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May 8, 2015

Who Doesn't Love Gone With the Wind Style Dresses?

Here is one of my favorite photos from my collection of Civil War era CDVs (Cartes de Visite)
Mrs. Joseph Curtis taken 1862

Mrs. Joseph Curtis is wearing a typical gown of the early 1860s. Full Pagoda sleeves dropped from the shoulder, with an undersleeve, create the illusion of the sought after tiny waist. Her bodice has a natural waistline and removable collar. Her hair follows the typical hair fashion of this early period. It covers her ears and is parted in the middle and pulled back to a roll at the nape of her neck. The extreme fullness of her skirt is very apparent in this photo.

This beautiful album is one of my rescued treasures. You can view the thumbnails of other photos from the album in my Lost Faces section of my Olive Tree Genealogy website.

Surnames in the album are Fobes, Tucker, Curtis, Gilbert, Peabody, Spear, Blake, Mansfield, Bassett, Botton, Williston, Nilliston, Kimbal, Daniels, Sutherland, Schaffner, Keith, Towne, Low, Wilder, Holden, Whitemore

Locations of photographers: Massachusetts, New York, Illinois

2 comments:

Colleen G. Brown Pasquale said...

Beautiful gown. I love the double row of buttons and the lace collar. It looks romantic but I don't know how they made it through hot summers dressed like that.

davidbcrawford said...

I suspect that some kind of flimsy shift would have been de regeur for those bum around the house days in the summertime.