About Did They Really Wear That on the Trail?
Presented by Marge Harding, local historian and author
The nineteenth century was full of secrets. Undergarments, women’s
and men’s, most certainly were included in those secrets. This leaves us
to ask, did they really wear that on the trail? Using a light and sometimes
humorous living history presentation, Marge will display and describe the who,
what, where, when, why and how of these original garments. Also the
purpose and importance of the items from the “Trail” time period (1840s –
1860s) will be “exposed” and the secrets “beneath it all” will be made
public.
About the Speaker:
Marge Harding is the author of her new booklet series, Images
Revealed: Identifying and Dating by Fashion and Photography. She is a
collector and preservationist of original clothing, jewelry and accessories,
but her passion is researching, finding and “telling the story” of original
items and time periods. As a home economics teacher, Marge completed graduate
studies in Family Living and Women’s Studies and Textile and Historical
Clothing Preservation. Marge is the Heritage Consultant. for the
Clackamas County Historical Society, a member of the Costume Society of
America, Oregon-California Trail Association and other living history and
museum organizations.
Marge started Civil War Era re-enacting with her husband in
1990. For her, it was as if coming full circle, connecting her teaching
and studies of women with the real women of the past. She teaches period
clothing and trims construction and works with museums and the National Park
Service as teacher and curator, identifying and preserving original clothing
and textiles. Marge is a regular speaker and living history presenter on
various subjects concerning women, at conferences, workshops and seminars as
well as re-enactments. She performs first person representations of several
historic women figures such as Mary Todd Lincoln, Abigail Scott Duniway (1st
Lady of Oregon’s Women Suffrage) and Women of the Oregon Trail and early
Oregoon. Marge and her husband live in Oregon City, Oregon (“The End of the
Oregon Trail”), and are involved with museums and active in heritage tourism,
events and activities.
