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Fashion Business

Senior Honors Projects

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Mirror Of Culture: The Study Of A Nineteenth-Century Sewing Diary, Elizabeth M. Dellabadia May 2006

Mirror Of Culture: The Study Of A Nineteenth-Century Sewing Diary, Elizabeth M. Dellabadia

Senior Honors Projects

Hidden inside the library of the American Textile History Museum in Lowell, Massachusetts is wonderful resource for the study of late nineteenth-century America. When Ann Eliza Cunningham was middle aged, she compiled a sewing diary that included scraps of material from dresses she wore or China trade fabrics brought home by her father. Ann Eliza not only included assorted swatches; but she associated the fabrics with different events in her life. She includes swatches from dresses she wore on her wedding day in 1856, for Thanksgiving, and for various family celebrations like birthday parties. Similar to the work of a …