South Bend news-times., 1917-11-29

alIeHllOu lAOiH AhS SAS6dASc VI hSi
robe.
These things serve as a sauce 10
American history. They help to
make more real the great epochs
of the past by introducing us into
their social atmosphere. To see the
ladies of the White house" in this
brilliant procession, representing.
as it must be supposed they do, the
acme of American fashion in fe-
male dress during each successive
administration, for a period OF
about a century and a quarter, is
surely an educative experience.
While looking upon such an ex-
hibition one obtains a clearer in
sight into chapters of history which
hitherto, perhaps. have seemed not
much better than idle gossip but
which now loom up with a wider
significance and Importance. There
are memories, for instance, of the
stormy days Of Andrew Jackson.
which gave A zest 10 any glimpse
into the social atmosphere Of the
White house az that time.
There is another aspect of this
matter we'll worth regarding. In
every age of the world, and in ev-
cry country, the dress of women
has been a distinguishing note. 1t
is not what the men wore, but what
the women wore that best indicates
the quality and degree of past civ
ilizations.
You can go back to the old stone
age, to the time of the cave dwell
ers, and find this principle still
true. In the paleolithic aud neo-
Iithic caverns of France and Spain,
where the artistic spirit Of man left
it's earliest visible impressions, you
will find rude paintings which show
that the human contemporaries of
the mammoth and the spelaean car
nivores already recognized the dis
tinctive quality Of female dress and
adornment as a token of social ad-
vancement. II is not the rough
skin garments of the cave men, but
| il is the flowing dress and the
elaborate chevelures OF the cave
women that assure us that man
kind was not altogether savage
| even in those rude times.
Or consider the dress # the
Minoan women of ancient Crete,
! the old kingdom OF Minos which
| touches the very sunrise point OF
/ history. II is that more than any
thing else that makes US feel the
/ kinship of modern mankind with
: its earliest known representatives.
Those women who lived un-
/ reckoned thousands Of years ago,
long before Homer, wore low
necked dresses, puffed sleeves
| flounced skirts. pinched their
waists and curled and piled up
| their hair, and all so witchingly that
a French explorer on first seeing
their frescoed figures on a wall OF
/ the excavated palace OF Knossos ex-
claimed: why, these are Parisl-
| ennesl"
The same story is told by the
dress of the women of Mycaenean
| times. of the days of Athenian glory
4 Of old Persia, of Babylon, Of Egypt
Of Mexico and Peru in the days OF
the conquest, and IL is continued
amid different scenes. in the wig
vans of Indian chiefs and under
the palm trees and in the flower
bedecked huts OF coral-reefeo
islands. You take the measure of a
tribe, a people, a race, a nation
when you see how il dresses us
women, or, rather, how they in
terpret its civilization by the dress
which they choose for themselves.
Every change of the political
weather produces some change in
she fashions Of dress, best expresseJ
in what women wear. The periods
Of storm and Of calm can all be
read there by an acute student oi
/ history and OF human nature.
If this exhibition OF the gowns
OF presidents wives could be pre-
served for few thousand years
and rediscovered in the ruins OF
Washington, its figures would bs
pictured in school books OF ancient
history and commented upon in
learned treatises. written in Ian
guages yet 10 be born. When yoJ
are in Washington see it without
all.