Not all the antique wedding gowns in the Fifth Annual Ketubah and Antique Wedding Gown Exhibit at the Jewish History Museum in Tucson are the traditional white. Many have mellowed to a soft champagne color over the years, and one that is enhanced with gold bullion thread has, since it was made in 1912, turned to a soft gold color. Other dresses were another color from the start.
The Jewish Confederate widow’s gown from the years following the Civil War is a black wedding gown for her second wedding. The garment is not black because she is a widow but because in the Reconstruction years following the Civil War, fabric was a scarce commodity – the wedding gown would need to be worn for more than one occasion. The gown was a skirt and two bodice pieces. One bodice was for everyday wear and the other – the fancy top – was for special occasions such as her wedding. The skirt filled in for all occasions. The accompanying ketubah spells out life and ownership on a Virginia plantation after emancipation. Noted in the legal document are the acres of land owned and the number of silver spoons in the kitchen cupboard, but gone are the names of slaves that just five years before would have been listed.
An 1892 gown from Riga, Latvia, is a plain peasant’s frock of green cloth, enhanced for a bride with tiny stars cut from black gauze fabric and stitched to the bodice with embellishments of two satin ribbons, also in black. Once again the gown speaks to the oppression of the era. Her legal document, complete with a taxation stamp, is not a ketubah but a signed document from the government of Latvia granting the Jewish bride permission to marry. A more contemporary wedding suit is also black; however, it was never intended to be a wedding garment. Rather it was a somber suit worn on Dec. 8, 1941, as the bride-to-be accompanied her military fiancé to New York’s Grand Central Station the day after Pearl Harbor. Just a week earlier, her satin gown had been fitted for the final time, the blood test completed and the marriage license secured. The final payment on the New Yorker Hotel had been placed for the wedding ceremony and the dinner dance, which were to be held the following Sunday. Of course, all that was put on hold; the world was at war. Hoping to steal as many moments as possible together before the groom-to-be boarded the troop train for an uncertain future, the bride dressed in a black wool suit and together they grabbed a cab to the station. In the mass of humanity that Monday morning, the bride’s father, mother and sister and the groom’s parents shoved their way to the train, dragging along the rabbi and the ketubah. The ill-fated bridal couple secured a few feet in a corner of Grand Central Station, the rabbi read an abbreviated ceremony, the newlyweds and witnesses signed the ketubah. The groom kissed his bride and ran for his train, thus beginning an absence of four years. Years later the bride would tell the story and explain that if she had known what her father was planning she would not have worn black. She did, however, wear her most comfortable heels, which just happened to be red.
The exhibit also includes a 1797 Bavarian hood latch bonnet constructed from millinery card stock and 18-carat gold thread. The bonnet tells the story of a regional wedding day tradition. A restored satin and lace gown and bonnet made in London in 1720 and worn by a member of the first Jewish congregation in the United States tells the story of the first Jewish immigrants building a new life in a new world.
A short white wedding dress from Nazi-occupied Bulgaria in 1945 is accompanied by a beautifully illustrated Sephardic ketubah. Among the 28 gowns is an 1889 French gown with a 10-foot train and a ketubah that is eight pages long.
However, the “antique” gown gaining the most attention is the white Vera Wang gown Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords wore when she married her astronaut husband, Capt. Mark Kelly, in 2007.
The docent-led exhibit is open to the public every Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday from 1 to 5 pm and Friday from noon to 3 pm. Groups of 10 or more may call to schedule a tour. Admission is $5 for adults; students and members of the Jewish History Museum are free. For additional information or to schedule a group tour, call 520-670-9073. The Jewish History Museum is located in the historically restored first synagogue building in Arizona at 564 S. Stone Ave., just south of downtown Tucson.
Eileen R. Warshaw, Ph.D., is the executive director of the Jewish History Museum in Tucson.
