Maine Memory Network

I was married in a spotted Swiss Muslin Dress Flowin Under sleeves, White kid gloves and so forth, I have got a Cornelian ring and a real handsome gold one that Mr Collins gave …

–– Lucy Collins, Michigan, formerly of Yarmouth, September 11, 1854

I gave Clara twenty dollars to purchase a wedding dress & bonnet and some money towards a shawl … Claras Bonnet was Salmon colored silk a overbonnet with a neat Salmon colored wreath it cost about six dollars her dress was appropriate and neat … we commenced the Married life at about 8 o clock March 27 1850.

–– John Martin, Bangor

Weddings call for finery. Regardless of their economic circumstances, the bride and groom wear special clothing – perhaps something elegant designed for the occasion, or perhaps the best in their closets, cleaned and neatly pressed.

Even if they don relatively ordinary dress-up clothes, many couples enhance their outfits with special jewelry or other accoutrements.

Wedding dresses, especially, often stray from contemporary fashion, emulating instead Victorian or other historical styles.

Various colors and patterns graced wedding outfits until the mid nineteenth century. When Queen Victoria married Prince Albert in 1840, she wore white, thus influencing wedding style for most of the Western world.

Elaine Robinson’s mother, Mabelle Robinson, used Butterick Pattern # 8200 to make her daughter’s wedding dress. The sheer silk organdy dress has an under slip. The skirt holds its shape with a sewn-in hoop.

Elaine married Merton Wilder Mitchell on June 26, 1939 at the summer home of her aunt and uncle in Peru, Maine.

She also wore an 1842 silk and lace cap that her great-grandmother had worn at her wedding.

Elaine had studied nursing in Boston before returning to Peru to marry. Wilder Mitchell owned a sawmill in Mexico, Maine.

Elaine May Robinson wore these white pinhole-punched leather shoes with two-inch heels on June 26, 1939 when she married Merton Wilder Mitchell at the summer home of her aunt and uncle – "The Boulders" – in Peru, Maine.

Members of the wedding party posed outside the summer home of the bride's relatives in Peru.

From left are Florence Emily Robinson, cousin of the bride; Ray Mitchell, brother of the groom; Merton Wilder Mitchell, Elaine May Robinson Mitchell, Elizabeth "Lib" Cunningham, a friend of the bride from Canton High School, who was maid of honor; and Carolyn Ethel Robinson, cousin of the bride.

When Deborah Thaxter (1752-1832) of Hingham, Massachusetts, married Capt. James Todd (1751-1831), also of Hingham, on September 10, 1772, she wore these brocade shoes, made from the fabric of her mother's wedding dress.

Todd, a shipmaster, was captured by the British while en route from Havana to Boston in 1773. He was held prisoner for nearly nine years in Nova Scotia, Quebec, Plymouth, England; St. Thomas, and Bermuda. Released in June 1784, he remained a sea captain until 1804.

The couple's youngest son, James, apprenticed as a gilder and looking-glass maker in Boston, then moved to Portland in 1820, where he operated the Portland Looking Glass Manufactory, served as president of the Maine Charitable Mechanic Association, and was active in politics.

Chansonetta Stanley Emmons (1858-1937), a gifted photographer and painter, created these miniatures on ivory of herself and her husband, James N. W. Emmons.

The portraits may have served as their wedding picture. They married in 1887. He died in 1898.

A native of Kingfield, she taught painting and drawing, and photographed her travels, friends, and children. She was the sister of inventors F.E. and F.O. Stanley.

A Chinese-American wedding group is captured among the trees in Belfast on June 22, 1940.

Pictured are, from left, Walter Wong, best man, Belfast; Lew Chang Minn, the groom, Belfast; Carolyn Wong, the bride, Bath; and Lilli Wong, the bridesmaid, Bath.

The Edgar and Mabel Thorsen wedding party is shown on June 20, 1931 in New Sweden.

Anna and Jens Mortensen pose with their attendants on their wedding day in 1927 in Portland.

They lived at 9 Cedar Street, Portland. Anna was a folder at the Harry F. Greely laundry at 123 Washington Ave. Jens was a driver at Ingalls & Co. Trucking at 27 Cotton St.

Edmund S. Muskie married Jane Gray of Waterville in 1948.

Muskie, a lawyer, served as Maine governor from 1955-1959, a U.S. Senator from Maine from 1959-1980, and U.S. Secretary of State from 1980-1981.

Jessamine Phipps Damsel of Evanston, Illinois, married William Moulton Ingraham on June 1, 1901.

The couple lived in Portland. William Ingraham (1870-1951), a lawyer, served as judge of Probate Court from 1907-1914, mayor in 1915, assistant U.S. Secretary of War from 1916-1917, and Surveyor of Customs in Portland starting in 1917.

A Democrat, he ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1924.

Jessamine Phipps Damsel was born in 1877 in Mansfield, Ohio, and died in Portland in 1966.

Charles Ames Washburn married Sallie Catherine Cleaveland in New York on May 11, 1865.

He was the son of Israel and Martha Benjamin Washburn of Livermore. An 1848 graduate of Bowdoin College, he was the editor and publisher of the "Alta Californian" and later of "The Times" in California.

Charles also invented "Washburn's Typeograph" and sold the patent to the Remington Company.

For weddings and other occasions, it is often the accoutrements -- the one special item or special touch -- that makes the "standing out" fashion statement.

Dr. Stephen Cummings (1773-1854) of Portland gave his daughter Sarah (1798-1875) this gold watch before her marriage to Charles Bradley, a Portland merchant, in 1826. The watch is Swiss and has a case of gold, silver, bronze, and copper.

Thomas Quinby (1813-1885) of the Stroudwater section of Portland owned this watch fob that shows the Quinby family crest.

Quinby, a civil engineer, was superintendent of the Portland and Rochester Railroad and managing agent of the Saco Water Power Co.

The owner of the bejeweled belt buckle is unknown, but its size and bright colors no doubt stood out.

Shirt studs take the place of buttons, often on formal clothing. This stud has an unusual corkscrew design for attaching to the buttonhole.

Hermann Kotzschmar, the musical director and organist at First Parish Church in Portland and a choral conductor in Portland and elsewhere, always wore this amethyst ring except when he was conducting. Kotzschmar (1829-1908), a native of Germany, came to Portland in 1849.

Musician Kotzschmar's gold-topped walking stick is engraved, "H. Kotzschmar, July 4, 1860." The stick has floral decorations.

Walking sticks often serve as items of fashionable adornment for men, rather than practical aids to mobility.

John Neal (1793-1876), an arts critic and author from Portland, owned the wood walking stick with a brass tip and gold decorative knob at the top that is inscribed "John Neal Portland, Me." It also has a leather cord threaded through a gold-lined hole near the top.

A photograph from about 1875 shows John Neal, a year before his death, leaning on a walking stick like the one shown above.

The walking stick belonging to Thomas Smith has an engraved silver handle and a glass tip with silver rim.

The engraving reads, "Thos. Smith, Rev. Thomas Smith, born Boston Mch 10, 1702, died May 23d 1795, Ordained in Falmouth, Me. Mch 1727, Was the first settled minister in Cumberland Co."

The small fringed parasol has a wood handle with mother-of-pearl inlay. The handle can collapse and fold in half for storage.

Parasols, or sunshades, were part of a fashionable woman's attire until the early twentieth century.

Sometimes called stove pipes or chimney pots, top hats were de rigueur men's wear. Beaver fur was strong, desirable, and expensive as a hat material until the decline of the beaver population in the early nineteenth century. Hats also were made of felt or silk. Top hats came in a variety of heights as well.

In the early twentieth century, shorter hats like bowlers or fedoras became popular. The lower height allowed men to fit more easily into automobiles.

William Brown, an itinerant artist who visited Maine on several occasions, made this silhouette of Amos Roberts and imposed it on a stock lithograph background.

The subject may be Amos M. Roberts of Bangor, who was a wealthy lumber merchant and prominent citizen. The clothing and pose suggest the subject was a man of status.