Sara Annette Bowman was one of the first four faculty members at the University of Idaho as a professor of art and design. Her dress, teaching bodice, beaded dinner bodice and bonnet are held in the Leila Old Historic Costume Collection. Old herself was a UI professor of apparel construction and design from 1967-1981 and assisted with the clothing collection, which was named after her in 1986.
Currently, some of this collection is on display on the first floors of the Niccolls Home Economics Building and the Pitman Center. The rest of the 18,000-item collection is on the second floor of Hays Hall. The articles span economic classes and are largely local pieces that date back to around 1850.
On Thursday, Sept. 18, professor Sonya Meyer displayed a small portion of the collection, focusing on garments directly related to UI through people of the university’s past. Among them, a 1905 white tasseled dress from Belle Sweet, UI’s first professionally trained librarian, and Malcom Renfrew’s 1934 doctoral gown from Minnesota.
Meyer stressed that “clothing is an outer communication of our inner self” and that being able to hold these garments from more than a century ago is an incredible opportunity to understand the past.
Historians involved with the collection focus mainly on “preservation, storage and conservation” said Meyer, as she told the story of a straw bonnet that cracked when it was packed flat and how she restored it.
Displayed proudly at the front was Margaret Ritchie’s red matching set. Her ensemble, along with red purse and red convertible, earned her the designation “The Lady in Red.”
As the head of the home economics department from 1938-1959, she was largely responsible for the planning of the Niccolls Building in 1951.
Her impact on the department was so great that it is now called the Margaret Ritchie School of Family and Consumer Sciences in her honor.
Miriam Moore can be reached at [email protected]