Ithaca & Silent Film Style

The Biggest Little Fashion City explored Ithaca’s silent film history through the lens of costume, style, and fashion by chronicling the influence of the actors and actresses who lived and worked in Ithaca during the heyday of film production. Secondly, the exhibit highlighted the ways in which the new medium of moving pictures more broadly transformed fashion trends from the 1910s through the late 1920s.

An eclectic exhibition, indeed. It grew out of a simple and (intentionally) vague prompt: texture. What resulted was a group of students and staff members selecting some of the most visually stunning and beloved items hidden in the corners of our costume and textile collection. TEXTURE is about how fashion and textile objects can ask questions beyond their selvedges and seams.

An Old Industry Takes New Root

An age-old beverage has returned to the forefront with New York and Cornell University leading the charge.

Go Figure explores perceptions and representations of Euro-American beauty ideals across the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. Through outerwear and undergarments, this historical costume exhibition shows how women’s bodies have been manipulated and shaped to fit fashionable silhouettes at different moments in time. From corsetry and girdles to diet and exercise, shaping the human body is critical to fashion change and illustrates the fluctuating and dynamic nature of socio-cultural conceptions of “beauty.”

Films, Mills, and Poets: Mid-Century Bombay was an exhibit that was shown at the Carl A. Kroch Library's Asia Collections between September and November 2017, in conjunction with 'The Archive and the City of Bombay', a symposium held September 15. This online version highlights the major areas of the physical exhibit, while also showing a selection of the objects from the collection that were on display.

This exhibit focuses on the role played by two major American clothing workers’ unions, the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU) and the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (ACWA) in defending the standards of living and the job security of their members through the use of the union label and the promotion of the fashion industry in collaboration with prominent American designers. Sewn into every union-made garment, the label signaled to consumers that the goods they were buying were produced by American workers who enjoyed “fair labor standards and the American way of life.”

The Art of Gazette du Bon Ton

In 1912 Lucien Vogel started a new magazine dedicated to presenting the fashions of the most prominent Parisian design houses.

Projects from the Summer Graduate Fellowship in Digital Humanities

Each summer Cornell's Olin Library offers a fellowship program focused on preparing humanists with digital expertise enhancing their abilities to analyze information and engage new audiences in their research. As a result of this fellowship, the fellows generate digitally-based projects using techniques developed throughout the summer fellowship. This exhibition highlights a selection of the projects from the previous four summers.

Abolitionism in America

The Evolution of the Medieval Book

America's Culinary Heritage

What Was Home Economics?

The History of Cornell’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning