Loan (Exhibition)
Royal Albert Memorial Museum, May 8th - September 4th 2004, 'Wrapping the Globe: British South West Trade Cloth Around the World
Event Date
Author: maa

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Context (References)
Cadzow, Donald A. Air-Cooled Adventure among the Aborigines, Syracuse, NY: H. H. Franklin Manufacturing Company, n.d.
Event Date
Author: rachel Hand

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Loan (Exhibition)
Proposed courier/installation date: 6th October 2005.
Proposed de-installation date: 3rd week of April, 2006. 'Wrapping the Globe' exhibition, 8 October 2005 - 16 April 2006.
Event Date
Author: maa

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Context (Field collection)
Collected by Australian Robert Rymill on one of four reservations around Fort Qu'Appelle during the 1929 Franklin Motor Expedition. This was sponsored by Cambridge University’s Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology (MAA) and personally funded by MAA Curator, Louis C. G. Clarke. The expedition was initiated by Robert Rymill, one of Clarke’s students, and included his brother John Rymill and and Donald A. Cadzow, an wxperienced American adventurer and collector,

John Rymill during the Franklin Motor Expedition, 1929
Event Date 1929
Author: rachel Hand

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Description (Physical description)
Woman's strap dress made from a blue wool blanket with a red border and a cream selvage stripe at the hem and across the chest. The hem is lined with a grey cloth band. Decorated with four narrow rows of white beads and four rosettes of blue and white beads on a red cloth backing with two brass thimbles suspended from thongs in the centre. The shoulder straps are of red wool edged with white cloth. Extensive moth damage.
Event Date 1930
Author: maa

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Context (Production / use)
"This one here has a few, but some of them had, I don't know where they got them from, shells and things like that and sew them on. It was a woman that wore them. Like a real dedicated woman, a good leader. She had a top like that she'd wear, and when she moved you'd hear them jingling. It used to be nice. You don't see any of those now. I don't know what happened to them. They must have buried them."
[Florence Big Knife, Starblanket First Nation in interview with Alison Brown, 8.7.1999].
Event Date 8/7/1999
Author: maa

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Context (References)
Brown, Alison K. 2014. First Nations, Museums, Narrations: Stories of the 1929 Franklin Motor Expedition to the Canadian Prairies. Vancouver: UBC Press.


Event Date 2014
Author: rachel Hand

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Conservation (Freezing)
1173 | Freezing
Event Date 28/5/2015
Author: cft31

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Conservation (Surface Clean)
CON.2015.1697 | Surface Clean
Event Date 29/6/2015
Author: cft31

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Description (Physical description)
Blue felt dress. Red shoulder straps. Four rows of white beadwork across lower half. Felt and beadwork circular decorations (four each side), each with two metal bell-shaped decorations hanging from centre.
Event Date 7/12/2016
Author: maa

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Context (Display)
The dress was conserved by Morwena Stephens, in preparation for the exhibition, Trade Cloth, at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter, 8 May to 4 September 2004 and continued at The Museum in the Park, Stroud, 8 October 2005 – 16 April 2006.

The exhibition focused on cloth imported by the Hudson’s Bay Company trading from the late 1600s with Native Americans in northern North America, and the British East India Company which traded widely in Asia from the 17th century. Most material came from the Royal Albert Memorial Museum's World Cultures collection and was based on research undertaken by conservator Morwena Stephens, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Board (AHRB).
Event Date 27/5/2016
Author: Rachel Hand

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Context (Amendments / updates)
Brown, Alison K. (1998). Catalogue of the Rymill Collection in the University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Unpublished. (copy in MAA Archives FA5/1/12). Details were photocopied from the Rymill Collection binders which were created by Alison Brown funded by a Crowther-Beynon Grant
Event Date 31/3/2020
Author: Katrina Dring

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Context (Amendments / updates)
Language- Algonquian speakers
Language group affiliations were previously recorded in the cultural group field but this has now been removed.
Event Date 31/3/2020
Author: Katrina Dring

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Context (References)
Willmott, Cory. 2022. Decolonizing the Museum to Reclaim and Revitalize the Anishinaabe Strap Dress. Winterthur Portfolio 55 (2):121-185, p.156, fig, 51.
caption notes
Event Date 2022
Author: rachel Hand

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Context (References)
Part of “Qu'Appelle Valley Strap Dress,” Mapping Anishinaabe Regalia.
Mapping Anishinaabe Regalia website was developed by Cory Willmott to visually represent the findings of the items with geographic provenience in the comparative collection for the collaborative strap dress project that she worked on with Siobhan Marks and Neil Oppendike from 2017 to 2021.

https://iris.siue.edu/anishinaaberegalia/items/show/24 [accessed October 11, 2024]
Event Date 11/10/2024
Author: rachel Hand

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Description (Physical description)
See similar thimbles in V&A, dated 1830-1859, ref: T.277-1979, noted as 'Child's thimble of brass. With a milled edge, above which is a band of plain metal stamped with the word 'FRIENDSHIP', and a wreath of leaves. The remainder of the surface is stamped with rows of needle-sized indentations.'
Event Date 27/6/2024
Author: rachel hand

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Description (Physical description)
Sherry Farrell-Racette notes: Side-sewn strap dress, repurposed from an trade blanket and possibly an inherited intergenerational textile with a later addition of a red trade cloth band at base to extend the length. Lined at straps, bound at top hems and base. Two selvedges, one at top (at base of c. 18cm of fabric folded over from top) and one at base. Base seams sewn with a sewing machine. Dress has been well worn and used, with wear at edges of hems.
Four rows of small white beads, 8 beads/thread, possibly size 13, but unevenly shaped/sized.
Front of dress indicated by straps with buttons, with 6-petalled designs (one button remaining).

Amanda McLeod and Aidan McLeod noted: Pairs of thimbles on tassels front, left to right, (right) stamped with [?] EXCELSIOR [text unclear], one thimble missing; (right centre) stamped with "FAITH" and the other possibly with a ring of four-petalled floral designs; (Left centre) pair stamped with "FRIENDSHIP" and "ESTEEM" respectively; (right) both plain and unstamped.
Rear, left to right, (left) both thimbles stamped with 'FRIENDSHIP", (left centre) plain unstamped, (right centre) FRIENDSHIP" and ring of four-petalled floral designs repectively; (left) stamped with "FAITH" and "REGARD" respectively. Some thimbles bent out of shape but approximate inside diameter 15mm

Maureen Matthews- Linen thread and possibly linen lining. Not machine sewn hem at base. Buttonhole-twists are standard at this time, but have not been used here. Very simple utilitarian button hole with stitches around to stop unravelling. These type of dresses were worn with a sash/belt. While most Indigenous North American textiles shaped were dictated by the shape of the animal hide, these straps dress shapes seem to have been dictated by the shape and availability fabric instead .

From notes by delegates of the Great Lakes Research Alliance for the Study of Aboriginal Arts & Cultures (GRASAC) during a visit to MAA
Event Date 27/6/2024
Author: rachel hand