How did the Chicago History Museum — an institution focused on the history of our city and the region — end up with an impressive array of clothing associated with our earliest presidents, including some who never stepped foot in Illinois?
It’s kind of a funny story, says Olivia Mahoney. For nearly 40 years, Mahoney — or “Libby,” as she’s called — worked at the museum, retiring as a senior curator in 2018. (If you’ve seen the museum’s hallmark permanent exhibition, “Chicago: Crossroads of America,” or any of its five Lincoln exhibitions since 1990, you’ve seen her work.) There, she became closely acquainted with a key artifact trove: the Charles F. Gunther Collection, which the museum acquired in 1920.
A German immigrant, Gunther wore many hats in turn-of-the-century Chicago. He was an affluent candymaker, credited with popularizing caramels nationwide. He was a municipal politician, serving as 2nd Ward alderman and city treasurer. But perhaps most enduringly, he was an avid collector of presidential items — including clothing displayed as part of “Threads of a Nation: Preserving Presidential Clothing,” opening Oct. 24.
Unfortunately, Gunther’s collection is, as Mahoney politely puts it, “a mixed bag.” Many treasures he amassed were fakes, creating headaches for subsequent generations of museum researchers.
“You can’t take the affidavits for granted. You have to really research them and dig deeper,” Mahoney says.
Which she did. Mahoney returned to the Chicago History Museum to curate “Threads of a Nation,” this time as a freelancer. She did the same for 2024’s “Designing for Change,” an exhibition on protest art of the 1960s and ’70s. Before that, the Museum of Science and Industry came knocking for freelance research help. So did the Obama Presidential Center.
Speaking to the Tribune at her old stomping grounds, Mahoney insists she “never thought (she’d) have a freelance career.”
She smiles. “But it’s going pretty well.”
Luckily, when it came to “Threads of a Nation’s” marquee items, Mahoney found that their provenance — the paper trail tracking an item’s movement from collector to collector — “really held up.” The cape and bonnet Mary Todd Lincoln reportedly wore to Ford’s Theatre the night her husband was assassinated were sold to Gunther by Elizabeth Keckley, a former slave who became the First Lady’s dressmaker and confidante; the president’s grieving widow gifted the items to Keckley. A suit George Washington reportedly wore at his second inauguration passed hands from the family to a Philadelphia dealer and, eventually, to Gunther. And two suits John Adams wore came to the museum entirely outside the Gunther Collection, by way of descendants in Lake Forest.
Despite its presidential pull, Mahoney describes “Threads of a Nation” as “more of a behind-the-scenes type exhibition.” She hopes visitors will leave with a better understanding of what it takes to maintain centuries-old clothing. Each display will be accompanied by photos of conservators at work, and text descriptions of their processes.
Conservation best practices have changed dramatically over the years. Decades ago, museums believed in restoration rather than conservation — mending or augmenting pieces to make them look new. Now, Mahoney says, the field’s priority is “to stabilize them, make sure they’re safe, and minimize further deterioration as much as possible.”
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“You don’t want to change the artifact or do anything that can’t be reversed. And if there are pieces of the garment or the object that are damaged, we don’t try to camouflage that or take it away,” she says. “It shows the history of the object, too.”
In fact, some of the pieces in “Threads of a Nation” are so fragile that they’ll have to be swapped or put away partway through the exhibition — like that inauguration coat, or a top hat associated with Lincoln, long a museum calling card. Both can only be shown a few months at a time to avoid irreversible damage.
Where possible, Mahoney and the curatorial team juxtaposed garments with additional artifacts to further contextualize our presidents. For example, the museum owns a spyglass that Washington owned, which his enslaved valet, William Lee, was known to carry for him during the Revolutionary War. It also displays a document from 1754, when Washington was the manager of Mount Vernon. It partitions the slaves owned by his deceased older half-brother, Lawrence Washington, between his sister-in-law’s new husband and the surviving Washington siblings.
“For all the good things he did, (Washington) also owned 100 slaves, and his wife owned even more,” Mahoney says. “I do address it; I do address the displacement of Native Americans. Just because it’s a costume show doesn’t mean you shouldn’t deal with history, with the tough stuff.”
The exhibition also includes a remarkable document from a century later: a note Abraham Lincoln wrote to Secretary of State William Henry Seward, ordering that his presidential seal be affixed to the Emancipation Proclamation. Tragically, Lincoln’s handwritten draft of the Proclamation was lost in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. When the note was purchased in 2002 by then-museum president Lonnie G. Bunch III — now head of the Smithsonian Institution — it was the next best thing.
With the exception of that purchase, the museum has pivoted in the past half-century to focus on collecting city-centric artifacts. Which would make Obama’s elusive tan suit — apparently lost — an enticing fringe case, should it ever turn up.
“We’re just really focused on Chicago,” Mahoney says.
Hannah Edgar is a freelance writer.
If you go
“Threads of a Nation: Preserving Presidential Clothing,” Oct. 24 to July 17, 2027 at the Chicago History Museum, 1601 N. Clark St.; open Tuesdays-Saturdays 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Sundays noon to 5 p.m., closed Mondays; for Chicago residents, admission $19 adults, $17 seniors and students, free for visitors 18 and under; chicagohistory.org