Strap Dress with Diagonal Ribbon Stripes

Strap Dress with Diagonal Ribbon Stripes

E357965-0

Woolen indigo blue trade cloth strap dress trimmed with multicolored ribbon horizontal and diagonal rows, with floral beadwork on the straps and the central panel.

Technical diagram by Cory Willmott.

1917

Anishinaabe

White Earth Reservation

A card attached to the dress has written in Densmore's handwriting: "Womans's costume comprising: 1. Dress, 2. Sleeves, 3. Leggins, 4. Moccasins, 5. Beaded sash (belt), 6. Otter-skin hair ornaments, 7. Beaded hair ornament; coll. by Frances Densmore 1917." Only the sleeves can now be confidently associated with the dress.

Blue woollen cloth, black velveteen, glass seed and cut beads, silk ribbon

Collected by Frances Densmore at White Earth Reservation during the 1917 June 14th Celebration. Although it is unknown how he obtained them, at NMNH "this strap dress and sleeves were in the collection of Victor Justice Evans, which was bequeathed to the museum upon his sudden death in 1931. He had imposed no system of temporal, regional, or cultural order on his massive ethnographic collection of 4,728 items from all over the world. In the NMNH registry the dress and sleeves were separated by sixty-one numbers and both were surrounded by items attributed to “Plains Indians.” (Willmott 2021). This information was compiled with the help of field notes by Densmore at the MNHS.

strap dress

Cory Willmott. (2021). Decolonizing the Museum to Reclaim and Revitalize the Anishinaabe Strap Dress. Winterthur Portfolio. 55. 121-185

47.22759, -95.72049 (N 47°13′39″ W 95°43′14″)

strap dress