Threads of Black Emancipation in an Eighteenth-Century Dress

Discover the many stories behind a 18th century garment with Cynthia Cooper, Head, Collections and Research; Curator, Dress, Fashion and Textiles. https://www.musee-mccord-stewart.ca/en/activities/mccord-stewart-discoveries/ A photograph of a young woman wearing her ancestor’s dress for a 1927 costume ball led to the unlikely discovery of the garment in a Laurentians cottage in 2022. Research has traced the garment from its origins in colonial Virginia in the 1760s, through the upheaval of the American Revolution, to Quebec City in 1789, embedding it in the first wave of Black emancipation. Lecture presented on March 22, 2024, as part of the McCord Stewart Discoveries series.