID Number
- 1960.233749.0961
- accession number
- 1960.233749
- catalog number
- 233749.0961
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Open Metal Fan Button
- Location
- Currently not on view
- ID Number
- 1962.239460.01224
- accession number
- 1962.239460
- catalog number
- 239460.01224
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Lacy Glass Button with Flower in Center and Floral Design Around Rim
- Location
- Currently not on view
- ID Number
- 1962.239460.01351
- accession number
- 1962.239460
- catalog number
- 239460.01351
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center