Update #3: Mysteries of the Elizabeth Bull Wedding Gown

Last November I attended an event at the Bostonian Society about one of its prize artifacts, the Elizabeth Bull wedding dress, which was about to be sent off for study and conservation. I’m no expert in fashion, either eighteenth-century or twenty-first-century, but I know some folks who are, and I’m interested in how stories get passed down.

The Smithsonian Institution is sometimes called the nation’s attic, and the Bostonian Society could be considered Boston’s attic. But the Bostonian Society wasn’t founded until 1881, when citizens decided to restore the Old State House and turn it into a museum. That means the museum’s collections contain lots of historic things, but not so significant that they weren’t already owned by the Massachusetts Historical Society, American Antiquarian Society, Harvard University, Museum of Fine Arts, or other older institutions. It also means that the stories behind many of its colonial artifacts are based in family lore passed down for over a century and thus liable to evolution.

The Elizabeth Bull wedding dress is one of those treasures. As I understand the situation, its documentation was created in 1910 when descendants of Elizabeth (Bull) Price donated the garment to the society. They reported their understanding that:

• Elizabeth Bull began to embroider the silk gown with flowers while she was a schoolgirl in 1731.
• She wore the dress at her wedding to the Rev. Roger Price in 1735.
• Her daughter wore it to George III’s coronation in 1760.

However, as the museum’s photograph of an anonymous model wearing the dress shows, the dress doesn’t have an eighteenth-century silhouette. The skirt was taken in above the knees, in some places by cutting and seaming through the original embroidery. The resulting shape is most appropriate for the 1820s or ’30s. Conservator Katherine Tarleton reported that these alterations were “really finely stitched,” not slapdash for a single occasion as she’s seen in other altered garments. Later the gown’s bodice was remade with nineteenth-century fabric, but this time less skillfully, and that section hasn’t held up well.

The Bull gown was on display in the Old State House for most of the first half of the twentieth century, according to newspaper reports. (The museum’s internal records don’t preserve such detail.) Such long display, perhaps with exposure to some sunlight or drips, has left the backs of the sleeves “shattered” and the skirt stained. These days, conservators told us, the professional rule of thumb is to display a costume for four months and then to keep it in storage for four years.

In addition to the pieces of the gown shown in the photo, there are some matching bits. One is an eighteenth-century underskirt that’s in better shape than the overskirt, not having been exposed to light or spills. It also has a wider circumference, suggesting the dimensions of the original gown. There are also pieces of an old bodice, perhaps the original top of the gown or perhaps a part that was never completed and attached.

Those bodice pieces are marked with drawings of flowers for someone to embroider. So did Elizabeth Bull wear this gown at her wedding even though it obviously wasn’t finished? Was there originally a plain bodice that’s been discarded? Or were the unsewn flowers drawn on later because someone wanted more embellishment, but no one ever finished embroidering them?

Elizabeth and Roger Price moved to England in the mid-1700s. Their daughter reportedly attended a coronation in this gown—still apparently unfinished. She and her brother moved back to Massachusetts after the Revolutionary War, when celebrating George III was no longer a popular activity. Might the family memory of the gown have then morphed from a coronation gown to the gown their ancestor wore at her Boston wedding? Did the daughter, who lived until 1826, have the gown altered, or was that a relative’s decision?

I doubt we’ll ever know the full story of this garment, but the conservation will preserve the mystery for another generation.

1735 Wedding Dress on Display in Boston, 13 Nov.

On Tuesday, 13 November, the Bostonian Society is hosting a special event focused on this dress, embroidered by Elizabeth Bull before her wedding in 1735. The dress will be on display in the Old State House for that night only, and textile expert Kathryn Tarleton will describe the challenges of researching and conserving it. Then it will go off for treatment under a grant from the Stockman Family Foundation.

The society’s announcement explains:

Miss Bull began designing, sewing, and embroidering her own China silk wedding gown while in school, a project undertaken by young women to practice and perfect the advanced needle arts. She had already been working on the gown for several years when, in 1734, she met Reverend Roger Price at Trinity Church. The gown was still not completed when Miss Bull wore it to their wedding the following year.

The minister was in his late thirties; Elizabeth was still in her teens. Here are some close-ups of the embroidery. That page suggests that the dress was altered to conform to later fashions, as folks who know about sleeves probably already guessed. Here are some of the caps Elizabeth Price sewed for her babies.

The family moved to England in the 1750s when the Rev. Mr. Price sought a better living within the Anglican Church. He died unexpectedly in 1762. Elizabeth lived until 1780. Two of the couple’s children moved back to Massachusetts after the war, settling on property from their mother’s family in Hopkinton. Daughter Elizabeth, known as “Madam Price,” lived until 1826. Presumably she and her brother had brought the gown and other family items back to the United States.

Elizabeth Bull’s gown will be displayed from 5:30 to 7:30 P.M. Space is limited, and admission ($5 for Bostonian Society members, $15 for non-members) can be arranged through this Eventbrite page. There will be refreshments, presumably not near the fabric.