Accessorized with:
Ivory Silk Satin Slip-on Shoe
Unknown maker and place of origin, ca. 1790.
Possibly worn in the Northwest Territory.
Collection of the Ohio Historical Society, H5416.

Reproduction Underdress.

Fashion on the frontier is a clash of incompatible ideas in the eyes of many and can be seen as an oxymoron. Disbelief is rooted in part in Ohio's early agricultural strength and in the experience of numerous individuals who suffered great isolation and privations upon their emigration to the Ohio territory. Although there are many similarities within the lives of early settlers, they were a disparate group of individuals of different places of origin, cultures, faiths, races, genders and ages which did not at first create a strong bond between them. There were no Ohioans in the beginning but rather a wide array of Americans, who were also joined in this adventure by people from other countries. Their reasons for emigrating varied, but land was at the core of the massive exodus to Ohio, and it is through the study of land speculation that we can best understand the presence of some of the earliest artifacts.

Congress had a great economic interest in selling the Northwest Territory in large portions of land rather than in small sections manageable by individual farmers. Most sizable portions were purchased by groups of individuals who came together to form business ventures that dealt essentially in land speculation. Among early investors and speculators were reputable men of wealth and education who aimed to establish a societal structure similar to what they knew.  This extended to the adoption and retention of clothing styles followed by their peers on the East Coast, which were mostly adapted from European styles. Through these garments, they could differentiate themselves from others around them and confirm their place in the social order. As such, it is not surprising to find surviving fashionable garments or portraits of men and women in fashionable clothing either before their emigration or afterwards.

This group of investors and surveyors marked the land physically, economically, culturally and politically. As historian George Knepper indicates about the early settlers of Marietta: "Their culture was little modified by the wilderness. They shaped the wilderness to a much greater extent than it shaped them."(1)  Nevertheless, they were outnumbered and ignored in the making of the frontiersman and settler's personae. As noted by Andrew Cayton, the development of the settler's myth occurred early.(2)  This myth promoted the experience of the supposedly self-sufficient inhabitants who were to purchase small plots of land for farming, mostly through large-scale land speculators.(3)  The omission of investors, surveyors and other affluent capitalist settlers is the source of the apparent contradiction brought forth by "Fashion on the Ohio Frontier."

Among the earliest garments presented in the exhibition are two open robes from ca. 1797.  The brown satin open robe is of particular interest because of its ca. 1797 style and because it is part of the Ross County Historical Society's collection. The town of Chillicothe in present-day Ross County was the first capital of Ohio and, prior to statehood, numerous wealthy and illustrious persons owned properties in or close to town, including Thomas Worthington. The town had been laid out in 1796 by another surveyor and Chillicothe resident, Nathaniel Massie, who was to become one of the largest-scale land speculators of the region and a political leader in the quest for statehood. Worthington's brother-in-law, Edward Tiffin, who was to become the state's first governor, also lived in town.

Surveyors and speculators amassed considerable fortunes which parlayed into political power. Despite the fact that many such men are known to have established themselves in the area, little or no mention is made in publications of the presence and lives of women who might have migrated with them. Although traces of these women's existence can be found in birth, marriage or death records, such sources do not give many insights as to their lives. Such individuals as Eleanor Swearingen Worthington, wife of Thomas Worthington, and Mary Worthington Tiffin and Mary Porter Tiffin, first and second wives of Edward Tiffin, are far less known than their illustrious husbands. None of these women's garments from the 1790s have survived to inform us of their dress behavior at this time. However, the Worthington coat, vest and portrait from ca. 1796 and the owner's importance within Chillicothe society are evidence that can add meaning and possibility to the brown satin open robe. The public life of Thomas Worthington, his household furnishings and dwelling are thoroughly documented and can establish a pattern of sophistication in this individual's lifestyle. His coat, vest and ivory miniature, as well as the subsequent ca. 1800 oil on canvas portrait illustrating these garments, indicate that the meaning of fashion in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century did not change with the movement of a population to a new territory. Individuals of means tried to keep up with social appearances and invested in the luxury goods sought after by others of their station.

The brown satin high-waisted open robe was utterly fashionable in ca. 1797, a time period when styles were quickly changing from open robes that showed an under dress or petticoat to one piece high-waisted "round" gowns that were no longer part of an ensemble. Although the fabric could have been recycled to create a child's gown, the style of the open robe could not have permitted the remodeling to the newer round gown. Furthermore, the heavy silk satin was not conducive to the new emerging lightweight cotton styles fashionable for both women and children. Caught in a sudden change of silhouette and aesthetic, the gown remains unaltered and in pristine condition. Its survival enables the viewer to appreciate a well-cut and well-sewn short-lived style that no doubt belonged to a well-informed woman of sound aesthetic judgment and means.

We shall never know if the brown satin open robe found at the RCHS was ever worn in Chillicothe in ca. 1797, but the timing and location are right and the presence of wealthy individuals makes such luxury goods possible in the area. The Worthington pieces and Putnam shoes serve to corroborate this type of sophisticated behavior on the frontier. Numerous written records indicate the presence of such goods from the earliest days of Euro-American settlement. Such individuals as Lucy Backus Woodbridge and Dudley Woodbridge had emigrated from Norwich, Connecticut, to Marietta in 1789 and, following the advice of Lucy's brother, James Backus, who had preceded them, had brought for sale in the territory's first store numerous items needed in the settlement.(4)  These included much-needed utilitarian merchandise such as shoes and thick cowhides, but also covered a wide selection of goods such as calicos and gauzes as well as rings, buckles, hair pins, brooches, shawls, hair ribbons and plumes that came from Philadelphia.(5)  Carolyn Shine also found evidence of balls being held in Cincinnati in the 1790s and a newspaper ad in the Centinel of 1793 listing the stolen property of one Thomas Goudy:
  

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(1) Knepper, 65.
(2) Cayton, Ohio: The History of a People, 102.
(3) Cayton, Ohio: The History of a People, 33; Hurt, 171.
(4) Saint-Pierre, 30-36.
(5) Ibid., 41.
(6) Centinel (Cincinnati), 23 November 1793. See Carolyn R. Shine, "Scalping Knives and Silk Stockings: Clothing the Frontier, 1780-1795," Dress 14 (1988): 44-45.
(7) Ad for merchandise from John McDougal, The Scioto Gazette (Chillicothe), 4 June 1801. Similar assortment of a wide array of textiles from McDougal in The Scioto Gazette (Chillicothe), 5 February 1803. Henry Nevil's merchandise included "Cambrick Muslins, English and India Handkerchiefs and Shawls" in The Scioto Gazette (Chillicothe), 23 May 1808. S. & F. Edwards advertised an assortment of "English, French, Scotch, India, German and Domestic Goods" in The Supporter and Scioto Gazette (Chillicothe), 10 August 1826.
(8) Sally Helvenston, "Feminine Response to a Frontier Environment as Reflected in the Clothing of Kansas Women" (PhD diss., Kansas State University, 1985), 1.