Watch our ten part series books that shaped america starting monday september 18th at 9 p. M. Eastern on cspan, cspan l, free mobile video out or online at cspan. Org. Since 1911 we vacate and interpret the John Marshall his life and legacy. We are grateful to the many descendents who have had over the years paintings, books, tableware and personal items. These objects bring along the life and demonstrate much to the magic activities of the inside tousled in the guest who visited. There are no artifacts that better define marshalls career than the robe that he wore for his 30 34 your tenure as chif justice of the United StatesSupreme Court. The room is cured for a generation of descendents before finding its way to our collection. The rope is a witness object and if roads could talk, what a story this one could share. John marshall wore this rope as he i presided over 34 years of Supreme Court cases during which time the Supreme Court was elevated to an equal branch of the federal government. And today is simple black robe is a recognizable icon of the american judicial system. And as our spirited collection put it this iconic image of the american giant has been carried on by everyone sent chief justice john roberts. Stories from its construction and tailoring traveling to raleigh as marshall wrote the circuit from the days hearings arguments before the court, cases like marbury v. Madison, which is perhaps marshalls most significant president judicial review. Asserting the court power and authority to interpret the u. S. Constitution. And stories of activities like hanging inside of the u. S. Capitol. Along with ropes of the other justices, to the loving care received over the years by family members and preservation virginia staff. And so to quote our ceo, this object is the story of the early years of the court, and represents the strength of the experiment in american democracy. We were able to successfully conserve this icon of our nation because the people like you, and many of you are joining us today your contribution to save the rope campaign have ensured that the road has been stabilized environmental factors are controlled to slow future deterioration, so thank you. Now our work leads to the next day so we are providing ongoing education both physically and digitally. So we welcome you to learn more by visiting our website. Now with my honor to introduce you to preservation virginia has collection dont hold it against her because she cried with a bachelors degree from university of virginia and she earned her masters degree in american material culture. She joined preservation virginia at the very end of 2019 from the cincinnati art museum. And since that time she has let our Historic Site to some of the most unusual times as she simultaneously learned and managed our collection to the pandemic. So with that, i will turn it over to you. Thank you. Its been an amazing year with some change now, so i am so happy that you guys enjoyed yesterday. This robe was one of the first projects we launched into when it started and it has been brilliant to watch it come to fruition. Im going to share my screen, sometimes it takes just a second so bear with me. All right. There we go. All right. Malcolm preservation virginia has cared for John Marshalls judicial robe for 108 years now its 108 years as a core object in our collection, 108 years of frequent display, and 108 years of unintentional damage from caring about this fragile garment so much. So why do we care . By three indicated an exceptionals care after school so like howard, a silk survivor. Before i pass inside to howard for a full explanation of how he accomplished that feat, its worth considering the question and looking at the history of the robe. The story that has been repeated throughout the 20th century when marshall assumed his role as chief justice in 1801, the justices wore brightly colored robes. Marshall was in the practice of wearing a simple black robe promoting a sense of impartiality, and this became the image of the american judge that lives on today. Marshalls robe, this robe, is the iconic route of that tradition. Like many good stories, its a bit more complicated than that. In two weeks time on may 19th i encourage you to join us for our next webinar will feature so hello. The associate curator of the Supreme Court and is just published a groundbreaking article on the topic of how judicial robes changed in time. Is been workinged on this for or 20 years and it calls into question a lot of the assumptions that we made about the Supreme Court in those early formative public years so please dont miss the next webinar in may 19. I dont want to steal matthews vendor so suffice to say, the shift from colorful to black robes is probably less about symbolism and more about good oldfashioned practicality. The first chief justice, john jacob initiated a very elaborate design for the Supreme Court justices robes and did a show here in this portrait by Gilbert Stuart as well as his surviving robe which is at the smithsonian and this is the oldest surviving judicial robe. Ours is one of thero very few tt doesnt survive. This is described as partlyt covered and that is not party, that is partly colored. Th as justices voted off, including jacob it was difficult to match these rather unique garments here that is easy to procure and to achieve a sense of uniformity. Probably not a smart move that we a lithic opera happened by the time that marshall took the helm of the court in 1801. Its not like black robes didnt already exist. They had been used in england especially in lower courts andth by lawyers. In the United States some late teen and 18th centuries judges cant dark robes on the benchmark marshall was a student of in a portrait at the top left, was a prominent virginia lawyer and statesman. We know he favored the black robe look better in 1772 he ordered from merchant john norton andnd left quote a robe such as one by the house of commons but better than the one i had for mr. Child which indeed was a scandalous. I could i forget what was a scandalous about the first robe. But a black robe is customarily worn by the court and hopefully it goes, scandalous choice. And i havent been down the exact moment whenhe marshall starts getting credit for bringing the black robe into our national iconography paid by the suspect was an early 20th century to perhaps around 1901 of the celebration of his appointments chief justice, inspired newspaper articles and speeches and dinner parties like this one here that was held in cleveland, the program from it. So regardless of its veracity, the iconic of the marshall robe has taken on a life of its own. These are just a few clicks of the Supreme Court justices pick the power and symbolism in the story, after all, marshall did define the powersm of the court. For example, justices lived together in boarding houses and they mostly issued unanimous ruling spirit so whether or not he instigated the use of black robes, is totally in keeping with his approach to jurisprudence. So turning from the myth of the object lets look at the object itself. Marshall may affect mores than one robe over the course of his 34 year term on the court but this is the only one that survived and theres nothing that really points to a particular date within those 34 years in terms of construction or materials. Of the only unusual aspect of the design are the sleeves, the pleats on the reverse rather than the front which what you would expect on a rope with contemporary did. With not this was a mistake by the original baker its clear it didnt bother marshall as robe shows signs of use and do the best we can tell no attempts to mend that the subject perhaps it was a personal preference, we just dont know. And as to the the resident around the collar, they underscore the fact that this is it was present on historic and normal moment marshall nominated five different president s on nine occasions in the past often noted his black robe up with their peer he dominated the portraits s one which is my favorite by Chester Harding that shows its full glory. And, of course, there were the cases. This robe was in marbury v. Madison but also marshalls repeater denial of africanamerican freedom. We dont know exactly where the robe with after John Marshall died in 1835, but it is likely pass to his daughter Mary Marshall harvey who inherited most of his richmond property. Although she owned the John Marshall house which is marked in green on the map she and her household lived a few blocks away down briefly at marked in red. The rope was probably stored at that location for a period of time. The next time we have ya confirmed sighting of the rope is 1888. Andy fischer harvey one of marys daughters, so one of John Marshalls granddaughters, mowed the rope to the virginia agricultural chemical agricultural exhibition. An they had a relics and antiquities selection. By 1892 amy and her sister emily were back at the John Marshall house living there. For years that denigrated o other families but they were back in the family residence peter and one of the nephews, doctor norton mason recalled that the rope was tucked away in a box in the cabinet in the parler this is a picture of the parler at about 1890, and we interpret this as the small dining room, family dining space. And in the far back when you see a couple doors to think thats a cabinet he is referring to, so if you can see with xray vision through those doors thats where the road is. So doctor mason recalled how his mother, he was 12 at the time, drapes this robe over him and has pranced around the house. Now, with the Marshall House was transferred to the stewardship of the association for the preservation of urgent antiquities now known as preservation virginia in 1911 and in 1913 the house open to the public. On thetr Opening Weekend the str attraction was of the robe on loan from the sisters. When emily died in 1920 the rope became part of our permanent collection. Since that time the robe has been extensively exhibited and extensively conserved. One major Conservation Campaign took place in 1962 which took over 600 hours. Now, remember the littleon boys prancing around the house in 1892, while on vacation in this 1962 Conservation Campaign, he came back to the house and he put the robe on again. It was not the original. The rope has been exhibited in various spots around the Marshall House bear generally a shown on a mannequin and have traveled for exhibition clean this one at this facility in 1967. For many years the display, exposure to light and the stress on the fibers and the hanging has all compounded the fragility of this remarkable object since 2005, about 16 years, its been off of you, only been pulled out for special events and foril visitors. Showing the robe to associate Justice Sonia sotomayor or. Ev in 2019 we started in partnership a pap with the John Marshall center for constitutional history and civics to save the robe campaign to help support the conservation of this object. Constitutional civics to save the robe campaign to support the conservation of this object. Thanks to the daughters of this project in the works by Howard Sutcliffe this robe can be safely and responsibly share. Its my honor to pass it on to jen who will now thank you. There are a lot of photos in there that i dont think i have ever seen. [laughter] thank you so much. Alll right. So nowlo its my pleasure to introduceav howard sutt cliff. Is director of [inaudible] and conservation but has a private practice in alabama. Howard has previously worked as the head conservator at the Detroit Institute of arts and in the textile conservation studios atnd the Philadelphia Museum of art and American Textile museum in the u. S. And at the National Trust and National Museum [inaudible] he is a professional member of the American Institute for conservationto of historic and artistic works and is the current board member of the north American Textile conservation conference and chair for the forthcoming 20221 meeting in nashville, tennessee. Finish howard received a bachelors in design and constructive textiles with honors from college of arts, university of scotland. He was given a first graduate diploma in textile with credits from the textile Preservation Center in affiliation with the institute of art and at the university of [inaudible] and he received a masters of the arts in museum and gallery management with merit,ty university of City University of london. So, howard, its an honor to have you join us. Welcome and thank you so much. And now ill turn it over to you to. Okay. Well, thank you, janet. That all makes me sound really old, all that stuff. But let me share my screen. Here we go. And then we will hit that. So hopefully you can all i now see that. Thank you, janet. Yeah, i have not seen those photos either, and it was reay interesting to see the photo of Andrew Jacksons inauguration, because i also worked on some artifacts from that at the Tennessee State meum. So its kind of interesting and and Andrew Jacksons top hat were at the same spot at the same time. Very cool. So, well, my involvement in this project goes back to january of 2019 which seems a very long time ago now. I moved up to richmond to basically spend a morning at the Marshall House examining [inaudible] and just really kind of getting to grips with the current condition. I dont think anyone had seen it for quite a while. It had been boxed up and, which is reluctant to take it out, so i spent a morning documenting its current condition, and after that i wrote up a treatment of sorts for preservation virginia. That outlined the condition and then it also goes through what i suggest for the treatment step by step and [inaudible] estimates. As ya mentioned, there was a period of fund raising, and we have quite a few dates on the calendar to drive up to richmond to come and various world events coming, and i eventually made it up there in mid june to collect the robe and then bring it back down to my studio in raleigh. Ev and thats on. So these two photos basically show the robe front and back with. Front on the left and right on the back before conservation. And basicallyically just basically, a quick description. Its a very simple two panels on the front and obviously on the front and black of each sleeve. The robe is made from a black silk saw teen, and saw teen is [inaudible] the warps are very fine. Theyre much finer than the [inaudible] is a and they are much finer than the wifes in this case and its a loom and each panel of fabric is about 2 feet wide. The panels are stitched together along the edges and they are drawn together at the top. This is a photo that you will see a little bit later on but this is after conservation but it shows you very clearly those panels and so you have the two in the center back the two differently sized small side panels and in the front panels and it is really interesting that the construction of the robe is a little bit not exact i think would be a polite term. You can see where the center back does not line up. There is a lot of excess material so i think the thought is whoever constructed these was maybe working from a description and maybe was not the most talented of seamstresses and obviously did you then have issued this leaves being backed up front as well. But all that fabric there is a lot of fabric there is brought together around the oak with really is fleecing. Its amazing how they have done all this fabric together to fit around the neck and you can see from these two photos that it is very very finally done. Im not sure if you can see on the righthand image the top pleading pleating and the sleeve back there. We want to see that slides to you do get a good view of that. Those are just my soap talk plates held in place using twine silk rap cord and i think those pieces are about 2 inches long each and then theres the lovely silk wrapped a wooden button at the end of each of those. 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 that was obviously done fairly early on. It was probably contemporary to John Marshall in the creation of robes but its added on almost asymmetric so it sits like a caller on one side and then it comes down as an overlay. That sets up the neckline and makes the way that the robe lies on the body a little bit strange. I dont know whether that was done because he wasnt happy with the neckline or it got damaged. There are a number of Different Reasons why that could have been done but it was definitely added temporary can dish in her repair typical of the 1800s. So lets move on and here are a few photos of the robe. Which really shows some of the condition issues that it has. There are a lot of conditions that contributed to its degradation. Its a 220yearold objects so it has age going against it and considering it is 220 years old its amazing there so much of it but first of all its made from silk which during and certainly during this time the would have been subjected to wilting. Soak is sold by the weight at this point so when you start off with the little silk cocoon those of oil down and they are boiled down to release and collect the filament thread so during that process a little bit of gum is lost in the gum is quite heavy so to counterac