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Re: Pink Dress Philosophy



On Fri, 28 Jul 2000, Dean DeBolt wrote:

> to use in teaching.   Here you have an artifact that is truly still
> meaningful for a whole generation, and yet do you display arti-
> facts which make folks quesy?   I remember the bullet-ridden

Dean, it's not just queasiness, or taste--but also a question of whether a
particular item is indeed owned by the institution, fits the institution's
collecting policy--and as this is an archive--it is a "record?"  Is it a
federal record?

A museum or historical society collects different objects and papers than
a national archive should collect. The Smithsonian, for example, is
interested in collecting first ladies' clothing.  The national archives
shouldn't be collecting first ladies' garments unless they become a
federal record--but paper isn't in such short supply that should ever
happen.

We also don't want to have "stuff" in our buildings which we are
responsible for, but don't have a deed of gift for.  Nor do we want to
collect things outside the scope of our collections policy.  I wouldn't,
at least, YMMV.  It would be interesting to know what deed of gift, or
loan agreement goes with this item.

An archivist for a religious institution told me about taking all the
"relics" in his collection and giving them a proper burial.

I do not *personally* understand why the owner of the garment wished to
preserve it. I have disposed of the bedding and garments which some of my
relatives have died in, and do not understand why anyone would keep blood
and tissue stained garments to remember someone by.

If someone is murdered now, the clothing would be handled as either
evidence or as a biohazard. We don't have the same view of blood and
bodily fluids as we did in the 1960s (much less the 1860s).  I do not say
this to make light of the tragedy, but am thinking of procedures for both
police investigations and health.  I'm only a few feet away from a kit in
a bucket with all sorts of gloves, bleach, alcohol, and instructions for
cleaning up "biozards."

> of us were not "tuned-in" (I can't think of a better word here) to
> their lives and exploits, we don't find a horror in the car as we
> do with the pink dress...   Anyway, on to ...

There really isn't any difference in this item, compared to things on
display at the Armed Forces Medical Museum.  Bits of Lincoln's skull,
Garfield's assassin's pancreas, etc., or in other locations, "Bed Lincoln
died in," "Room Lincoln died in."

> ....the very interesting issue of NARA response.  It would have
> been helpful if someone from NARA had responded about the
> dress,

Asking the question on this listserv isn't asking NARA officially.

It's an interesting case, as you say.  I would suspect that national
archives in other nations do not have similar items in their holdings. It
isn't as though this was the first time an elected official, member of a
royal family or monarch was assassinated, and we in the US tend to
overestimate the importance of all happenings here to the rest of world.

It's probably the best documented instance--and the first time it played
out on the evening news and in full color.  Not like waiting for
engravings to show up in Harpers Weekly or even reading accounts in a
newspaper days after an event occured.


Carole Nowicke
Indiana Prevention Resource Center
cnowicke@indiana.edu  <http://php.ucs.indiana.edu/~cnowicke>

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