Description:
Two-piece dress in brown plaid silk with long pagoda sleeve and high collar, which descended in the Stebbins family. There a note in the file from Florence Stebbins Shaw (Mrs. Albert E. Shaw) of Webster, Massachusetts: "Wedding Dress of Maria Stebbins who married Justin Hitchcock of Deerfield. Maria was a great aunt of Florence Stebbins Shaw who wore the dress in 1905 when Frances and Mary Allen photographed her. One picture with Russell Cowles, another alone at a dressing table in Memorial Hall, Deerfield admiring an old bonnet." The daugher of Zebina Stebbins (1797-1879) and Ruby Graves Stebbins (1796-1877), Maria Abigail Stebbins (1831-1902) married Justin Baker Hitchcock (1824-1890) of Deerfield in 1858, where they lived in a house built by Justin in 1858 (Town Lot 6). That house was later owned by Carrie Lamb Ward (b.1862) who was the daughter of Laura Stebbins (b.1837) and Thomas Lamb (1830-1881) of Worcester who married in 1860, and the great granddaugher of Zabina Stebbins and Ruby Graves Stebbins. Carrie married George William Ward (1858-after 1930) of Worcester in 1881. Born Florence Copeland Stebbins (1888-1966), Florence Stebbins Shaw married Albert Elmer Shaw (1886-1952) in Deerfield in 1913 and then lived in Webster, Massachusetts. She was the daughter of Charles Henry Stebbins (b.1859) who married Mary Elizabeth MacMahon (1858-1919) of Providence, RI, in 1880; granddaughter of Evander Graves Stebbins (1821-1885) and Matilda Childs Stebbins (1824-1885) of Deerfield; and great granddaughter of Zebina Stebbins and Ruby Graves Stebbins. The bodice opens down the front with original hook-and-eye fastening, and back is cut in one piece. The bodice has eleven (one missing) acorn shaped crocheted buttons; a silk ribbon and fringe on the lower edge of the sleeves and on the top of the sleeves to create a false epaulet; a waistline pointed in front and natural in back; and brown cotton lining. The skirt is cut evenly on all sides with eight sets of pleats (3 layers each); originally the front had 6 pleats with boning. Tthe width of skirt is made up of 8 panels with a hook and worked eye back closure (probable); the hem is bound with wool braid; and the entire skirt is lined in brown cotton. The dress fabric is woven with dyed warp. There is some deterioration of silk at top of waistband and bottom of skirt, and there are places on bodice where the silk is slightly worn-underarm. When skirt was donated, the hem was turned up 5", which was probably done in 1905 when Florence Stebbins Shaw is seen wearing it in a photograph by Frances and Mary Allen (HD 96.007.2). We have released the hem to stop further deterioration. Previously, there was some reconstruction done on the inside edges of sleeves.skirt: waist 29 1/2", height 45", bottom l52", bodice:front 15", back 15"
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https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+96.007.1 |
