Caring for Grace Coolidge's Gown

Speaker:
Date:
Location:
Colleen Callahan, Costume and Textile Specialists, Virginia
Sunday, July 31, 2016 at 2 pm
Damon Education Center, 46 Bridge Street, Northampton, MA
Portrait of Grace Coolidge by Howard Chandler Christy, 1923.  This portrait hangs in the Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum, Forbes Library, Northampton, Massachusetts. 
Clothing historian and conservator Colleen Callahan will present an illustrated lecture about conservation issues relating to an evening gown owned by Grace Coolidge.  Julie Bartlett Nelson, archivist of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum at Forbes Library, will speak briefly about Grace Coolidge.

The dress is made of off-white silk damask brocaded in a gold metallic floral pattern. It was a favorite of Grace Coolidge’s and she wore it on at least five formal occasions while First Lady.  In a portrait painted by Howard Chandler Christy in 1923, Mrs. Coolidge wears a similar dress; some consider it to be the same dress.  A description of Grace Coolidge wearing this style of dress appeared in the Washington Herald's article on her first diplomatic reception as First Lady in 1923:
Mrs. Coolidge looked like a beautiful bride in a simple but modish gown of soft white brocaded satin.  The bodice was draped over the left shoulder and the skirt was draped up on the left side.  The skirt brushed the floor and a long panel train hung from the shoulder.  The neck of the bodice was cut low and square.
Although she didn’t make this particular gown, Mrs. Coolidge was an expert needlewoman and knitter who, while in the White House, made several dresses and knitted silk stockings for herself.  Several of her hand-made items in the collection of Historic Northampton will be on exhibit on July 31.
Colleen Callahan is a costume and textile historian and curator with experience in conservation.  Ms. Callahan served as curator of costumes and textiles at the Valentine Richmond History Center for eighteen years, managing the museum’s 30,000-piece internationally known collection and curating over twenty art and social history-themed exhibitions.  In 2003, after retiring from the Valentine with the title of curator emerita, Ms. Callahan began the consulting business, the Costume & Textile Specialists, with Newbold Richardson. They consult with large and small institutions nationwide on exhibition, collection management and documentation, conservation, and reproduction clothing projects.  One recent project, funded by a Save America’s Treasures grant, is the conservation of clothing belonging to James Monroe and his family in the collection of the James Monroe Museum.

Colleen Callahan and her associate Newbold Richardson
make a preliminary assessment of the dress on July 1, 2016. 
Ms. Callahan lectures and is a contributor to popular and scholarly publications. She is active in professional organizations including the Virginia Association of Museums, the Virginia Conservation Association and the Costume Society of America, for which she served a term as president.  Ms. Callahan received her BA in Theatre from Smith College and her MA in Arts Administration: Costume Studies from New York University under a joint program with the Costume Institute of Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Image Credits:
Portrait of Grace Coolidge by Howard Chandler Christy, 1923. Courtesy of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum, Forbes Library, Northampton.  Photographed by Stan Sherer.
Colleen Callahan and her associate Newbold Richardson at Historic Northampton, July 1, 2016 photographed by Stan Sherer.
For further information:
"The First Lady Wore No Ornament": Grace Coolidge and Her Clothes by Valija Evalds in Dress, The Annual Journal of the Costume Society of America, Volume 40, Number 1, 2014.
"The Needlework of First Lady Grace Coolidge" by Lynne Zacek Bassett in PieceWork, July/August 1999.