Preserving A Seneca Dress
THE DRESS REQUIRED SEVERAL CONSERVA- TION MEASURES. THE COLOR LOSS FROM ITS PREVIOUS DISPLAY CON- STITUTED PERMANENT DAMAGE. IN THIS CASE, THE LIGHT DAMAGE HAD ALSO WEAKENED THE COTTON FIBERS, WHICH SUPPORTED ALL THE BROOCHES. THE FADED RED SATIN RIBBON TRIM ON THE COLLAR, CUFFS AND HEM WAS ALSO STRUCTURALLY WEAKENED, ESPECIALLY AT THE COLLAR THAT HAD BEEN CLOSEST TO THE IN-CASE FLUORESCENT LIGHTING.
W. Keppler. About 1906 it was acquired by George Gustav Heye, founder of the Museum of the American Indian (the predecessor of the National Museum of the American In- dian – Smithsonian). From 1959 until 1995, the dress was a familiar exhibit at Heye’s mu- seum in upper Manhattan. But the decades of continuous display under bright fluorescent lights caused the calico fabric to fade severely. The emerald green print turned yellowish, and the red silk ribbon became pale. The magnificent array of silver brooches, howev- er, remained relatively bright. But even with the severe fading, the dress remained a mag- nificent example of the beauty and power of Seneca women’s clothing.
T Conserving the
Dress In preparing an object for exhibition, the Mu- seum’s conservators carefully assess and docu- ment condition and carry out stabilization measures. They also research the historical context to better understand the importance of the object within its community of origin. During the planning for the Treaty exhibit, the conservation department was lucky to receive an internship application from Nicole Passerotti, a member of the Seneca Nation. Passerotti, who was preparing for conserva- tion graduate school, already had experience in textile conservation. She was the perfect candidate to assist with preparing the dress and other components of the Seneca woman’s outfit. (It was also noteworthy that Passerotti’s mother, Valerie, had gathered her extended family’s yearly treaty fabric allotment to use as tablecloths for Nicole’s wedding in 2012.) Passerotti researched the dress and, through
correspondence with the Seneca-Iroquois Na- tional Museum, discovered that the Rochester Museum and Science Center in Rochester, N.Y., had a photo of Gagwi ya ta, also known as Charlotte Sundown, wearing the dress prior to its acquisition by Keppler. When compared with the historic photograph, Charlotte Sun- down’s dress turned out to have most, but not all, of the brooches still intact. The staff of the Seneca-Iroquois National Museum noted that silver brooches were often separated from
44 AMERICAN INDIAN SPRING 2015
he dress belonged to Gagwi ya ta, a woman of the Beaver Clan at the Seneca Tonawanda Res- ervation in western New York, when it was collected by Joseph
clothing and exist in most museum collections as individual pieces. Soon after the dress was linked to the pho-
tograph, the National Museum of the Ameri- can Indian held a seasonal Winter blessing for collections and staff. G. Peter Jemison of the Seneca Cattaraugus Reservation and Jamie Ja- cobs of the Tonawanda Band of Senecas gave the blessing, and afterwards were invited to the conservation laboratory to see the dress. They held an impromptu consultation on its treatment and exhibition plans. Both were familiar with the historic photograph – which is well-known for the number of brooches on the dress – but they didn’t know the dress was in the Museum collection. Jemison felt the dress was appropriate for the exhibit even though it post-dated the Treaty of Canandai- gua because the type of cloth used and dress styles were consistent over a long period. Jemison and Jacobs also felt that the fading need not be covered up, because it is part of the life history of the dress. To withstand the rigors of another exhibi-
tion, the dress required several conservation measures. The color loss from its previous display constituted permanent damage.
In
this case, the light damage had also weakened the cotton fibers, which supported all the brooches. The faded red satin ribbon trim on the collar, cuffs and hem was also structur- ally weakened, especially at the collar that had been closest to the in-case fluorescent lighting. The brooches were in better shape because
a protective cellulose nitrate lacquer had been applied sometime between 1920 and 1965, a process that had required all 216 brooches to be removed from the dress, dipped in the lac- quer and then re-attached. But closer exami- nation of the lacquered brooches revealed that the coating had yellowed and failed in some areas, allowing for localized tarnishing. Nu- merous small puncture holes and a few small tears were discovered throughout the dress where brooches had been originally attached. A tear along the skirt hem, close to a row of brooches, could not adequately support their weight, and the tear was at risk of growing. A fine layer of urban grime also covered the dress from its long-term display in New York. The first step was to reduce the surface grime by carefully vacuuming the dress with
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