Preserving, Collecting and Resources

Preserving Your Treasures — Care and Storage Methods for Clothing and Textiles

We are often asked the best way to store textiles in the interest of preserving them for the future. How and where you store your items are very important. Properly packing and storing your wedding dress or other treasured textile will help to protect it for the future. By controlling exposure to light, dust, insects, humidity, temperature extremes, mildew, molds, acids, rust and stress — the major causes of damage to stored textiles — the natural aging process will be minimized. After having investigated various methods for improving textile storage, the following museum techniques are suggested for home use.

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We Invite You ...
To stop by the Missouri Historical Society's Library and Research Center, 225 South Skinker Blvd. to encounter many wedding related artifacts and resources.

Come in and browse, research, and order a print for your home.

Books
Cates, Joseph Marion Dixon. 1859. Marriage and the Married Life. Nashville: Graves, Marks & Company

Erdman, Loula Grace. 1953. Three at the Wedding. New York: Dodd, Mead.

Felger, Donna H. 1986. Bridal Fashions: Victorian Era. Cumberland: Hobby House Press.

Harris, John W. The Way We Lived Then: Outfitting a Bride Before Martha Stewart.

Lansdell, Avril. 1986. Wedding Fashions, 1860-1980. Aylesbury, UK: Shire Publications.

McGaffey, Ernest. 1905. Sonnets to a Wife. Saint Louis: W. M. Reedy.

Mo, Charles L. 2000. To Have and to Hold: 135 Years of Wedding Fashions. Charlotte: Mint Museum of Art

Norfleet Barbara P. 1979. Wedding. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Sheldon, Walter Lorenzo. 1894. Marriage and Its Ideals. Saint Louis: WM. A. Brandenburger.

Shephard, Norma. 2005. Accessorizing the Bride: Vintage Wedding Finery Through the Decades. Atglen, PA.: Schiffer Publications.

Stanley, Lois. 1990. Early Missouri Marriages in the News, 1820 - 1853. Greenville, S. C.: Southern Historical Press.

Tobin, Shelley and Sarah Pepper, Margaret Willes. 2003. Marriage A La Mode: Three Centuries of Wedding Dress. London: National Trust.

Veits, Elaine. 1997. How to Commit Monogamy: A Lighthearted Look at Long-term Love. Kansas City: Andrews McMeel Publishers.

Zimmerman, Catherine S. 1985. The Bride's Book: A Pictorial History of American Bridal Dress. New York: Arbor House.

Catalogs
Wedding Embassy Yearbook. 1934. New York: Wedding Embassy, Inc.
Jacard's: Mermod, Jacard King. Her Gift: Wedding Catalog.

Archives
Justice of the Peace Records
Marriage Records by County
Church Records
Genealogy Resources
Wedding Sheet Music

Photographs
Churches and Religious Buildings
Wedding Portraits
Family Scrapbooks
Historic Wedding Dresses