Massillon Museum to exhibit 'Gilding Northeast Ohio: Fashion and Fortune 1870-1900'
Alice Wade Everett wedding gown, designed by Charles Frederick Worth, 1879, Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland
Massillon Museum’s summer exhibition, “Gilding Northeast Ohio: Fashion and Fortune 1870-1900,” can first be viewed Saturday, June 8, and visitors are invited to don their Sunday finery for the opening Par-Tea on Sunday, June 9 from 2-5 p.m. A selection of refreshments and teas will be served. The reception is free with no reservations required.
In addition to garments and accessories from the Massillon Museum’s permanent collection, loans from Kent State University Museum, Western Reserve Historical Society, and William McKinley Presidential Library and Museum will be displayed. Three costumes worn in HBO’s “The Gilded Age” series will be included.
Visitors will stroll past a series of vignettes throughout MassMu’s main gallery. In the “Fashion and Fortune” introductory section, they will encounter garments displayed on a staircase inspired by Cleveland architect Charles Schweinfurth’s Five Oaks mansion on Massillon’s historic Fourth Street.
The next section, “Business and Travel,” will be displayed in a specially constructed train car designed to reflect, on a small scale, the opulence of J.P. Morgan’s personal train car. It will depict the importance the leisure class placed on exotic travel to take advantage of their wealth and to purchase fine clothing and luxury items for their homes.
The “Opera and Opulence” segment will replicate an opera box. In the opera box, the first of the HBO gowns will be displayed. It was worn by Copley, Ohio native Carrie Coon in the finale of “The Gilded Age” season two, based on the opening of New York’s Metropolitan Opera House. Lavish trappings belonging to people who attended presentations at opera houses like those in Cleveland, Akron, and Massillon will be displayed and include dresses, capes, bags, top hats and lorgnettes.
A small reproduction of a hot-air balloon gondola, a bicycle, and the Hess family’s sleigh on loan from Spring Hill Historic Home and Underground Railroad Site will be the focal points of the “Sport and Leisure” scene. Alluding to the rising interest in photography among the wealthy, a reproduced Massillon photography studio backdrop will provide a photo opportunity to visitors.
The “Legacy and HBO” vignette will include two costumes on loan from HBO flanking the Alice Wade Everett wedding gown lent by Western Reserve Historical Society. Guest curator Brian Centrone said these gowns are a feast for the eyes. He said he hopes visitors will recognize Northeast Ohio, with its titans of industry and concentration of millionaires, was very gilded, approaching the opulence of New York and Newport.
“Wedding and Families” will look at families that anchored Northeast Ohio — the Wades and Mathers of Cleveland and the McClymonds and McLain families of Massillon, for instance. The backdrop of this vignette will replicate a forest of faux flowers evident in the mural-sized reproduction photograph of the wedding meal of Edna McClymonds and Horatio Wales attended at Five Oaks by President and Mrs. McKinley. It will exhibit wedding ephemera including Ida McKinley’s wedding corset, heirloom jewelry, and calling cards from Massillon and Cleveland socialites.
In the “Style and Design” segment, visitors will reflect on the fashions, hairstyles and craftsmanship that delineated the Gilded Age. It will highlight braiding, metalwork, needlework and embroidery, fringe, and lacework popular for women and waistcoats, cravats, collars and cuffs that allowed men to express their individuality, as well as draw attention to men’s hairstyles, mustaches and beards. Because the garments of the era were decorated on all sides, gilded mirrors will be mounted salon-style behind the display for more complete viewing. A tribute to the White Sewing Machine Company of Cleveland will illustrate how home sewing machines affected fashions.
The final component, “Presidents and Politics,” will offer a nod to Northeast Ohio men who were U.S. presidents during the Gilded Age. President Garfield’s dressing gown and his wife Lucretia’s at-home dress will be included. This section will represent the influence of Northeast Ohio suffragettes and Jacob Coxey’s 1894 protest march from Massillon to Washington. Guests will see a name badge worn by Susan B. Anthony during a Massillon women’s rights meeting and a plethora of McKinley paraphernalia — buttons, badges, ribbons, inaugural programs and dance cards.
Guests will conclude their walk through Gilded Age with a look at how Northeast Ohio mourned the death of President McKinley, which many scholars including exhibition curator Centrone believe marked the end of the era.
The exhibition can be seen during regular MassMu hours, Tuesday through Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 2-5 p.m. It will be closed July 4 to commemorate Independence Day.
The Massillon Museum is located at 121 Lincoln Way E. in downtown Massillon. Call 330-833-4061 or visit www.massillonmuseum.org.