Two sisters? Perhaps. They appear to be wearing two or three piece outfits cut from the same pattern. I will just assume that women especially in rural Minnesota either sewed themselves or went to a dressmaker. I am sure in bigger cities you could buy ready made clothing.
This photographer I P Wood was in Delano, Minnesota from 1894 to 1895. There was no record of him being in Rockford. He obviously was there at some point in time. I shared a copy of this photo with the Minnesota Historical Society because they have a directory of Minnesota photographers, they can now include Rockford as another location for this photographer. I consult their site on a regular basis to help me date photographs.
The laptop seems to be working as advertised..I must be getting old..since I sometimes doubt new fangled things..like wireless Internet connections!
Thanks for stopping by, do come again:)
Oh my, I love this picture! You are probably right about sewing their own dresses from the same pattern. The only thing I find slightly different is that Girl #1 on the left has 16 buttons showing below her jabot and Girl #2 has 16 buttons showing in total. Considering the closeness of the buttons on Girl #1, her dress could be using a hook & eye closure with decorative buttons. Also very interesting on Girl #2 is that her pin at her throat looks like a little sword pierced through the fabric from left to right. Girl #2 has velvet sleeves and a velvet collar of some sort, good for cooler climes. Her skirt, although she is seated, has some interesting draping which suggests a fuller skirt in the back, where Girl #1 has the typical Belle Epoch A line skirt. Thank you for the return to the 19th century, for now I can say something other than "great photo!" :-)
ReplyDeleteI was just going to say, I can't imagine how long it would take to put all those buttons on the dress front and how long it would take to get dressed. I went to Osceola today and dug something up. I will ship tomorrow if life goes my way.
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