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Tales From the Vault: Caroline’s Clothes- The Life and Loss of an Antebellum Woman

ISM-Springfield, Research & Collections Center
Caroline Southerland Join Erika Holst, Curator of History at the Illinois State Museum, for a fascinating story of how a museum donation illuminated the life and death of one woman. In the 1930s, a young boy discovered a crumbling stone vault with a metal burial casket inside. Through the glass faceplate, he beheld the perfectly-preserved face of a young woman named Caroline Sutherland who had died in the 1850s. Eighty years later, a trunk full of her clothing was donated to the Illinois State Museum. Learn more about the collection of 1850s fashion and what it reveals about the brief and tragic life of one young woman in pre-Civil War Illinois.
Thursday, November 7, 2024
12:00 PM to 01:00 PM CST
ISM-Research & Collections Center
  • 1011 E. Ash St
  • Springfield, Illinois 62703

This program will take place in-person at the ISM Research and Collection Center at 1011 E. Ash Street, Springfield. The program will also be streamed online at https://bit.ly/TFVNov24. The event will be recorded and shared to the Illinois State Museum Youtube Page. For more information please contact dnr.ism.events@illinois.gov or (217) 782-6044.

"Tales from the Vault" is a collaborative program hosted by the Illinois State Museum and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum that allows the public to discover some of the treasures from these institutions' collections."

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