Description:
Patent bound in a green silk ribbon granted to C. D. Clapp and H.J. Bardwell, assignees of Anna M. Bardwell of Amherst, Massachusetts, on May 22, 1866 for "a new and useful improvement in Hoop Skirts." The three-page patent (two with text, and one with a drawing) allowed the size and shape of the cage to be altered while on the wearer. Anna Maria Porter Clapp (1827-c.1900) was the daughter of Oliver Morrison Clapp (1802-1887) of Amherst who married Mary Ann Reed in 1826. In 1852, Anna became the second wife of John H. Bardwell (1818-1854). Anna's younger brother Charles D. Clapp (b.1833) established a hoop skirt manufacturing business called the Odessa Skirt Company in Amherst in 1863, which employed many local women. in 1865, Charles Clapp went into partnership with H.J. Bardwell and E.H. Haskell who came from Gloucester. The manufacture of the cage crinoline provided jobs, and spurred the desire to perfect the device itself. Anna’s patent provided the impetus for the 1866 advertising campaign of her brother's business in the local paper, the "Hampshire Express." The "Odessa patent collapsing skirt" was described in advertisements as "the greatest invention of the age" and could be altered in an instant from the "Empress trail or "tilting" skirt to a "Paris trail" or "Parlor invisible" skirt. The shape was "the most beautiful in the market" and it could "never move of its own accord" but would "always stay in the position placed by the pleasure of the wearer." Anna M. Bardwell was granted a second patent for a carriage curtain fastening device on Dec. 10, 1872. For an example of an Odessa hoop skirt, see 2011.26.
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