{"id":45194,"date":"2026-01-07T10:26:02","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T15:26:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/business\/?page_id=45194"},"modified":"2026-10-28T10:45:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T14:45:11","slug":"tmd-collection","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/business\/tmd-collection\/","title":{"rendered":"Historic Textile and Costume Collection"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Department of Textiles, Fashion Merchandising and Design<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
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Historic Textile and Costume Collection <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Department of Textiles, Fashion Merchandising & Design houses one of the largest collections of its kind at an American land-grant university. Comprised of approximately 27,000 objects, the Historic Textile and Costume Collection includes garments and accessories, home-furnishing textiles, samplers, and other textiles from around the world as well as tools used in textile manufacturing. Books, magazines, photographs, and fashion plates provide documentation of science and fashions from the past. The oldest object is a fragment of linen from an Egyptian tomb, dating to six thousand years ago. One of the youngest objects is a pair of platform sneakers donated in 2002.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"leafy<\/div>

Online Collection<\/h2>

Browse hundreds of objects highlighting undergraduate and graduate student papers, updated often. <\/p><\/div><\/div>

VIEW THE ONLINE COLLECTION<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"an<\/div>

Previous Exhibit<\/h2>

“Every Quilt Tells a Story” textiles exhibit reveals the stories behind historic quilts.<\/p><\/div><\/div>

read about this past exhibit<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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About the Collection<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The mission of the Historic Textile and Costume Collection supports teaching in the TMD department, as well as other departments on campus; encourages research by students, faculty, and visiting scholars; and provides artifacts for use in class, exhibitions across the university, and loans at other museums.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Examples of the depth of the Collection can be explored through the examination of artifacts from five local families. Families with broad Rhode Island connections donated garments, accessories, and home-furnishings that span two centuries and many generations. Early everyday wear is one of the strengths of the Collection. The wealth of information gleaned from these artifacts allows scholars to gain a broad understanding of life in Rhode Island in the eighteenth to early twentieth century. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Objects in the Collection include both costumes and textiles from all over the world. Besides a selection of pre Columbian Peruvian textiles, early Egyptian cloths, and a sample of African textiles, the earliest holdings are late eighteenth century. Nineteenth-century clothing and accessories for American women, men, and children are well represented. The Bainbridge Collection of laces includes hand-made European lace dating to the seventeenth century as well as lace made by machine in the twentieth century. The Accessions Committee is judiciously adding twentieth-century objects, particularly designer garments. Recent additions to the Latin American and African collections have begun an effort to increase the holdings from those areas.<\/p>\n\n\n

Interested Researchers<\/h1>\n\n

The Collection, housed in Quinn Hall, is available for researchers and interested groups for tours or programs. Please contact Susan J. Jerome<\/strong> at 401-874-2299 or sjjerome@uri.edu<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/section>\n\n\n

Previous Exhibits<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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  • Every Quilt Tells a Story<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Fashioning East and West: Investigating the Cross-Cultural Exchange of Materials, Methods, and Meanings<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Dressed for Business\u2019 celebrates the College of Business\u2019 centennial<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • The Kaleidoscope of Textiles: Dress as Multidimensional Cultural Documents<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • \u201cOne American Family: A Tale of North and South\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Feminism and Fashion of the Twentieth Century<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Celebrating 125 Years at the University of Rhode Island: Featuring Fashions Typical of Campus Wear from the Historic Textiles and Costume Collection<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • The Rise of the Readymade Apparel Industry<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • The Other White Dress<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • From Kitchen to Kitsch: Aprons from the Seventeenth Century to the Present<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • China: the Power of Design<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • From Exotica into Americana<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • What We Wore: Clothing from 1976-79<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Lace: the Elegant Fabric<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • At the Crossing: Midwestern Amish Crib Quilts and the Intersection of Cultures<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • American Woven \u201cCoverlids\u201d: Coverlets from the Historic Textile and Costume Collection<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • \u201cHistory in Stitches\u201d: Six Centuries of Embroidery<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Nature\u2019s Dyes: Textiles From Around the Globe<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Purple: Celebrating 150 Years of Synthetic Dyes<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • \u201cThese are a few of my favorite things\u201d: Faculty and Staff Choices<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
    \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Department of Textiles, Fashion Merchandising and Design Historic Textile and Costume Collection The Department of Textiles, Fashion Merchandising & Design houses one of the largest collections of its kind at an American land-grant university. Comprised of approximately 27,000 objects, the Historic Textile and Costume Collection includes garments and accessories, home-furnishing textiles, samplers, and other textiles […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5286,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-45194","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/45194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5286"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45194"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/45194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48016,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/45194\/revisions\/48016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}