sense by thomas paine, huckleberry finn by mark twain their eyes were watching god and free to choose but milton and rosa freedman. watch our 10 part series books that shape america starting monday at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span now this free mobile video f for online@c-span.org. ♪ weekends on c-span2 are an intellectual feast every saturday american history tv set documents america story and on sunday book tv brings you the latest in nonfiction books and authors. funding for cspan2 comes in these television companies and more. including comcast to pray. >> you think this is just a community center? no it is way more than that. comcast is part of 1000 community centers to get wi-fi enabled so students from low income families can get the tools they need to be ready for

anything. comcast, along with these television companies support cspan2 as a public service. >> since 1911 preservation have maintained interpreted john marshall his life and legacy. we are grateful to the many descendents who have over the years returned furnishings and other items. these objects bring the roomsan alight but does not take much to imagine the activities of families and households in the guest. there are no artifacts that better define john marshall's career than the robe he wore for the 34 year tenure as chief justice of the united states supreme court. whose care for by generations of defendants before finding its way.

if robes could talk what a story this one could share. john marshall wore this robe as he presided over 34 years in cases during which time the supreme court was elevated to an equal branch of the federal government. and today the simple black robe is a recognizable icon in every american judicial system. added to our collection, it's iconic image of the has been carried on by everyone since chief justice john roberts. starting from construction and tailoring the time from the day's hearing arguments before the court cases like marbury versus madison. had significant precedents judicial review. the power and authority to interpret. as activities on the old chamber

inside of the f capitol. along with the robes of the other justices. to the loving care received over the years when inspiration by family members and preservation. to quote this object is history of the early years of the court and represents the strength of the american democracy. were able to successfullyct conserve the icon of our mission because of people like you. many of you are joining us today. your contribution help to ensure stabilized environmental factors before future deterioration so thank you. now we are providing.

we welcome you. now it is my honor to introduce you to virginia's collections. do not hold her against her. lea lane graduate of the university of virginia she earned her masters degree. leo joins a preservation virginia. and since that time leah had left virginia an unusual time as she learned and managed through the pandemic so with that, i will turn it over to you. >> thank you jan and is been amazing to be here. i am so happy you guys have jointly today. this is why the first projects we launch into when i started.

it has been brilliant to watch it come to fruition. i'm going to shows my things sometimes it takes just a second so bear with me. here we go. now preservation virginiaus is good for john marshall's judicial robe for one heard eight years now. 108 years a core object in our collection. 100 acres of frequent display. 108 years of unintentional damage of caring about this garment so much. why do we care? an exceptional skill to this rather crunchy survivor. pass things on to howard of how we accomplish that feat it's worth considering the question and look at the history of the robe. this is the story that has been repeated throughout the 20th

century. when he assumed his role as chief justice the justices were lightly colored robes. a sense of impartiality. this became image of the american judge that lives on today. marshall's robe this robe is the iconic route of that tradition. unlike many good stories it's a bit more complicated than that.i until this time on may 19 join in for our next webinar which will feature so hello. the associate of the supreme court and has just published a groundbreaking article on a topic of how judicial change in time spent working on this for over 20 years.he it calls into question the assumptions we made about the supreme court in those formative republic years. please do not miss the next

webinar on may 19. i don't distill thunders suffice to say black robes probably lots of symbolism more about good old fashion practicality. the first chief justice john j had a very elaborate design for the supreme court justices robe. it shows his portrait as well as his surviving robe. this is the oldest. ours is one of the very few that do survive. to describe that. as partly colored it's not party but partly. as justices rotated off including ji was to match these rather unique garments. that was easy to procure and to achieve a sense of uniformity. but probably not and i think it already happened by the time marshall took the home of the

court in 1801.ha they have been in use even in england especially in lowersh courts and by lawyers. the united states late 18th century dudgeon spoke on the beach. was a student of george who was a portrait there at the top left. the prominent virginia lawyer and statesman. favors the black robe a look in 1772 he ordered some merchant such the clerk of the house of commons is better than the one that i had for mr. trout which indeed was scandalous. i cannot figure out what was so scandalous about the first row. a black robe is customarily worn by the clerk help with the left scandalous choice. and how about paying down the last moment when they started getting credit.

prep to 1901, there is a celebration of chief justice. despite a third of newspaper articles and speeches and dinner parties like this one here that was held in cleveland. regardless ofik the veracity the icon of the robe has taken on a life of its own. these are just a few from supreme court justices. the symbolism and the story, after all as jena mentioned marshall did define the powers of the court he insisted on uniformity in other ways for example justices lived together and boarding houses they are thy issued unanimous rulings. so whether or not he instigated the use of a black robes it's totally keeping with his approach should jurisprudence.

let's look at the object itself. may have had more than one robe over the course of a 34 year term on the court. this is the only one that survived. there is nothing that points to a particular date within the 34 years the construction or materials.ne the only unusual aspect of the design of the sleeves. the folds, the pleats, on their first rather than the front which is something you would expect. whether this was a mistake by the original make it clear it did not bar's brother marshall the robe shown signs of use and to the best we could tell. perhaps it was a personal preference we just do not know. and as for the science of youth around the him from the resident on the collar they understand the fact this is an object it was present on his moments.

marshall nominated five different presidents on nine occasions the press often madent his black robe up there. had portraits like this one which is my favorite by chester harding that shows it in its full glory. and of course this rope was witness critical rulings like a medicine but also justices like marshall's repeated denial of african-american freedom seekers. we don't know exactly where the rope went after john marshall died in 1835. it likely pass to his daughter mary marshall harvey who inherited his richmond property. although she owned the darn marshall house which is marked in green on the map she lived a few blocks away or use it marked inis red. the robe was probably stored ate that location for a period of time. the next time we had a concern sighting of the road is 1888.

amy fisher harvey one of amy's daughters one of john's granddaughters a general aquacultural tobacco exhibition. relics and actiq to cody section. my 1882 amy and her sister emily were back at the john marshall house living there. they had rented it out to other families but they're back in the family residence. and even that nephews doctor was tucked away in a box and the cabin in the parler this the picture of the parler about 1890.ed their approach of this is a small dining room of the family dining space. you see the corner there's a couple of doors i think that's the cabinet he is referring to. you can see x-ray vision through those doors that is where the rub is.

karl draped his robe over him and has imprints around the house. there's a little bit that howard had to deal with. now that marshall house was transferred to the stewardship of virginia antiquities now is preservation virginia 19011 and 1913 house open to the public. on that opening weekend the star attraction was thess robe on lon from harvey sisters. when they died in 1920 the rub became part of our permanent collection. since that time the robe has been extensively exhibited and preserved. one major conservation campaign took place in 1962 which took over 600 hours. i don't the little boys prints on the house in 1892, on the occasion of his 1962 conservation campaign he came back to the house and put the robe on again.

reset the original. generally shown on a mannequin and at travel for exhibition including this one at the smithsonian in 1967. the exploit, exposure to light and stress on the fibers the inherent fragility of this remarkablehi object. o since 2005, that is 16 years it has been off view only been pulled out for special events and for visitors showing the rope to's associate justice. in 2019 chart in partnership with the john marshall center for constitutional history and civics. to help support the conservation of this object. thanks to the project and work this broken once again be safely and responsibly shared with

visitors. it is my honor to pass it onto on tojen who will not introduce howard. think i have ever seen. [laughter] thank you so much. now it is myy pleasure to introduce howard sutcliffe how howard is a conservative director of river region. as a private practice in alabama. howard previously worked as the head conservator at the detroit institute of art and to excel excelconservation studios at the philadelphia museum of art at american textiles in the u.s. at the national trust and national museum later in the uk. professional associate member of the american institute for

conservation of historic and artistic work. and it is a current board member injured for the forthcoming 2020 2021meeting in nashville, tenne. designed and constructed textiles with honors from college of art university in scotland. postgraduate diploma in textile conservation with credit. for the textile conservation center and in affiliation with the institute of art. and to receive a masters of the art and gallery management. cultural policy is honored to have you join us. welcome and thank you so much. now i will turn it over to you. >> thank you jen.

that all makes me sound really old all that stuff. but let me share my screen. here wed go. and then we will hit back. hopefully you can all see that. thank you jen, thank you lea. i've seen some of those photos it was really interesting to see the photo of andrew jackson's inauguration. i also worked on some modest acts from that. so it's kind of interesting and andrew jackson's top hat were at the same spot at the same time, very cool. my involvement in this project goes back to january of 2019. which is a very long time ago

now. but i flew up to richmond to spend a morning at the marshall house examining the robe.ch i'm really getting to grips with it. i don't think anyone had seen it for quite a while. i think people were reluctant to take it out. i spent the morning documenting its current condition. and after that i wrote a proposal and document that outlines the tradition and it also goes through when i suggest for the treatment step-by-step. and gives the client that all important cost estimate.

tonto as liat mentioned there is a. and then we have quite a few dates on the calendar to drive up to richmond and two coats come up and i eventually made it up there in mid june. and then bring it back down to my studio. and so this photo technically show the road front and back up. .the front is on the left. i'm basically to run through a description it's a very simple construction that two panels on

the front. i receive a front and back on each. the road is made -- the robe is made from black silk. that's the warp phased fabric. most of the works are on the surface. there much finer this case. it is a loom this was on and each panel fabric is about 2 feet wide. so the panels are stitched together along the salvage edges. they are drawn together at the

top. this is what you will see a little later on. mrs. after conservation. it shows you very clearly those panels. we have the two inside this small side panels and then the front panel. it is really interesting to thee construction of the robe is a little bit not exact i think would be a polite term. the center back does not line up. that's a lot of excess material i think the sources whoever constructs was maybe it working from a description i was not the

most talented of seamstresses. they have the issue of that thesleeves being back to front s well. but, all of that fabric because that's a lot of fabric there. comes back fleeting. it is amazing how they've drawn all this fabric together to fit around the neck. you can see from these two photos it is very, very finally done. i am not sure if you can see on the right-hand image that pleading that is it decorating e sleeve back o there. but we will move onto this and next slide so you did get a good view of it.

these are top pleats and held template place device in his twine silk wrap. i think those pieces are about . then there is the lovely silk wrapped wooden button at the end of each of those. i believe in this photo you can start to see some the splits and condition issues the robe has. t. in this photo you can start to see the splits and the condition issues at the robe has. there were some interesting other little construction things going on particularly around the neckline. there had been a panel added almost like a caller done fairly early on.

it was probably contemporary to jo >> it comes down as a panel all the way on the upper left side there but that sets up and kind of like some tension, and it just kind of like makes the way it license the body a little bit, strange. so i don't know -- he wasn't happy with the neckline ort it got damaged and put on repair something -- i mean as a number different reasons why that could have been done but it definitely is a contemporary addition or repair to call it the early 1800s. let's move on and here is a few photos of the road which one will show some of the condition

issues that it has. for one of the vices going on here that kind of really contributes over the years so it is an old object is age going against it and 20 years older actually amazing that this -- so much of it what is left. butng made from silk which -- during this time would have been subjected to a process called waiting and so -- it's at this point so then you start off with a little -- [inaudible conversations] those are boiled down.

during that boiling kind of release the gum so they can kind of like -- collect kind of the thread so during that process, tbum gum is lost and gum is quite heavy and so to counteract that the dealers would then soak those threads in a heavy metal solution kind of chromium or something like that to the part. none of those chemicals are great for the silk. so they, you know, contribute to the general degradation you have the structure going against it because you have this one -- you have kind of six, i think seven actually threads crossing over every.he so it is a little uneven if it was kind of a plain fabric with

one cropping one warp it would be much more stable and also those are finer than rest so you have that difference. and you have kind of like -- all of those on the surface can be easily braided or -- so they're quite easily damaged. you also have the fact that it is dyed black. and so at this time, it is possible they used iron dye which would have been incredibly expensive and also would have been i think -- probably more likely that it was dyed using an iron acid again -- none of those things are great for the preservation of the silk itself. and then -- generally would just be silk.

civil of all of the natural fibers, silk is very, very us us septemberable to damage such as uv light and humidity and temperature and it can have fluids in the presence of uv so basically start to break down become moreat brittle, and -- you'll see that kind of like splited and start to former whih you can see that on this photo. what is happening is there's a lotf breaks and you can see the west floats and again you can see that in the photograph the right of your screen as well. also, as liam mentioned, there's going to be kind of medical

damage so it was a lot so there's kind of contact with sweat, there's contacto with, yu know, all things on the body at that tim so none of those really would have helped so also wear and tear three careers. kind of damage especially among hemline from where it would have dragged along the ground, sleeve and cuffs where he would have been writing and resting on the robe. during, you know, long days at court -- so, i mean,ml very nice, you kn, indicators of use, and being, you know, once trying to preserve to show that it was an object that was deep heavy used. and then, another contributing factor to the damage that the robe received is the fact that it has been displayed in the

past, and quite a lot actually. so you know, hanging it up and kind of like having on vertical display on mannequins probably hasn't helped over the years. especially just where it's hanging it is not particularly well supported -- on a mannequin. and -- what and then one of the major things that really i want to deal with is the fact that the robe has a been subject to kindf a lot of restoration and conservation work in the past. and so in these two slides you can see the interior of the proper left front with a different campaign as support stitching that have been done there. so you have, you have patches,

you have black patches you have areas where it is stched to itself and you have black patches there as well. and here are some more along those lines -- in the bottom left, you can see a small pattern made using a silk webbed suit and then kind of like another patch that's been added on top of that to -- reenforce that. so it's quite a few of those. and then in the top left photo, you can just see the very intense stitching that the robe underwent during the 1962 restoration. some of those areas there's kind of 16 rows of stitching per inch. i mean it is very, very intense.

so i will fashion show that and during the process and to kind of like attack a side bar here another part of the project was actually to kind of create three replica rows. so the whole process really started with kind of mapping the robe. really kind of understanding its construction and working that all out. so for the construction part of the project, i worked with my friend who you see there in the red. and ryan is the curator of the alabama department of archives in history in montgomery and she is a -- kind of maker, so that is not my

forte. so we recruit ryan to help me with that. so you can see it's been -- eight months process with meetings kind of look at samples. you can see one there of the sleeve sample. and we have, you know, we have discussions of whatt to replicae whatnot to replicate, so you know, we have certainly kind of catch the edition along neckline and replicate those with contemporary to the early 1800s and so ryan pretty much made a tie complete kind of like trail run in a blue shade of polyester before launching into the very expansive black silk that replicas are made of so in

addition to that -- i had worked with a lady cheryl in yanked so works buttons for thee replicas and we're having a hard time trying to find replicas it is not like you can walk into fabrics and find this. so -- eventually it was completely obvious. one of many very good friends is a textile service there and she came into conservation for a month. a background in theater, costume and design, and she really

wasn't doing much last year because of the pandemic because all of the museum in the u.k. closed and sell closed just about to reopen. so she was watching kaiment of daytime tv and i have a great project for you so she was able to make that and ship them across. so it is really a bit of a global affair. i know all of the replica all of the silk actually came from a male in the u.k. as well. so the actual conservation process and will kind of work through some of these photos so the first thing that's i talk about doing is surface cleaning. using low powered vacuum suction that's's basically a fancy way f

saying that i vacuumed it. using kind of like very fancy vacuum. but it was service cleaned and i was able, also able to capture all of the dirt and silk fibers that came off during cleaning. which is commonly in textile conservation maybe not superuseful in this case but do it out of practice. it is done quite a lot with certainly with -- archaeological looking at soils you can see it pin point where textiles come from if their documentation is not great. also a lot with american civil war pieces because -- you can again kind of like pin point particular battlefields looking at type of grass seeds or pollen that you can find in

the dirt as well. so i did previous repairs and really figured out what was safe to keep and i was looking at all of these repairs still doing the job that they were intended for and are they causing further damage? so some repairs were more easily dealt with than others. all of that incredibly intense stitchingwe from the 1960s was very, very stable and removing any of that would have just done a lot more damage than good. so most of that stayed. all of the patches if the stitches were large i was able to remove those fairly easily or trim them down as you can see

with some of the brown patches there. and the patches along hemline were all pretty clunky so i was able to kind of easily remove those as well, and redo all of that. so there's just a lot of kind of like cutting and clipping kind of pulling threads out. for many days -- and then after that, -- something that we do really to kind offing impart from water vapor in fibers to improve their condition, and with this, it is great because pretty much nice and flat. w so i can use kind of sheeting -- we're all familiar with a permeable membrane wet on one side and dry on other and lay the dry side against textile and

the water, the moisture kind of like slowly wicked into the fabric underneath into the silk so it is a controlled process and it is basically -- just going panel to panel to panel doing this. so you can see kind of on the right side ofc the screen ther, once each panel was humidified i would realign everything and get everything flat. ready for the structural support, and so -- the whole robe basically rather than doing little patches we have each of the panel fully lined using a again from a conservation company in the u.k. so here you can see me laying it out and cutting these off,

because again this is quite tight so you don't really need those in play. and so both panels were pinned in place on the reverse just to hold everything. and then there were 10 and you can seeee that on the right side of the screen, i stitched in grid line i was basically able to follow for the actual support stitching and if you look kind of in the bottom right of that, image only the right you can see thati little darker area whichs one of those 1960s repairs that's just kind of like -- i think it's amazing. i mean, the time that it took to do all of that is insane. but i so heavily stitched.

here i am using stechs so of the damage i used lines through couching and threads that i used were silk threads pulled from the fabric. andin so that last stitch is, yu go from one from the top down to the bottom and then you come back up and kind of catch those threads down every sent centimeter or so and in between those lines i used another stitch staggered with a running stitch to kind o of hold the

linings in place photos so these are lining fabrics along the yolk -- and then again repeating the process of stitching or dang along sleeves there. there we have that and you can see how big it is. my tables are kind of like 18 inches long so it's quite a large object and definitely filled the studio quite well. and here you can see kind of like around the outside of the objects some of the support materials that i haven't trimmed down yet. and then, there we have -- the robe fronts after treatments. and here we have that interior

shot again -- so most of the interior was completely lined along with the sleeves as well. i did leave a panel there. you can see it on the left-hand side there was actually full area that was in best condition and didn't need any conservation work so i left that bare just so that -- in future kind of research can kind of see the back of the fabric. without having to undo any conservation work here's the back of the robe. after conservation -- and last was dealing with a gley so here i am using plastic around the edge of the robe to make basically the display pads so excited to kind of played out

and just to kind of -- give that a little bit of body. and so the pack is made from polyester covered in a black cotton jersey. so the main body aside you're welcome see there looks like a red -- so there's cotton stuck and sausages that facilitied areas so there's a lot of paths used to kind of like fill the robe and then we have it slid into the new case. and came closed -- so i will --

and that's the presentation there so i will stop sharing and we can go back to jen for questions. thank you how -- that was a wonderful foundation and i have to say for everybody who is listening. was such a champ working for us. when we came to install the robe we -- we have reporters, photographers, they have interviews.is [laughter] and work withh us every step of the wayl to make sure that when we did install those it was exactly how it should have been so he still came back to do a webinar with us. so -- [laughter] it's been great working with you. so we'll get down to some

questions it looks like one of the most -- the mother most commonly asked question is do we know where this fabric was originally made? >> i think at that time it was probablymm from the -- probably from china. i don't know where it would have been dyed i think kind of -- in china i don't know more likely to have been dyed kind of like at the point where it was woven inn europe so at that poit it was coming out of central america. so i mean the nation with founded because of the plantation there so you have this kind of like meeting if you know the raw materials coming together somewhere in europe.

possibly france it was a big silke center there that was london and northwest of the u.k. at that point trade routes -- fairly kind of heavy between, you know, the fledgling united states and the u.k. so it -- l i suspect it was probably british. bud raw materials cool from china -- and japan wasn't open at that point so yeah. >> so does that mean that likely it was constructed in u.s. as well? do you have any idea? >> i think that was probably done in the united states. yeah. meaning that waywa as well and part because some of the ok ward construction techniques that were used london had if you go back to george swift ordering in

john norton from england there wasti people who were specializd in that trade in england i didn't include the trade card where teaches images of the groups so -- they knew what they were doing and whoever was making this in the united states was howard says maybe not as particular with the form and can get from a description. and -- yeah. beyond that we don't really know. f the additional ones matthew will talk about in terms of where they came from and jay is colorful so i won't spoil all of that. >> it is interesting that actually i made common occurrence in some of the lighter native american pieces. starting that i worked on in detroit which has a great collection so you have instances of european style coax that were made by native makers here more

used to working with, you know, hides and things like that and kind of creating out of trades, and trade blankets so just kind of not as familiar with the materials so kind of like really -- wow -- funky construction methods and things. but i mean, it's interesting. it's maybe kind of like a similar thing they were just working from, you know, either a description or kind of engraved image where you can see one side of something, and you know, you're left to kind of deal with the rest of us and out of your imagination. >> what if that's not gone yet do you know? >> it is a closeup of john john and you see that snipping style -- that you see in marshall -- [inaudible conversations] >> uh-huh.

>> all right. so it looks like we had a couple of questions about the conservation as well. so howard you did an amazing job but you know that it's going to need more concerning in the futuree so what do you expect te next round of conservation will be to focus on? >> well, it's kind of interesting. i mean, one of -- one of the main kind of conservation is really kind of trying to make things reversible as possible and so -- constant increase in techniques andd materials certainly when i look back at the conservation kind of the description of what was done in 1962 when they you know added formaldehyde and things likehe if you even think about doing things like that in

thene future. you know today, but -- hopefully you know, this latest round of conservation will be around for a long time. i think a lot of it will be prevented conservation, and kind of not moving it too much and just kind of, you know, making sure that it is well supported and well housed you know going forward which it is. so -- you know, i really, i really don't know. i think materials that we used this time around will last for a long time. so -- there's going to continue to be a breakdown of the original silk, i mean, just during the every time you move it, there are a little bit of, you know, going to silk fibers that break

off in the case so, you know, we have to vacuum everything out carefully before we close the cage so i think -- going forward, you know the main prawn will be kind of like care and handling and just making sure that it's stable as possible. > uh-huh. >> kind of delaying -- but hopefully delayed a very long time. >> uh-huh. >> so we designed a specialty for the -- robe and some of the features of the case that are going to allow them to be preserved as much as possible. >> yeah. i'm happy to hop in on that. so howard mentioned we want to make sure it could lay flat as, you know, putting on a mannequin and hanging and pulling on the threads and putting pressure on

them. so that's part of the reason why the case is fairly large. it is about 6'6" by seven foot i hope you'll come see. .... approved, finding things about materials. but at this moment it is capitalized. also from the outside. you are not getting a lot of exchange with the air in the room. which helps us keep a stable temperature and humidity. there's material that are down in a compartment that help us

regulate the humidity level. the glass itself is extraordinarily sick. it is tempered and has uv protection built into it. light is one of the greatest threats to textiles. in the something we pay a lot of attention to in the way we design the case. in his motion activated lighting inside of the case. it has at a low light level. all of those things and keeping the room itself a stable temperature, a stable humidity, with the light out. we are doing everything we can. [laughter] to make sure it's a happy happy robe. we've got conservation. >> thank you pretty much covered it yes.

looks all right. this question is for howard. my partner conservation process is the most t difficult? it comes. [laughter] working on this 220 room object one off you'd like to think. once you get over that kind of arhurdle, it happens with every project. once that kind of formulates and what you're going to do. when once you kind of figure out that is going to work you kind of relax. it was really dealingt with, yt large areas and their easy to

deal with. once you getting up towards the top you are dealing with splits. that very, very crispy. but once you have done one or two you were good to go for the next 200 that you have to do. so it's kind of that tiptoeing into a project. and then he settled down. you always have in the back of your mind the importance of what you are working on and you have to keep pushing that box we are just about out of time. i thank you for your answers to a q and a. and again, howard thank you so

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