Rowe Family Clothing Collection
Reference Code: BCCA_Rowe
Name: Bates College Clothing Archive
Location: 95 Nichols St., Lewiston, ME 04240
Language of finding aid: English
Language of materials: English
Date Range: 1840-1940
Bulk Dates: 1910-1940
3 boxes, containing 23 garments. Additionally, 15 JPEG images of relevant provenance documentation.
Four members of the Rowe family – Eleanor Hope Chandler Rowe, her husband Harry Willison Rowe, their daughter Ruth Rowe Wilson, and her husband Valentine “Val” Haining Wilson – were attendees of Bates College, and remained involved with the College for decades after their studies. Harry was the College’s first Dean of Faculty, serving from 1946-1958, and Ruth was the editor the Bates Magazine from 1964-1980.
Eleanor Hope Chandler was born in Presque Isle, Maine in 1887. She attended Bates College, matriculating with the Class of 1912, but did not complete her Bachelor’s Degree. While at Bates, she met her husband, Harry Willison Rowe, born in 1887 in Mercer, Maine, and the two married on September 2, 1913 at Hope’s family home in Presque Isle.
Harry was hired by Bates College in 1914 as the Secretary of the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA). Over the next 44 years, Harry would hold a variety of positions in the Bates College administration, including Bursar, Alumni Secretary, Assistant to President Clifton Dagget Gray, and, starting in 1946, the College’s first Dean of Faculty. Hope and Harry lived adjacent to the College, and Hope frequently acted as a chaperone for campus events. The Rowes had three children: Ruth, born in 1914, Robert, born in 1916, and Esther, born in 1917. Following his retirement in 1958, Harry became the first unofficial archivist and historian of Bates College.
Ruth Rowe followed in her parents’ footsteps and likewise attended Bates College, where she was highly involved in campus life as a reporter for the student newspaper, a competitive debater, President of the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), choir singer, and Winter Carnival committee member. At Bates, she met her husband, Valentine “Val” Wilson, and the two were chosen to represent the college at the international convention of the Student Volunteer Movement in 1935. Ruth graduated in 1936 and Val in 1938; the two married in Gomes Chapel on August 25, 1939. Val went on to have a successful career as a Baptist minister and higher education leader, becoming Vice President of the Colorado Woman’s College in 1950 and President of Skidmore College in 1957. Ruth and Val were noted for taking personal interest in the lives of students, and had six children of their own: David, Carol, Alden, Nancy, Kathryn, and James.
This collection consists mostly of garments worn by Eleanor Hope Chandler Rowe and her daughter, Ruth Rowe Wilson. It also contains some historic garments which belonged to the family’s ancestors.
Items in this collection are available for study by request only. Items do not circulate and may only be used under supervision of Professor B. Christine McDowell in the costume storage building. Digital surrogates of many collection items are available in the digital archive and may be freely reproduced.
This finding aid is available for public use.
Recommended Citation
Rowe Family Clothing Collection, Bates College Clothing Archive, Bates College.
The collection was donated by Ruth Rowe Wilson sometime after her husband’s death in 1964. No official documentation is available regarding the acquisition of the collection.
This collection was processed by Grace Acton ’24 in partial fulfillment of an Honors Thesis in Interdisciplinary Studies. A full accounting of the arrangement and description process is available in Chapter 3 of Acton’s thesis, available through the Bates SCARAB institutional repository: Grace Acton, “Fashion Forward: Digitizing Historical Dress in Theory and Practice,” (2024) Honors Theses, 468.
The Rowe Family Clothing Collection consists of four series:
These series are each contained in a distinct box.
Provenance Documents are available in JPEG form on the digital archive only, as the originals were destroyed due to concerns of acidity and pest infestation.
Terms gathered from the Library of Congress Subject Headings
Box: 1E.1
Extent: 13 garments.
Scope and Content: This series consists of clothing designed to be worn by adult women, including Eleanor Hope Chandler Rowe and Ruth Rowe Wilson, as well as the family’s ancestors.
Dates: 1840-1940 (bulk 1910-1930)
Contains four sub-series:
Box: 1F.3
Extent: 5 garments.
Scope and Content: This series consists of clothing in appropriate sizes for children aged 0-6. The donor described these items as being worn by Ruth Rowe Wilson and Esther Rowe as children, and some are likely created from passed-down clothing items.
Dates: 1910-1925
Box: 1E.3
Extent: 4 garments.
Scope and Content: This series consists of wool knit bathing suits which were noted by the donor as belonging to Eleanor Hope Chandler.
Dates: 1920-1925
Location: Bates College Clothing Archive Omeka Site.
Extent: 15 JPEG images organized into 8 Omeka items.
Scope and Content: This series consists of digital surrogates for handwritten notes included in or written on the boxes used to donate the Rowe Family Collection. They were likely written by Hope Chandler Rowe or Ruth Rowe Wilson, but their origination cannot be confirmed.
Dates: Photographs produced in 2024.