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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Joseph Mason, post: 1531669, member: 13529&quot;]2manybooks - thank you for your reply. As you pointed out, that&#039;s two different ball gowns that purport to be Mary&#039;s 1861 inaugural ball gown. Both of the photos also show her with the seed pearl necklace and earrings. Most folks who are familiar with high fashion (I&#039;m not one of them - and I aim to keep it the way) know that the Tiffany jewelry company&#039;s reputation for record keeping is second to none (and they charge $1,000 to access their archives). Their own records indicate that Abraham Lincoln purchased the seed pearl jewelry set in April of 1862. How people in the Lincoln community can continue to reconcile this disparity is beyond me. </p><p>Below are some descriptions from some contemporaneous news sources who witnessed and reported on the festivities on March 4th. I&#039;m technologically challenged and can&#039;t figure out to make that a clickable link, though the one on the first page of this thread is clickable, so I&#039;ll just type what the info is on the site.</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-3648.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-3648.html" rel="nofollow">https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-3648.html</a> </p><p><br /></p><p>(Excerpt from the March 6, 1861 New York Times edition)</p><p>&quot;The parties were Mrs. Lincoln and Senator Douglas. Mrs. Lincoln appeared remarkably well; she wore a very tasteful and becoming head-dress, and a low-necked lavender silk, I think, of exquisite shade, perfect fit, and evident richness. Her lace was point, her jewelry was the simple diamond, and her attire such as commanded itself to the good taste, the sense of propriety and the love of the beautiful of every person in the room.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>The following posts on the site were by Kerry. </p><p>&quot;Senator Douglas, faithful among the faithless, gallantly gave his arm to Mrs. Lincoln. A few hours and a good dressmaker had transformed that simple little woman into quite a belle. She was tastefully attired in a very becoming blue gown, and she carried a large fan and an immense bouquet.&quot;</p><p><a href="https://archive.org/stream/whenlincolnwa...k_djvu.txt" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://archive.org/stream/whenlincolnwa...k_djvu.txt" rel="nofollow">https://archive.org/stream/whenlincolnwa...k_djvu.txt</a></p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;Mrs. L. shows us, in her choice of blue on this occasion, as the color which suits her complexion best, that she is no stranger to the beautiful science of the toilet.&quot;</p><p>Friday March 8th 1861 Cincinnati Daily Press (Cincinnati, Ohio)</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;All I can say is that she was tastefully and richly arrayed in blue and white, with a beautiful wreath, rising infant like a crown upon her head.&quot;</p><p>March 29.&nbsp; Evansville Journal&#039;s Washington correspondent.</p><p><br /></p><p>Donna McCreary is one of the leading authorities on Mary Todd Lincoln. On the Symposium site she states, after giving her opinion as to the gown you have pictured above, that ..... &quot;The gown chosen for the inaugural ball was the blue watered silk.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>Susan states in another post .... &quot;Mrs. Lincoln was superbly dressed in a blue silk, trimmed with point d&#039; Alencon lace, and wore a blue ostrich feather in her hair, which was exceedingly becoming.&quot;</p><p>New York World ...&nbsp; March 5th 1861</p><p><br /></p><p>Donald Ackerman is a lifelong collector of political memorabilia, specializing in Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, and occupies a prominent position in the Lincoln community. He is an editor at The Railsplitter, an online Lincoln publication and auction site. As I sit here and type this, he is persistent in his beliefs that the dress you pictured above is Mary&#039;s actual 1861 inaugural gown, and is out there doing everything in his power in an attempt to track it down. It was an article that he published about the dress that led to some of the comments on the Lincoln Discussion Symposium site. </p><p>I would respectfully disagree with you as the location of the lace collar. Just about every reference I can find online about a Victorian lace collar indicates one worn around the neck as seen in the photo of the five young ladies on page one of this thread. But, as I said, don&#039;t quote me on that! I know about half as much as Colonel Klink when it comes to fashion. </p><p>The one thing that sticks out like a sore thumb in all of the contemporaneous accounts is the lack of a single mention of seed pearl jewelry. Call me a skeptic, but I&#039;m thinking it&#039;s because she didn&#039;t have possession of jewelry that wasn&#039;t purchased until thirteen months later.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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