Collection by Design: A Paper Doll History of Costume 1750-1900

Drawn from the Jerry Silverman/Shannon Rodgers Collection at the Kent State University Museum, this paper-doll costume history features 31 costumes from 1750 to 1900. Each doll and costume has a curatorial description on the back, and each page contains inset details of fabric or constructions, some photographic.Narrative includes the curators introduction to costumes of the period and the artist’s sense of the collection itself, as well as a glossary and bibliography, making the work indispensable not only to the general audience and collectors but also to students and scholars of costume, theater, and reenactment.

NORMA LU MEEHAN, a fashion illustrator for forty years, called upon that experience when she began creating historic costume paper dolls in 1991. She lives in South Bend, Indiana, where she is a volunteer costume curator at the Northern Indiana Center for History. MEI CAMPBELL is curator of ethnology and textiles at the Museum of Texas Tech University and a member of the university's graduate faculty of the Center for Advanced Studies in Museum Science and Heritage Management. Since 2003, she has also served as adjunct professor at the Fu-Jen Catholic University in Taiwan. She lives near Lubbock, Texas.