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Description
When I was told about the Mary Todd Lincoln Paper Dress Project, I was really excited. I grew up in and around Springfield surrounded by the culture and artifacts of Lincoln and his family. As a small, I spent a great deal of time at Clayville, once a colonial reenactment and historical village, located outside of Pleasant Plains. And, I think that every class I was in ‘til 6th grade went on a trip to New Salem in Petersburg. When I was growing up, the house was filled with books on Lincoln and Lincoln memorabilia. And, my dad even works at Lincoln’s Home. Thus, the idea of creating a sculpture inspired by Mary Todd Lincoln was more than exciting, it was necessary.
So, I dragooned my compatriot, Ian Smith ([link] ), into working on the dress with me. Although there was much in the way of kicking and screaming on Ian’s part, I knew that his specific aesthetic sense and his technical proficiency would be integral in the creation of a sculpture-dress that addressed the various aspects of Mary Todd Lincoln that we were both interested in and thought needed to be said. We thought that, particularly, this sculpture-dress would be an optimal site in which to close the gap between art and craft, a situation in which art could facilitate the better understanding of history, and a place in which art and history could both be more accessible.
For us, this sculpture-dress reflects the strength of character that Mary Todd Lincoln possessed. Mary Todd Lincoln was an educated woman, an oddity of her time, yet her body was confined and constricted within corsetry that caused her body to warp and deform. She was referred to as arrogant, yet that appears to have been because she was a woman who was not afraid to voice her opinion and make certain that she was heard. Mary Todd Lincoln was often accused of being a clotheshorse in a time when, to be a “ proper lady”, clotheshorsiery was a requirement. She is often remembered as having been mentally and emotionally unstable and placed within a sanitarium, yet no one remembers that her only surviving son placed her in a sanitarium because she supposedly couldn’t handle her money. These were the aspects of her life that we felt were important to emphasis, aspects that are often overlooked because history would rather that we remember her as nothing more than Abraham Lincoln’s wife when she was, in reality, a strong and independent woman, and, like all exemplary President’s Wives, she was his most trusted advisor.
Rather than emphasizing the luxury and the implied status of Mary Todd Lincoln’s dress, we chose instead to consider the foundations of the dress. Our preoccupation became corsetry and underskirts and bustles, all elements that were imperative to the gown of the 1860s woman, but in a stylized, fantastic way emphasizing the constraint/confinement of the undergarments by the conceptual echoing of the corset in the bustle that has been formed to resemble a woman’s ribcage after habitual corset use. We also cross-bred Mary Todd Lincoln’s gown with a steampunk aesthetic illustrated through the inclusion of brass D-rings, O-rings, heavy brass buckles, and bronzy-brown straps that lends this almost fairy princess dress an air of the military. The last conceptual element integrated into our dress is reflected in the straps that are attached to the front and back of the corset. These straps can be attached to I-hooks to restrain the movement of the dress to reflect the time that Mary Todd Lincoln spent incarcerated in a sanitarium, giving the illusion of a straight-jacket.
The dress is made of cotton, flax, and abaca handmade papers, corduroy, floral mesh, brass hardware, nylon webbing, ribbon, and copper wire and sheet. The corset is made of handmade cotton paper glued to corduroy and fan-laced in the front and back. The underskirt element is built in two layers of cast abaca and flax with a double floral mesh skirt with ribbon-folded trim. The skirts cover a copper bustle made of copper wire and copper sheet. The various papers are procion dyed to reflect the coloration of the inspiration dress.

Description
When I was told about the Mary Todd Lincoln Paper Dress Project, I was really excited. I grew up in and around Springfield surrounded by the culture and artifacts of Lincoln and his family. As a small, I spent a great deal of time at Clayville, once a colonial reenactment and historical village, located outside of Pleasant Plains. And, I think that every class I was in ‘til 6th grade went on a trip to New Salem in Petersburg. When I was growing up, the house was filled with books on Lincoln and Lincoln memorabilia. And, my dad even works at Lincoln’s Home. Thus, the idea of creating a sculpture inspired by Mary Todd Lincoln was more than exciting, it was necessary.
So, I dragooned my compatriot, Ian Smith ([link] ), into working on the dress with me. Although there was much in the way of kicking and screaming on Ian’s part, I knew that his specific aesthetic sense and his technical proficiency would be integral in the creation of a sculpture-dress that addressed the various aspects of Mary Todd Lincoln that we were both interested in and thought needed to be said. We thought that, particularly, this sculpture-dress would be an optimal site in which to close the gap between art and craft, a situation in which art could facilitate the better understanding of history, and a place in which art and history could both be more accessible.
For us, this sculpture-dress reflects the strength of character that Mary Todd Lincoln possessed. Mary Todd Lincoln was an educated woman, an oddity of her time, yet her body was confined and constricted within corsetry that caused her body to warp and deform. She was referred to as arrogant, yet that appears to have been because she was a woman who was not afraid to voice her opinion and make certain that she was heard. Mary Todd Lincoln was often accused of being a clotheshorse in a time when, to be a “ proper lady”, clotheshorsiery was a requirement. She is often remembered as having been mentally and emotionally unstable and placed within a sanitarium, yet no one remembers that her only surviving son placed her in a sanitarium because she supposedly couldn’t handle her money. These were the aspects of her life that we felt were important to emphasis, aspects that are often overlooked because history would rather that we remember her as nothing more than Abraham Lincoln’s wife when she was, in reality, a strong and independent woman, and, like all exemplary President’s Wives, she was his most trusted advisor.
Rather than emphasizing the luxury and the implied status of Mary Todd Lincoln’s dress, we chose instead to consider the foundations of the dress. Our preoccupation became corsetry and underskirts and bustles, all elements that were imperative to the gown of the 1860s woman, but in a stylized, fantastic way emphasizing the constraint/confinement of the undergarments by the conceptual echoing of the corset in the bustle that has been formed to resemble a woman’s ribcage after habitual corset use. We also cross-bred Mary Todd Lincoln’s gown with a steampunk aesthetic illustrated through the inclusion of brass D-rings, O-rings, heavy brass buckles, and bronzy-brown straps that lends this almost fairy princess dress an air of the military. The last conceptual element integrated into our dress is reflected in the straps that are attached to the front and back of the corset. These straps can be attached to I-hooks to restrain the movement of the dress to reflect the time that Mary Todd Lincoln spent incarcerated in a sanitarium, giving the illusion of a straight-jacket.
The dress is made of cotton, flax, and abaca handmade papers, corduroy, floral mesh, brass hardware, nylon webbing, ribbon, and copper wire and sheet. The corset is made of handmade cotton paper glued to corduroy and fan-laced in the front and back. The underskirt element is built in two layers of cast abaca and flax with a double floral mesh skirt with ribbon-folded trim. The skirts cover a copper bustle made of copper wire and copper sheet. The various papers are procion dyed to reflect the coloration of the inspiration dress.