a fitting tribute in itself to the role lou wanted the house to play on the campus. lou's dedication commitment to stanford had left an indelible mark on the university. yesterday. stanford faculty staff students celebrated her birthday with exhibits about her time as a student cake and a caroline concert in the hoover tower. it is with great and thanks. we pay tribute to her on the 150th anniversary of her birth. i wanted to leave you a few resources that we created that you can see there's a guide to the lou henry hoover at the hoover institution. there are guides here at the presidential museum library. we've also created at stanford a lou henry hoover, a 150 year legacy site people to use. and down at the bottom is a link to the stanford geological survey exhibit. and finally, i'd like to dge and thank all of these people without whom this presentation could not have happened. they all were instrumental in

helping me to fact check dates and to find the pictures that were included here. so thanks to all of them and thanks to you for your attention. my name is edward maeder and i'm here massachusetts at the kind invitation of tom schwartz who i've for many years because of my erstwhile involvement with abraham, which actually began in 71 by making the costumes for an abraham lincoln wax museum that was actually built in cedar falls, iowa, in 1971. so my so my connections goh bac. so when he contacted me last fall to talk about lou and

fashions are i was one of the many people who knew very little about lou henry hoover i to say i immediately purchased the six books and read them and them and in a very short period of time fell sort of madly in love with her. i up with several titles i really like sleuthing at the seams, which i thought was pretty good, but i'm going to be talking about her life and fashion people. think about her as this image that you see here on. taciturn and probably a bit thought full and scholarly. ah, but you wouldn't think of as a fashion plate. and coming from waterloo iowa, you know how the rest of the world thinks that nothing really

happens in iowa. well, it's not it's just not true. she grew up in a in a family that was quite involved with a fashion we see her as a as an unhappy one year old or six month old in 1874 with her mother and mother is the height of fashion for 1874. you see an illustration in here from harper's bazaar of 1874 where she's wearing almost the identical hairstyle. so she she came into the world of fashion. harper's bazaar, incidentally was founded in 1868, and the first international magazine in a fashion, and it was published all over the world with months of preparation shown at the same time. so the people in budapest and the people in milan and the people in rome and people in waterloo, iowa, all the same images to inspire them.

as a nine year old, you can see she was already interested in fashion. she's wearing a gown that is that is made with with silk satin. and it's all puffed and ruched. and she's wearing this very unusual color, which, of course, really came from, you know, who queen elizabeth first was inspired or the 1870s was a time of great revival. they were constantly revival. we've reviving the fashions of the past, very much like they are today, are, you know, we think you know, we think we are inventing what we're really doing is we're just grabbing from the past and reinterpreting her early fashion career. interestingly it happened in when she was nine years d in. 1883 when she and a friend of

hers decided to have a fancy party and they had a fancy dress party for 150 little girls in waterloo iowa. the year after this book was published fancy dress, as described by arden holt. this is perhaps the most famous publication on the subject. and in this book is a description called press or this is carried out entire in newspaper. the skirt consists of box pleated illustrations from papers coming to the waist with portraits and names of newspapers pasted across here. there the bodice with bertha to match the bows of scarlet velvet quill pens, ink bottle and sealing wax stuck in theas a mun would appear dress. and fancy dress balls in paris the same idea was carried out a white satin dress having bands

velvet bearing the words discretion, indiscretion and the names various paris newspapers. sometimes they were trimmed, trimmed the skirt with used postage stamps and they called the gown postage. so here is an example from harper'she fancy dress dress gowns that would have been worn in much. are here is the description from the waterloo courier of. may 23rd, 1883. thlile folks commercial house last wednesdayveng, mrs. sweet and lou henry being the hostesses. eyere all dressed in handsome mquade costumes, etc., etc. ms. and sweet was hasomely attired in a costume made of the and looked very

attractive. lou henry's costume was composed. the tribune so the two, the two battling newspapers were represented by the two young ladies at this. we've already talked her interest and athleticism and this is a wonderful photograph of her in an ice skating outfit. and it's made of wool wool was the fabric of choice at this time. everything was wool down to your underwear? and if were really savvy, your underwear was made of red wool because red■4 w there was a man called gustav yeager. some of you may have heard of the yeager shops, the wool shops. well, gustav yeager in 1879 invented something called the sanitary wool system, in which he believed untied natural wool should be used for everything, including your corsets and shoes. and that is a whole other lecture. but here you see some some interesting illustrations of of

these garments and of course, stripes were easy because stripes could be woven at the time the fabric was made wool does something that no else does and it breathes wool■2 transpors from your skin to the outside keeping your skin warm. it'sqt why i'm sure you have not noticed. but i am wearing birkenstocks with wool socks and i wear birkenstock with wool socks. 365 days of the year. in the winter i wear two pair and my feet are perfect. you can see that there was an interest even though we saw images of her looking like a kind hellion. you see here. in 1893. and she's wearing a very hairstyle at the time, and here she is with her and another colleague at stanford. and this is 1894. and you see her sleeves and i want to talk a bit about changee

and size every year and you can tell in 19th century image by the shape of the sleeves. from 1891 to 90 2 to 90 3 to 94, by 95, they were enormous in they were so enormous that sometimes■@ gentlemen had to buy three theaters seats for their for their companion because the sleeves were so large seat. enormous, you9g yourself. the bigger a costume, the more important you are. that's why kings wear long robes. that's why the size and shape of your garment determines how present yourself. this is a photograph photograph that we've just seen. and florence henry said.

she wore a brown traveling suit, as did mr. they were a perfect match. neither knew what the other would, so i guess they were sympathetic as. as regarding their clothes. and here you see it on their wedding day from the ofebruary. now he gave her, which i found very, very interesting as a wedding, a piece of lace. it's called maltese lace because it's made on the island of malta. and here you see that that pattern i, i have a pointer here. you see this pattern■ he? here's the pattern. here's pattern on the lace. the maltese cross and this was made of natural natural silk that it was a kind of natural beige color. and it was very, very popular. in fact, it was it had been popular in the 16th century when

it was done needle lace, and then it became bobbin, which is done in this, as you see here, you can have as many as 150 baboons. in fact, there are where there have been a thousand baboons. and it's really a of breeding. and the baboons are just braided around pins in a pattern. and this was a big industry and it became it became important, which i will get into during the first world war. i found a reference where it said that the in the white house a lace was preferred for tablecloths. it was reported that lou liked to be able to see the beautiful through the lace. so that's why she preferred lace to linen tablecloths. they, of course, went to china, landed smack in the middle of the boxer here we are. and i read an account at one point, her bicycle was shot out

from under her. i don't know. that's if that's true or not. there's there a lot of interesting her in 1900, oxers besieged. then it's up and she as fashionable as. you can possibly be. bert said she was dressed fully, fully on time, and he was sort of shocked, and she retorted on the bottom of page that her previous had resulted because the tail brought her gown just 15 minutes before she was to appear in it. a away. i'm sorry, this is not 18. 1988 is a typo. i did not catch that. i'm sorry. and here youfashion in 1900, the has some wonderful items in its collection,ym including these marvelous hair ornaments, which

are made of jade and are faux pearls and glass beads and this wonderful decoration, this iridescent which is made of kingfisher feathers feathers, are, in fact, it became so popular that i think several became, as a result of this fashion, now only year later, in 1901, you see her during stay in japan for baxter's and she's straight out of italian renaissance. she's wearing a beatrice shade dusty gown with that are done in puffs. she has she has a an inset with a collar of course it's a high stock collar, but it is absolutely by the renaissance and. she was t afraid of fashion here. you see her in a kimono.

and these are very difficult wear. the obeys are extremely and require a great deal of discipline. i'm not sure if she did this before or after her back surgery, but and i'm not sure if was a help or a hindrance. so in 1903, london, we see her in her vehicle ofzp choice and e is, the lady of the hat she is wearing. what was at the time the butterfly hat. and here you see an example it. and yet another version the hat frippery was the crowning glory who you wereu wore it was just as important as the hat itself. another aspect of her of her garments was she was standing in

what is called the fashionable shape. this is called a mano bosom. and it means that you don't have two so you have one. and it's kind of pushed together and it's sort of falling down in the front. in 1944, bernhard an exhibition at the museum modern art, which was called our close modern, and he made little sculptures, what the body would look like under, the fashionable clothes. and here you have these are about this tall and they are at the metropolitan museum of art but he did the hobble skirt and he did the twenties when you had no breasts and, so on. so these are really fascinating in terms of lou hoover. and if you take a look at that at the sleeve, i'm going to show you a bit later the sleeve right here that that influenced a very important gown in collection that i'm going to be talking about extensively. now. there is a dress in the

collection from redfern and. john redfern began in the isle of wight and then to london and to paris and was the heart of, of the fashion industry. he, he competed with charles frederick wirth. he was really one of the most foremost couture's and couturier and is a dress in the collection. and here you see the label redfern, paris, and the label is always the band inside the bodice and it saer appointed inr imperial majesty empress of russia. and on the right it says to to the princess of wales who who would become queen very shortly becaus victoria on in january in 1901 and then she of course became the queen.

this is the dress and this is just a detail of it and kind the kind of workmanship, the craftsmanship, the lace, the embroidery, the beads and so on are really quite stunning. but it must have been made soon after their arrival in london. as you can see here now back to 1903, lou. and i'm sorry i said herbert junior. it's herbert. it's not herbert, because i've discovered thathave different middle names. and so he's really herbert is not herbert junior mia culpo, but here you see herbert with stylish and the tilt of the hat was everything how the connected to the hairstyle all of this people who were looking at you which was everybody i also came across

the most fascinating designer called albert phillips and here you have on the interior of the garment mrs. hoover can you see the name is written written he is sorry he received the appointment to her majesty the queen in 1901. and unfortunately i do not have an image to show you because this garment is in very complicated and challenge. it's a very challenging condition. but hopefully the next that gart will have been put back order and you will be able to see it. she was really kind of picture perfect as the mother of of these two boys. and believe it oregon, postcardn the right. i purchased two days ago on ebay because i was looking for a little sailor suit outfit that i

would not have to worry about copyright. and so this is a 1907 postcard that is now in my possession. even in burma, in the in the in the middle of outback, you see her in a skirt that is pleated that is that beautifully tailored. and her children are dressed her son is wearing one of these kind of little lord fauntleroy boy ruffled shirts. that's very elaborate. and the mysterious fashion drawing, which i've been by, has a description. it say to sewn on white cotton. the chiffon very fine tucks between the lace and places black velvet ribbon with black spangles sewn on it. spangled butterfly for and after a very gown from mama for, the summer would be a black doll is

swiss made over black for day or white for evening. so she was very clearly interested in fashion because she did this drawing and she's talking itnd here is an example that has survived from 1910 in the collection. and you see that the the bands down the front are embroidered chains stitch on net and all of this hand embroidery done by masses of of, of workers. in 1914, she was involved with an organization to support lace makers in belgium and was part of the united states support of belgium during this during the first world war and she became very and in the exhibition here you will find this lace of saint michael and the pattern was done was drawn out and then it was

pricked with a needle and then it was laid then it was laid over. a fabric. no, i'm sorry in this case, it's laid over a pillow. and then where the needles are, the pins are pricked, and then it's all woven around of those pins. and you see the result of it here on the right. and there's a there's a student, a youngan earning her living, and they earned two francs a week as opposed to nothing. and they had a lot of trouble the with the germans. they were not a they were allowed to export lacethere wers that actually have cities in flames and within within. so these were were hidden by being wrapped around the bodies country, which was also done in the 18th century. if you read small it, you'll

find out that that's how lace and weremuggled out in 1748. it was illegal to have foreign embroidery in london and it could taken off your back and publly burned. and the person and the person who sold it to you would be fined 100 pounds per item because they didn't want the british of british gold to go to the king of france, who was their enemy. so they prohibited foreign embroidery by 1919. you see her with her in palo alto and she wearing what i call perhaps a rather unfortunate style. they may have been fighting for the voteb't winning any contest for beauty. it■j was was it was a practical, practical design, but it's a continuum. the world ofhion.

ly a mistake. here we have a dress from 1920s that is on display. you can see it over here and it's silk crepe andlayered■e int are cut on a circle. and the trimming on all of this is quite beautiful as their little pronged rhinestone that are set into into a gold recording. now the interesting thing about the toes when it comes to fashion is that women in the twenties were not allowed to have. even in the in 1923 even in 18th century films, the wigs went from the from the eyebrow up, the foreheads were hidden. and this seems to hoover really

liked because you see from the 1920s really onward, almost the end of her life, she wore hats that covered forehead here and she elaborate prints. she has a reputation of being motherly and wearing grays and blacks and browns and all of that. but i'm going to show you some of her garments. and they are knockout here. again, you have the cloche. this is in the exhibition. these are these are printed silk chiffons. of, which there must have been millions. because i work for an auction house and every one of our auctions we have dozens, dozens and dozens of these from the 1930s. they were very popular and they were surprisingly strong. here you have that's that's called a resist dye, where the fabric itself has a pattern printed on it of of a kind of gl. and then you die it in black and

then you rinse out the glue. and so you get beautiful design onil multicolored of silk chiffon. so they were called garden dresses and. you were really walking among you wearing the blossoms. in garden and walking among the blossoms, you were actually wearing them. and of course, one of my favorite images of this is inau. and she's certainly stood out because no one else was wearing. a girl scout uniform. but she she was she was she was definitely a standout in that particular case. but she. she wore this cloche hat, which is which is my topic of discussion. and here you the collection. and you see how the facemes the

important part of the expression the head is covered up. and at this time, the 1920s, there was a big move toward rayon because they were trying to they were trying to get away from the huge consumption of silk and fashion. so here you have a rand round crepe that is all done with chain stitch embroidery, the amount o handwork on all of this was quite, quite massive ed in washington. she shopped garfinkel, julius store, which was an eight story department store that he erected. in 1929 and within years he had more than 500 employees. and she has many garfinkel, julius garfinkel dresses. he was dedicated to his stores. he never was bothered with things like marriage and and children he was really married to his store.

and he was one of the first to have live models going through the store, wearing fashions was. a this dress, as you can see, right there, you can see later on when, the lights are up and this is another one of h v prin. but look at the color. it's all about color is not gray, it is not gunmetal. it is not it is not black. i think part of it has to do with the images were in black and white and so many of the many of the images that people saw were black and white. and of course this dress is up there as well. and this is crushed velvet in blue. she had a reputation of loving bl tulle dresses and everything in blue. in the course of all of this, i came across a dress was quite famous and it was made of cotton. so i started to investigate that and i came up with, believe it or not, in 1931, a telegram came

from huey long long saying that we can restore the prosperity of the south and■ materially the balance of the world within less two weeks time, if the cotton producing have governors and other officials who will have the courage to act and decide civilly, the only way that this can be done is to prohibit by law at once the raising of a single bale of cotton in all cotton growing states. during the year 1932, the used to have their cotton and if action is immediately taken along this line, they will benefit of the price because. cotton had gone down to $0.06, $0.06 a pound, and it was an absolute. so the governor of texas and the governor of of of louisiana o pass laws and they actually passed laws that you could only use 30% of your property in cotton.ñd and this was going to solve the problem. well, it did create was an enormous exodus to north from from hundreds of thousands of

cotton workers whom who move who immigrated to the north. in 1931. there a growing movement movement the cotton holiday was promoted by huey long and was part of a promise toak people's. in hindsight, we can see clearly it was like so many other plans of his a ruse. sound familiar. lillian rogers parks wrote a book called, my 30 years backstairs at the white house and she was responsible her mother was responsible for keeping a diary of first lady lou henry hoover of every single thing she wore every day. and this is the diary from 1932 in the morning, lunch, you know, blue shoes. sometimes it tells what color stockings what kind of and dinner a blue and white muslin

colonial gown, black satin slippers, black velvet ribbon for hair. old fashioned blue velvet purse. well, she wore this again on the and it says air, butthe air. it was, in fact, in worcester, ohio, a the lh d letter litter litter litter rotten woman's room doctor. so she reived an honorable doctorate and she wore this dress and it said a pagea will play an important part of the formalities. mrs. hoover herself wl review the ann■uathparade at worcestere sharing honors with miss selma sage of marion, ohio queen of the may well here is the dress

and her action in wearing a cotton dress to an official presidential function created a stir that not only from the standpoint of fashion in the ongoing discussion of luxury goods silk, every other fiber, the article in the manchester guardian said, though tongue in cheek, was produced in the part england where cotton had been the single most important manufacturing goods since the late 18th century. so this colonial dress worn on february 4th is propitious. banning cotton production was declared. so that law was ended. however, and the end ofary this particular article about queen, about her dress, was while the queen buys cotton at the brismanufacturers fair. mrs. hoover, it seems, has ordered a cotton gown for a forthcomg ate function in

washington. her motive, however, is not to help the planters of arkansas or even the carina mills. it is said to encourage a boycott of. japanese silk. there can be no doubt that if american wen who are the largest consumers of silk in the boycott whence the larger japanese would be disastrous. moreover it's difficult to see how any american government, even if it wanted to, could stop such a movement. japan, of course, has a method of dealing with boycotts of mrs. hoover persists, and if e followed a large number of her countrywomen. we expect to see japanese warships at the golden gate and japanese troops and purely in self-defense and for the protection of their nationals and their commercial rights in the united states. bombarding san francisco and dropping bombs over los■ú angel. so here you have here you have a a british newspaper making great fun of this. however, the newspapers said the

woman who had nothing that old cotton dre t wear at her formal party need not waste ay . at a recent white house party, the lady of the land set the style cotton by receiving in a flower frock copied after one her mother had worn many years before. however, that has never been discovered so you see the frock. and you see several variations with with the way the accessories are worn. now, this was a time when they were receiving people from all over the world at the white house. and in 1931, they received, t s. and in researching, i was fascinated because he was the youngest of 44 sons.

he had 44 brothers and he had 33 sisters. and he was the youngest one, but he somehow miraculously. and i think there's a whole story there. he did abdicate four years later to form a constitutional monarchy. and here is the lou henry hoover we all know and love with her favorite with her occupation knitting. how many of you here? knit. okay. i have to raise my. i've been living since i was five with two swiss grandmothers. there's no other possibility.■mr so. and in fact, when i came here three days ago, i went to the knit shop in iowa city and there were five ladies sitting around it and i said, so how long have and one woman said, well, i've dating since i was six. i said, oh, i've been eating since i was five, but i'm.

an are you? and she said, well, i'm 76. and i said, well, i'm 79, so i guess i win. and it was one of those, one of those interesting encounters. so here at the white house see her wearing her favorite clothes■d hat. giving her face this kind of aura. and here believe it says the farewell tour of 1932. is this correct. is this image correct? is this date correct on this image? hello? the dates. , and i wanted to show you this. this beaded handbag that you see holding one. these were popular for about 80 years. and they were knitted and all of

the pattern was put on to a single thread, all in order and then unit and you put a bead with each one of the stitches and there's famous story that actually, i believe comes from iowa, where a woman wanted to knit one of these for her minister because. she thought he was wonderful and. she got the pattern from a friend of hers and it had butterflies on it, but the friend screwed up the pattern and gave her the wrong pattern. so when she made it, it was a disaster. it was something else. so■w the. but but she's wearing something here that was fashionable for over 80 years. so i don't know if the one if the one she has around her wrist is from the 20th or it could even be as early as the 1840s. now, mrs. hoover had perhaps the wardrobe this from any first lady in the white house up to that time. pair of shoes. this this is from her staff who

were preparing to have her move out of the white house. each pair of shoes were wrapped and labeled, as were the pocketbook. by thursday of the second week, we'd gotten to the from o'clock in the morning until 9:00 friday night. i did nothing but fold evening gowns. we only had until saturday morning to get ready for the next lady who was eleanor roosevelt. and this is the dress that probably many of you have seen at the smithsonian. it's made silk and metallic and it's on display. the first lady's gallery. the first lady's gallery was started in 1916. by the way, and i don't know how many of you subscribe to smithsonian magazine, to some of you get the smithsonian magazine. well, they had an article about washington'from the

smiths and in it, and it's a hand-painted silk ess and it had flowers on it. and they said these were the flowers from her garden. and i wrote a letter to them which they published and. it's not true. the silk m china. it was all hand-painted in china. and import had nothing to do with the in her garden. a little fact that they forgot. but lu lu. was the first lady of style charm and substance as. as anybody interested in her will know. anybody who's read any of the books on will know. and this these speaker before me made it very clear that we have a serious woman. but don't forget that fact. she was not bereft of fashion. thank you.