Jewellery (jewelry)

GALESBURG - It is not every day that the First Lady of the United States is in town. Mary Todd Lincoln graced this year’s Heritage Day’s Ladies Tea and Fashion Show in the Lake Storey Pavilion.

Heritage Days continues today. The schedule can be found at www.heritagedays.com.

Mrs. Lincoln, who, when not time-traveling, is Donna Daniels of Wheaton, took those in attendance Saturday afternoon through much more than a fashion show. Through the use of fashions of the day, she pulled back the curtain to give the audience a glimpse at what life was like in 1862.
Although Mary Todd Lincoln did not know in 1862 that her husband, President Abraham Lincoln - portrayed by her husband, Max Daniels - would be assassinated in just three years, she wore an all-black dress, which was considered mourning attire.

“The custom of mourning in the 19th century was very, very complicated,” she said. There were four stages of mourning, prescribing how women should dress and act. The length of the mourning period depended on the relationship to the deceased. Mrs. Lincoln said a woman would traditionally take 2 1/2 years to complete the four stages of mourning upon the death of her husband, one year for a child, and even six months for the parents of her husband.

Mrs. Lincoln, seemingly completely sane, said she was in the first stage of mourning. Her dress was “what’s considered ‘dead black,’ meaning it’s not shiny, it doesn’t reflect light at all.”

In the second stage, women could put trim on their dresses; during the third stage, some jewelry was added, especially pearls, which symbolized tears. The woman could begin adding gray, lavender and purple in the fourth stage, in anticipation of again wearing traditional clothes. If another loved one died, common during the Civil War, the process began again.

Civil War-era clothing was quite different than today’s, especially for women. The wealthy wore “day” dresses that reached the floor, with sleeves to the wrists, hands covered by gloves. Basically, the only skin visible was the face.

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BILL GAITHER/The Register-Mail

Margaret Roth shows off her mid-19th century day dress for a young woman during the fashion show Saturday at Heritage Days.

“A properly dressed woman usually had on at least seven layers of clothing and that’s at a minimum,” Mrs. Lincoln said.

She said the eight to 12 yards of fabric used in a typical hoop dress was not only for modesty but to avoid a sun tan or freckles, considered the mark of a woman of lesser means.

The hoop dresses worn by women not expected to work were made “poofy” by the crinoline, or the cages worn under some dresses.

“Mr. Lincoln says it’s from too many hot fudge sundaes,” Mrs. Lincoln, 188, said. “Someday somebody’s going to shoot that man.”

Mrs. Lincoln also said the corset was “not the instrument of torture some people portray them to be.”

She said the corsets were custom-made for each woman.

“The purpose of the corset was not to give you a 17-inch waist, Scarlett O’Hara notwithstanding,” she said. The “foundation garment of the 1860s” was used to distribute the weight of the heavy undergarments to relieve pressure on the woman’s back and hips. She described the undergarments as “Queen Victoria’s Secret.”

While Mrs. Lincoln and other women from 1862 displayed petticoats, Mary Todd warned the audience, “What we are about to do, no proper Victorian lady would do. We are going to expose our ankles. The gentlemen should avert their eyes.”

Not all women of the era wore hoop dresses, Mrs. Lincoln said. Many were left behind to work the farm or toil in factories when their husbands went off to war. These dresses protected a woman’s modesty but did not puff out.

After the fashion show, Anita Beetler of Galesburg, said, “I just can’t believe they could handle the heat of the summer with all that clothing on. All that work … and the laundering.”

Beetler said she often attends Heritage Days but had never attended the fashion show.

“This was very informative,” Beetler said. “I know a little bit more about the clothing I see people wearing.”

Judy McCoy, who has been in charge of the Ladies Tea for 11 years, wore a red, hoop dress. Before the fashion show, she said, “It’s a fascinating era. Not just because of the Civil War. The way the ladies were brought up, and not just in the South. And gentlemen were gentlemen.”