Chicago Celebrity and Style: Bertha Honore Palmer
An exhibit currently at the Chicago History Museum spotlights Mrs. Bertha Honoré Palmer with glimpses of her wardrobe and jewelry through a Flickr slide show.
"On the anniversary of Bertha Palmer’s 160th birthday, the Museum presents a selection of her clothing and other personal effects to honor one of the most significant figures in Chicago history. On display in the Costume and Textile Gallery, the exhibition features fourteen ensembles. The gowns are among the most opulent examples of late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century dress."
Palmer followed fashion custom and trend, yet her own strong opinions were her ultimate guide. Her personal style was nothing short of extravagant, de rigueur for the new American rich, and by embracing this tradition Palmer commanded attention and respect in all of her endeavors. For example:
Callot Soeurs, Evening gown, 1921
"This stunning evening gown is one of the most beautiful creations from the House of Callot Soeurs in the museum’s permanent collection. It is one of dozens of Callot Soeurs pieces worn by Mrs. Potter Palmer II and then later donated to the Chicago History Museum. Unfortunately, the beautiful gold lame brocade fabric, micro-seed bead trim, and large brooch are so heavy that the very light and sheer shoulder straps started to disintegrate. Furthermore, the weight of the gown was so heavy on the straps that the lame started to split under its own weight. Although conservation will eventually fix these problems, staff could simply not fix it in time for the opening in Chicago."
"Mrs. Palmer was the undeniable queen of Chicago society in the late-nineteenth century and into the twentieth, but her renown reached well beyond this city. This was a woman who entertained three American presidents at her home. She was the only woman in the United States’ official envoy at the Paris Exposition of 1900. She was related to European royalty, she golfed with King Edward, she dominated Paris and London’s elite social circles. An American leading London society?! She was in no uncertain terms a celebrity."
There's an excerpt from the address given by Bertha Honoré Palmer on May 1, 1893, at the opening of the World’s Columbian Exposition Woman’s Building: http://blog.chicagohistory.org/index.php/2009/05/grande-dame/
An article entitled Cosmopolitan Domesticity: Importing the American Dream, 1865–1920 by Kristin Hoganson went beyond descriptions of Mrs. Palmer's wardrobe and jewels; it focused on using household interiors as a way to define oneself:
"In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, bourgeois Americans commonly regarded household interiors as expressions of the women who inhabited them. As the author of a 1913 decorating manual put it: "We are sure to judge a woman in whose house we find ourselves for the first time, by her surroundings. We judge her temperament, her habits, her inclinations, by the interior of her home." 10 Motivated by that logic, American women with money to spend turned to their homes to define themselves. One such woman, more typical in her taste than her extraordinary wealth, was Bertha Honoré Palmer. Her Chicago mansion, built on landfill fronting Lake Michigan in 1882, had a Spanish music room, English dining room, Moorish ballroom, Flemish library, and French and Chinese drawing rooms. Upstairs, Bertha Palmer slept in a bedroom copied from a Cairo palace. The so-called Castle, no longer standing, was a Gilded Age spectacle, but a curious one in light of the principle of self-revelation. Given the tendency to regard domestic interiors as an expression of their occupants, what explains Bertha Palmer's efforts to stage the world in her household?"
"The story of Palmer's mansion, rising from a former swamp, dripping with tapestries and heavy chandeliers, is in part a story about class. Acquiring the mellowed trappings of aristocracy was a means to compensate for the rawness of post–Civil War fortunes (the Palmers' included), to distance one's dwelling from the vulgar commercialism that had enabled it to be built in the first place. Bertha Palmer no doubt regarded ornate display as useful in establishing her social position and the display of European objects, situated in European theme rooms, particularly useful because of the assumed European superiority in design, craftsmanship, and value. But Palmer's story is about more than just class. As her heterogeneous ensemble of rooms suggests, it is also about nationality and the effort to transcend nationality through adventures in the international marketplace. And even though Bertha Palmer was very rich, her eclectic preferences were shared by a number of native-born, middle-class women."
The American Historical Review 107.1 (2002): 54 pars. 27 Nov. 2009More Articles
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