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THIS POPULAR back-page feature of the Museum's quarterly newsletter Inside Whatcom Museum takes a closer look at an artifact or work of art on view at the Museum.

McNeil Wedding Dress, Whatcom Museum Collection

EVERYTHING HAS A HISTORY
Delicate and graceful, this wedding dress is composed of cream-colored lace with peach satin-covered buttons extending down its back. The gathered skirt and flared sleeves create a medieval silhouette—a style likely inspired by Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in 1923 when she married HRH the Duke of York. Hallmarks of the era include the scalloped, dropped waist and relatively unshaped bodice with a low, sweetheart neckline, and ankle-baring hemline. Worn by Josephine McNeil, the garment was styled simply with a veil, bouquet, and prayer book for her walk down the aisle.

Harkening to the onset of a new, liberated era in regard to women, the dress could represent the liveliness and dynamism of the period. A barrage of socio- economic changes following World War I (1914-1918) forever changed the roles and rights of women in society and produced the iconic flapper image. Both the wild rebel of the night as well as the fashionable figure of the modern woman, the flapper is the dancing, fun-loving woman whose cropped hair and variable hemline are archetypal of the Jazz Age. Less complicated in construction and style, the simplicity of the flapper dress rendered it more accessible to women of all classes. In addition, the more “masculine” or unisex fit of the dresses—loose and angular rather that fitted and contoured—appealed to the growing equality between the sexes, championed by women’s rights advocates.

Fully embracing of all things modern, the 1920s woman woke to a world full of choices. She was free of corsetry, restricting layers, and many of the corresponding social barriers that kept her in the domestic realm. Women gradually joined the workforce, played sports, and traveled where their Edwardian mothers had been more associated with the previous century than the vivacious spirit of the 20^th. This wedding dress embodies many of these ideas in style, while the elegant, handcrafted form is truly a work of art. — Emily Zach, Western Washington University Curatorial Intern

Wedding dress from the Whatcom Museum collection; on view in Old City Hall in Fashion for the Northwest Woman: 1864 – 1930

Lake Whatcom Washington, Elizabeth Colborne

AT THE INTERSECTION OF ART, NATURE & HISTORY
Elizabeth Colborne divided her time between New York and Washington state during the 1920s, but work waned after the 1929 stock market crash. She came back to Bellingham and spent from May through October of 1933 in a cabin on Lake Whatcom to paint. From her journals we might conclude that 1933 was also an El Nina year; rain and chilly weather dominated many entries such as this one from May 8:

"I now find that since it remains so cold I have a schedule to stay late in bed reading science and planning, even to near noon. There’s a fire and lunch and paint inside while it is still warm. Then go out if it is not actually raining. This saves the eternal stoking of the fire. I said to myself that I did not come down here to burn up trees but to paint them. But it rains, so I have to burn."

However, there is hope! On Wednesday, June 28, 1933 she wrote the following:

"The day ended in a glorious cloud show over the mountains across the lake, like a dramatic backdrop of stage scenery in its dramatic glory. I have never seen it the least bit like that before. The sun must have set intensely to throw such a refection on the heavy clouds that floated about the top of the mountains immediately opposite. It was repeated, though with more depth of value in the lake beneath. All that was unusually blue was deep, dusky purple tinged to salmon color in the lighter part. The trees shone a yellow-green.”

alt

Elizabeth Colborne; Lake Whatcom Washington, circa 1929; color woodcut, 16x11 inches; Whatcom Museum, gift of the
Bellingham Public Library.

McNeil Wedding Dress, Whatcom Museum Collection

Lake Whatcom Washington, Elizabeth Colborne

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