WEAVING IMMIGRANT STORIES: THE TENEMENT MUSEUM AND PRABAL GURUNG
Image: Ethel Wright, Dame Christabel Pankhurst, exhibited 1909. National Portrait Gallery, bequeathed by Elizabeth Ruth Dugdale Weir, 2011.
In my American literature class (1860–1914) we study the work of writers who have come to America - many of whom intentionally emigrated from other countries; many of whom are the descendants of enslaved people, who were forcibly brought to the United States. One of the stories I teach is 'A Sweat Shop Romance' by Abraham Cahan, set in a New York City tenement, and to understand the environment in which it is set, this fall I visited the Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side of Manhattan to tour the Levine tenement, equally home and dressmaking shop to the family.
Image: The Levine Tenement, TenementMuseum.org
In both the story and the Orchard Street tenement, the 'sweat shop' lived up to its name: the presser would set up by the kitchen stove, which heated the iron; in the small adjoining parlour, the baster and finisher would stitch up collars, cuffs and dresses, the open window doing little to cool down the sweltering tenement. The completed dresses - here in a crisp, cool pink - belied the atmosphere in which they were produced.
To complement this visit, I journeyed to the Upper East Side to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see the Costume Institute's In America: A Lexicon of Fashion, organised by the patchwork principle of a vintage 'tumbling block' quilt. There, Nepalese American designer Prabal Gurung's white dress with a sash emblazoned with 'Who Gets to Be American?' both greets and bids farewell to visitors as they enter and exit.
Image: Spring 2020, Prabal Gurung, Facebook.
Gurung's references are complex: is the dress Wedding White, with its bouquet of flowers blooming from the side as its wearer unites with the United States? Is it Pageant White, with the sash evoking the winner of Miss America? Or is it Suffragist White, with the sash recalling those historic silks in purple, white and green, often announcing 'Votes for Women'. Of course, it can be all of those things in addition to being a chic, asymmetrical, cutout dress.
These journeys - from the Lower to the Upper East Side, from one country to another, from cloth to garment - might even represent a symbolic warp and weft, as yarns and lives crisscross to weave various American identities.
Visit our blog again tomorrow for more text and textiles by Kate Cavendish