Introduction
Cynthia Cooper
Assembled over the past century, the McCord Stewart Museum’s vast collections are an extraordinary trove of visual, material and print culture. Conspicuously overrepresented within this historical record are images, garments, documents, ephemera and other objects that bear witness to lavish costume balls and skating carnivals held in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While their sheer abundance points to the outsized impact of these events on people’s lives, against the backdrop of most other remnants of life in the same period their joyful exuberance is startling. The efforts put into immortalizing costumed events belie their seemingly ephemeral nature. Why was there such a degree of investment in these momentary transformations of the self?
My journey researching the topic of fancy dress balls, as they were often called in their own time, began long before I joined the McCord Stewart Museum in 1998 as Curator, Costume and Textiles. The topic for my master’s thesis grew out of my fascination with an 1887 edition of a small volume intended to inspire ballgoers with ideas for characters and costumes.1 My study looked at four large society balls held in the last quarter of the nineteenth century in the Canadian cities of Ottawa, Toronto, and Montreal, all with the involvement of Governors General, and each with its own distinct political intent. These balls were commemorated in large-scale composite and flash photographs, photograph albums, and souvenir books of group photographs and artists’ renderings. Furthermore, all received extensive coverage in society pages well beyond the cities where they were held. There was no shortage of primary source material to help reconstruct these most prestigious and memorable of society entertainments.
My research of course brought me to the McCord Stewart Museum, where the oversized painted photograph of the 1870 skating carnival—one of the most exhibited and published pieces in the collections stands as arguably the most flamboyant Canadian example of commemorating this genre of entertainment (Figure 1). However, the negatives from which 150 individual portrait photographs were cut and pasted to create this composite represent a mere fraction of the Photography collection’s images of people dressed in costume for social gatherings. In the myriad albums of small prints that William Notman’s studio in Montreal kept as chronological indexes of its glass negatives, clusters of images depicting people in fanciful costume, all taken within the same few days or weeks, were signposts of the events that had marked the social calendars of the year, and sometimes even the decade and generation.
The vastness of this material, not to mention the extraordinarily expressive poses of the sitters, seemed to beg for exposure beyond a thesis, and so my book Magnificent Entertainments was born. It explored the popularity of fancy dress events and the particular brand of licence and transgression that they allowed, in addition to telling the stories of these four costume balls and the way they fit into Canada’s colonial and imperial projects.2
The abundance of visual and textual sources stirred my abiding interest in the material culture of fancy dress, i.e. extant ball costumes. Extensive searches through museum and private collections initially turned up very little. The survival of any article of clothing for a century or more is always a fortunate accident that defies all odds, and those that do survive tend to be pieces that their owners considered most special or valuable during their lifetimes. Compounding this generalized rarity of historic dress, fancy dress falls outside the collecting mandate of most institutions, which was the case at the McCord Stewart Museum at the time. When I did locate examples in collections, they were often catalogued as something else. Fancy dress ensembles may have been packed away in trunks by their owners because of fond associations or the hope of opportunities for future use, but they were most often misidentified by later generations.
After a few serendipitous discoveries, I was able to refine my approach by searching for garments that stood out for their puzzling styling or odd attributions. With my assemblage of well
over 1000 images from these four events, on several occasions I was able to determine who wore them and to what event. Images of ball-goers wearing heirlooms from earlier periods resulted in several connections with extant eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century dress. Each discovery seemed to resolve a conundrum, and explain why the garment had been modified in an unusual way or preserved in spite of the odds. Similarly, photographs of heavily stereotyped Indigenous portrayals where ball-goers had appropriated Indigenous cultural belongings led to their location in the McCord Stewart Museum’s and other collections. I thus recovered several lost episodes in the lives of these objects between the Indigenous creator and the institution.
The 1997–1998 exhibition Dressing Up Canada at the Canadian Museum of Civilization (today the Canadian Museum of History) featured most of the items that I had identified as fancy dress thus far eleven ensembles and several Indigenous objects and garments—some from that institution’s collection, some from the Royal Ontario Museum, but most from the McCord Stewart Museum. Indigenous consultants on the exhibition team proposed strategies for presenting the degrading images fabricated by white ball-goers, frequently individuals who had some degree of authority over Indigenous people or claims to expertise rooted in first-hand experience of their communities.
In subsequent publications, I have deepened my examination of particular facets teased out of essentially the same body of evidence. In my essay “Dressing Up: A Consuming Passion,” in Fashion: A Canadian Perspective, I focussed on issues of presentation and enhancement of the self, interwoven with discourses about consumption particular to the Canadian colonial context. Most recently, in Canadian Performance Documents and Debates, I addressed images from the balls of the 1890s from more of a decolonizing perspective, an approach that I engage with further in this volume.3
To my surprise, the wellspring of extant objects with past connections to the practice of fancy dress balls has not run dry. Inquiries to descendants of ball-goers have uncovered more photographs and garments, showing how families valued them as keepsakes. Close examination of more unattributed garments has yielded up clues that eventually brought to light their appearance at one of these balls and, on occasion, their photographs. For instance, it is now clear that this phenomenon continued well into the twentieth century, encompassing a large historical ball that was the social event of its generation in 1927, an event that I discuss for the first time in this publication. Scrutinizing photographs has led to the discovery of still more items with a history of use in fancy dress, including portrait miniatures and further Indigenous objects that were incorporated into costumes. Rereading society pages has revealed more instances of descendants wearing heirlooms as fancy dress, which have been matched to extant garments not previously known to have this history. Donors have come forward with unexpected gems, including another painting of the aforementioned 1870 skating carnival and a piece of sheet music that instructed ball guests in historical dances in the 1890s. Pieces of the puzzle continue to reveal themselves, complicating and enriching an ever-expanding picture and heightening the imperative to bring it out of the margins.
This book intends to amplify the presence of fancy dress in popular and scholarly literature, as well as demonstrate the Museum’s particular perspective on the topic a perspective rooted in material culture methodologies. It aims to shed light on why these many objects and images survived as they did, along with their mutual interconnectedness, as improbable as it is significant. A collaborative effort involving many colleagues within the institution, it foregrounds the range of our multiple fields of expertise and captures some of our ongoing dialogue, showing how cross-disciplinary access to this historical record shapes our understanding of the material and ideas that we work with most closely. We reveal how our viewpoints have broadened as we juxtapose historical objects and archival images to show how each serves the understanding of the other.
1 Skating Carnival, Victoria Rink, Montreal, 1870 William Notman, Henry Sandham and Edward Sharpe
3 Costume ball for Anna Cowans, Montreal, 1924 Drucker & Baltes
Reed, who took centre stage at the ball claiming to portray “Donnacona, chief of Stadacona Indians whom Cartier carried off to France,” posed for a studio photograph with his stepson Jack Lowrey as “Seaudawate, Iroquois child taken captive by the Mohawks” (Figure 35). Both had darkened skin and wore wigs. Their costumes, pastiches of Indigenous belongings and fancydress bricolage, reveal fictions inspired by Pan-Indianism rather than any sort of striving for ethnographic correctness. Reed wore a deerskin shirt and leggings of Niisitapiikwan (Blackfoot Confederacy) origin, and moccasins that could be Nakoda (Assiniboine) or Nêhiyawak. His headpiece appears to be an imitation of a Plains-style headdress and train made of eagle feathers embellished with porcupine quills repurposed from authentic Indigenous objects, with two Denesuline (Dene) woven quillwork bands worn as a single headband. He also wore a bear tooth necklace. All of these objects can be found in the McCord Stewart Museum’s collection among the 114 objects that Hayter Reed donated to McGill University in July 1931 (Figures37–40). The shirt and leggings may have been acquired from White Pup. Indeed, we know that in August 1893, eight Niisitapiikwan individuals
supplied Reed with clothing items in preparation for the Chicago World’s Fair: amongst them were White Pup, who provided a shirt and leggings for $25, Rabbit Carrier, who provided “fancy leggings” for $10, and Yellow Horse, who supplied moccasins valued at $5.16
Jack Lowrey wore a shirt whose material was not readily identifiable from the photograph, but which the extant object allows us to ascertain (Figure 36). It is in fact made from crepe paper, an early instance of using such a material for a costume, which became far more common in fancy dress in the early twentieth century. The shirt has been embellished with painted motifs and its edges cut into fringe. At the front are appliqués of original Indigenous beadwork commonly seen on men’s shirts from the Plains nations such as the Niisitapiikwan. The roach, necklace and rattle that Jack wore are also among the McCord Stewart Museum’s holdings that came from Reed.17 The considerable damage observable today on some of these objects is likely a result of how they were treated and considered at the time, as props to this performance.
36 Detail, shirt worn by Jack Lowrey in 1896
37 Detail, hide and feather strip worn in headdress train by Hayter Reed in 1896
38 Moccasins, Nakoda or Nêhiyawak, 1890s, worn by Hayter Reed in 1896
39 Bear-tooth necklace, late 19th century, worn by Hayter Reed in 1896
40 Detail, Niisitapiikwan shirt, 1890s, worn by Hayter Reed in 1896
As with most dresses from this period, the gown reveals many different layers of history upon close examination. The silk taffeta fabric, then known as lustring, features the “chiné” technique fashionable in the 1760s, whereby warp threads were resist-dyed prior to weaving and slippage on the loom created a distinctive blurred effect. The closed front of the dress, pleated “sack” back, and checked gauze apron are more typical of the 1770s, suggesting that this is perhaps the second iteration of a garment from the same length of fabric; remaking dresses to keep them fashionable was a common practice in the eighteenth century. In the front
of the bodice, machine stitched darts have irrevocably altered the bodice to a late nineteenth-century silhouette more palatable to Flora Rolland and later to Maud Terroux. Maud also must have added the green China silk machine-stitched petticoat to provide a backing for the sheer apron trimmed with pinked rosettes made in the dress fabric, which she displayed under the open skirt of the gown. The silk flowers, puffs of tulle and lace that each wore on the bodice would not have been part of the dress as their ancestor had worn it. – CC
81 Detail, skirt front and apron
Madame Joliet
Sir William Van Horne’s sister Mary chose to represent Claire Françoise Bissot, who married explorer Louis Jolliet in the late seventeenth century, with a spelling that gave a nod to her own family’s hometown of Joliet, Illinois.10
Her fontange headdress pointed clearly to that period, as did the rows of black velvet bows at the bodice front and the lace engageantes or sleeve ruffles. However, her dress of figured silk taffeta with alternating narrow stripes of lavender satin and brocaded floral motifs featured the inescapable 1890s silhouette. The gown opened over a cream silk satin underskirt with two deep lace flounces trimmed with lavender ribbon bows.
Mary Van Horne’s portrait shows a silver ribbon rosette pinned to her bodice that was not part of her costume when it arrived at the Museum. An identical extant rosette, pinned to another costume, provided an important clue to identifying it (Figure 108).
Like her sister-in-law Lady Van Horne (Figure 98), Mary Van Horne had her photograph taken in the family home and indulged in the further luxury of having a colourized version made from a gelatin silver print. Such enhancement techniques were commonly used in studio portraiture. To emphasize the paleness of her hair, skin and dress, the studio applied a wash of sepia pigment over the background and then judiciously decided whichdetails to highlight in pink, including her cheeks and the bows on her dress.
103 Mary Van Horne as “Madame Joliet,” 1898 Wm. Notman & Son 104 Dress worn by Mary Van Horne
The Marquise De Fonseca
This dress came to the Museum indirectly from descendants of the family that built Montreal’s Henry Morgan and Co. department store, with no indication of when and by whom it was worn. It bears the label of French couture house Boué Soeurs, established at the very end of the nineteenth century, whose creations were carried by Morgan’s. Its vaguely historical style suggested it was fancy dress, and a published description of Lorraine Morgan’s costume provided confirmation: “A Louis XVI gown of peach satin, made with a pannier skirt […] fitted bodice with elbow sleeves and a round décolleté trimmed in pearls.”28
In fact, two shades of silk charmeuse are used in the dress. Several details bear witness to the quality expected of a high-end couture house. The fine pleating in the skirt has been achieved with the gauging technique, commonly used to great effect with the stiff ribbed silks of the mid-nineteenth century, though here there is a stiff buckram lining supporting the soft fabric. The interior of the boned bodice, lined with China silk, shows careful seam finishing. A metallic braid with lace edges has been applied in several vertical rows on both bodice and skirt, and in horizontal rows alternating with écru lace on the full tulle sleeves and at the neckline, interspersed with rows of pearls. Couture expertise shines in the silk charmeuse flowers with clusters of pearls adorningthe right side of the bodice.
Unfortunately, no image of Lorraine Morgan in this guise has been located. And while her description evokes this garment, it is a far cry from any style of the Louis XVI period. Lorraine Morgan’s somewhat obscure character was known as a Neapolitan revolutionary who married the Marquis Fonseca in 1784, and whose actions led to her hanging in 1799.29
CONTRIBUTORS
McCord Stewart Museum Staff
Editor/Author
Cynthia Cooper, Head, Collections and Research; Curator, Dress, Fashion and Textiles
Photography
Laura Dumitriu, Senior Photographer
Authors, Foreword and Essays
Anne Eschapasse, President and Chief Executive Officer
Caterina Florio, Head, Conservation
Jonathan Lainey, Curator, Indigenous Cultures
Zoë Tousignant, Curator, Photography
Authors, The Gallery
AD Amelia Desjardins, Conservation Technician
CB Caroline Bourgeois, Conservation Assistant
CC Cynthia Cooper, Head, Collections and Research; Curator, Dress, Fashion and Textiles
CF Caterina Florio, Head, Conservation
CL Camille Lafrance, Junior Conservator
CV Christian Vachon, Director, Collections Management; Curator, Documentary Art
SK Sonia Kata, Conservator
Photography Coordination and Styling
Alexis Walker, Associate Curator, Dress, Fashion and Textiles
Additional Support
Roger Aziz, Photographer
Anne-Frédérique Beaulieu-Plamondon, Coordinator, Digital Outreach, Collections and Exhibitions
Geneviève Déziel, Cataloguing Coordinator, Collections Management
Antonin Gélinas, Head, Marketing and Visitor Experience
Karine Rousseau, Head, Collections Management
Sara Serban, Conservator
External Contributors
Publication Assistant
Nathalie Houle
Translation, Revision and Proofreading
Edith Skewes-Cox
Graphic Design
Paprika, Montréal: Louis Gagnon, Creative Director
Daniel Robitaille, Creative Director
Luc Verreault, Art Director and Lead Designer
Véronique Thibault, Account Director
Myriam Rouleau, Project Manager
Prepress
PhotoSynthèse
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book and the exhibition it accompanies were made possible with the robust support of many individuals and institutions. The McCord Stewart Museum is grateful to the donors and lenders whose objects and images have enriched this publication. Our project has benefited immensely from our partnership with Library and Archives Canada, which has provided a significant number of images in this book depicting objects in the Museum’s collections. We extend our gratitude to the staff with whom we worked most closely: Helen De Roia, Michelle Lacroix, Megan Lafrenière and Madeleine Trudeau. For assisting us with the loan of objects included in this book we thank Christine Brisson of the Château Ramezay; Cameron Smith of Fort Henry; Genevieve Grenier and Karen Molson of the Greenwood Centre for Living History; and Katie Pollock and Laura Sanchini of the Canadian Museum of History.
I wish to extend my personal appreciation to the following people for their generous contributions of effort and expertise. Beverly Lemire, Professor, History, Classics and Religion Department, University of Alberta, graciously provided critical and constructive feedback for the development of the lead essay. Helen Meredith, volunteering her impressive historical expertise, canvassed a vast network for the mammoth task of identifying and locating descendants of the 400 documented guests at the 1927 Historical Ball in Quebec City, ensuring that nothing of interest in family collections remained unknown to me. Others who shared invaluable information that assisted our search for extant material include Marguerite Ahern Normandeau, daughter of Lucienne and Weston Ahern; Christian Blais, Bibliothèque de l’Assemblée nationale; Kelly Cameron, Canadian Museum of History; Blandine Clerget, Henry-Stuart House; Colin Crabbe, son of Yvette McKenna; and Alexander Reford, Reford Gardens, grandson of Bruce Reford.
Not least, I am grateful to each and every one of my esteemed colleagues at the McCord Stewart Museum who contributed to this project, all of whom took palpable pride in going beyond the call of duty to dedicate their time and outstanding expertise. I extend particular thanks to Suzanne Sauvage, former President and Chief Executive Officer, who fully endorsed the entire project in its early stages, and to Anne Eschapasse, her successor, for her strong leadership and mentorship throughout its subsequent development. Finally, my research in this area would never have begun were it not for the seminal influence of my mentor and friend, Linda Welters of the University of Rhode Island, who, in 1990, first introduced me to the idea that nineteenth-century fancy dress was worthy of scholarly attention. Little did either of us recognize at that point the immensity of its potential.
Cynthia Cooper