Kicking ass and taking names, one bustle at a time.

Despite not getting paid for my job, I finally feel like a real live museum professional. Why? Because the first show I have ever worked on, Bertha Honore Palmer , opened this past Saturday at the Chicago History Museum and it is quite beautiful, if I do say so myself.

The show tells the story of Bertha Honore Palmer, the wife of Potter Palmer I and one of the most influential women in Chicago and even America at the turn of the century. As the grand dame of Chicago society she spearheaded the Women's Board of the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, gave the job of designing the Women's Building at the Fair to America's first female architect, and comissioned reports on the status and lifestyles of women across the world. She was a mover-and-shaker abroad as well, dazzling Europe with her charisma and forceful personality. Palmer House, the famous Chicago hotel, was a wedding gift to her from Potter. When he died he left her with eight million dollars; by the time she died she'd turned it into 16 million. She was, in short, a force to be reckoned with.

Now, this isn't MY show - most of the work I did involved building out mannequins, dressing them, and doing some trouble-shooting with lambskin gloves and a lot of fiber-fill. Still, my name is on the credits under the intern title, and when I walk past the textile gallery and see all the visitors oohing and ahhing over my favorite voided-velvet gown or the goofy evening coat with the fringe I spent HOURS carefully combing out, I can't help but feel a little proud.

Is this what being an adult feels like? Because minus the bill paying and the cleaning-your-own-house bit, it's kind of cool!

Deep thoughts about history, feminism, clothes, and so on.

So I've been thinking a lot about this costume collection internship, and what makes it so different from my stint at Grey Towers (and isn't it funny that I've basically turned being a perpetual intern into my post-college career plan?), and while I was sorting through scads of wedding gown information today I think I finally put my finger on it.

I love history, right? Because it's tells us about ourselves or other people (or ourselves AND other people), and about where we come from and what we're heading for and ultimately, what we need to do (and avoid doing) to make the world a better place. And because it's awesome. But to be honest, the majority of history we encounter is dude-focused. And while I am certainly a fan of dudes, sometimes it gets a bit old.

And I don't mean this in a "damn the Man, down with the Patriarchy" sort of way (although really, damn the Man, down with the Patriarchy). It's just that the events that we memorize, the wars we commemorate, the nation-building we praise or deride, all of it reflects the work of men. And it's not just how we learn history in school, either. Look at the collection of any history museum and you'll see famous documents, antique guns, impressive furniture, important pieces of art - all made for or by men. And sure, there are pieces of a museum's collection that relate to women, but those are almost always a minority . Except, of course, in costume collections. At the Chicago History Museum, our costume collection is probably 85% women's clothes. The number of men's clothes are FAR outmatched by women's, and the women's clothes tell a much richer and deeper story. They span centuries, countries, ages and class levels.

Really, what I love about costume collections is not just that they showcase pretty clothes (though they do), or that they're amazing capsules of history (although they are.) What I love about them is that they don't just tell history - they tell the history of women. What a woman in a given time period valued, what she had to account for in her daily life, how she lived, even what she was called by those around here; it's all there in her dress.

More fake than a tan in February

It's still all weddings, all the time at the museum, and I've been wading through piles of gowns writing up document reports and taking photographs of them for the exhibition notebook. All of which is great, especially when I run into antique breast implants.

Or, if not breast implants, than certainly the world's original push-up bra. One of the wedding dresses I handled, a gorgeous cream silk taffeta from 1851 with three-quarter sleeves, a deep v-neck (which was pretty rare - most of the other wedding dresses we have from that decade have a wide bateau neck and cap sleeves), and some crazy diagonal ruching, also had built in breast-pads. The entire chest area was extra thick, with round pads made of cotton batting sewn into the bosom.

I guess the more things change, the more things stay the same. Female insecurity and the need to live up to the expectations of a society that objectifies the female form don't really disappear from century to century. I don't know why I'm surprised - after all, this is the same society that forced women into constricting corsets and advocated removing a rib to make them skinnier. I guess it's just because the big-breast thing seems like such a hallmark of the silicone age.

Of course, I could be overthinking this... maybe our anonymous 1850's bride was just sick of being part of the itty-bitty titty committee and decided to do something about. After all, it's her party, and she'll enhance her chest if she wants to.

"Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor, not a..."

Oh wow, Star Trek.



Now to be fair, while I'm not what one might call a Trekkie* I did spend my formative years tagging along after one and absorbed some of the obsessive Star Trek love via osmosis. Still, even if I weren't already a fan, I'm pretty sure I would still think this movie was made of awesome. Because it is. Made of awesome, I mean. Seriously, go see it. I mean, it's fun and explosive and colorful and still stays true (kinda) to the foundational message of Star Trek: space racism is bad!

*Side note: when I spellchecked this entry, "Trekkie" wasn't highlighted as a misspelled (or nonexistent) word. Which means that it's entered into the Blogger dictionary. Oh, Google Blogger. Way to wave your freak flag.

"If you were a man, I'd knock your block off."

I just got back from a screening of "Victor/Victoria," and it has proven two things to me: that 1. Julie Andrews is the Queen of Everything, and 2. James Garner was smokin' hot as a youngster.

I'm serious, folks. I don't think I realized just how amazing he was in his younger years. I mean, you never hear him mentioned in the list of the truly attractive Hollywood stars of yesteryears: Paul Newman, Marlon Brando, James Dean, etc. But really, after seeing "Victor/Victoria" and being reminded of how much I loved "The Americanization of Emily" (also, strangely, starring Julie Andrews), I think I might have to add Garner to my personal list of Faces I Love to Look At.

Here, take a gander:



No one does square-jawed American insouciance like James Garner. Almost enough to make you forgive him for "The Notebook", isn't it?