April 3, 2022-January 29, 2023

This exhibit features nearly 50 never-before-seen bodices, vests, jackets, and shirtwaists (1840-1920) from skillfully handmade garments to those crafted by renowned European fashion houses. Presented in two phases, Spring/Summer styles on display through early August. Fall/Winter fashions will be highlighted beginning in September 2022.

Women frequently kept several bodices to match a particular skirt, such as a casual bodice for daytime and formal bodice for evening. Skirts also often received much more wear, and as pieces were handed down the generations, the bodice alone was preserved. Special-occasion attire for men such as silk vests and military dress uniforms were also often left comparatively untouched by the passage of time.

Alongside these remarkable fashions, From the Waist Up, will highlight a wide assortment of accessories from within MCHS’s collection including hats, hair pieces, watches, cufflinks, fans, purses, and jewelry that were all necessary to complete a look.

March 29, 2021-February 13, 2022

2021 is a landmark year for MCHS, representing both the 75th anniversary of our incorporation and the 50^th anniversary of Mary Crane Hone’s donation of Acorn Hall. To celebrate these milestones, A Storied Past will highlight Morris County’s vibrant history as told through the remarkable objects and images preserved within our collections and archives.

September 2020-January 2021
(Closed)

Between 1870 and 1930 a radical shift in women’s employment was spurred by developments in education, industrialization, and new technologies. In continuation of our celebration of the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, the second phase of MCHS’s women’s exhibit, Cut from Different Cloth, explores these decades when women first entered the workforce en masse and carved out their own niches in it.

May-August 2020
(Closed)

To honor the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 2020, MCHS presents the exhibition series Cut from Different Cloth exploring various facets of women’s history. The first exhibition, The Art of Women’s Handwork, 1865-1925, delves into the evolution of women’s role as a home-based, family clothier with the advent and availability of the sewing machine. From seamstresses to piece workers, garment maker, and factory workers, occupations open to women during the Industrial Revolution often revolved around the needle, and machine sewing changed both the nature and perception of handwork.

These trailblazing female craftswomen brought both changes in the workforce, and legislation that guided their professions. Tragedies such as the fires at Wolf Muslin Undergarment Factory and Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, as well as the radium poisoning at Radium Luminous Materials Corp., poignantly illustrate how women workers shaped workplace safety in their increasingly modern manufacturing world.