Dating Photographs Through Clothing

Dating Photographs Through Clothing presented by Ellie Carlson

Family photographs are hard to date once the generation pictured has passed away.  Many people have unidentified photos in their collection.  Determining an approximate date may help you to know whether the woman in the photo is your grandmother or your great-grandmother.  This is where costume dating can be helpful.

Fashion, especially women’s fashion, was very distinctive in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  Becoming familiar with certain popular silhouettes enables one to assign a date range to a photograph, thus helping to identify those pictured.

Please bring photographs with you to the lecture and we will all try to date them for you using the techniques outlined in the presentation.

Ellie Carlson is quoted as saying, “Some people are married to their jobs, I date costumes.”  Ellie is a museum curator with twenty-five years of experience in small to mid-sized museums.  She currently serves as the Curator of Costume for the Winnetka Historical Society, but, as that is a part-time appointment, she also works with many other historical societies on special projects and exhibits.  Ellie has a B.A. with honors from Roosevelt University and a Masters of Historical Administration and Museum Studies from the University of Kansas.  She completed her professional internship at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in the Division of Costume in 1987. This program is a joint event with the Road Scholars and is supported with a grant from the Illinois Humanities Council.