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The early history of the Peine family is shrouded in mystery and unknowns, leaving the matriarch, Anna Davin Peine, recorded with four different first names and no exact birthdate. All that is known is that she was born in the early 1800s in Germany and that she was the mother of four children. However, based on historical evidence as well as birth and death certificates, there is much that can be assumed about her life. The history of the Peine family, the culture in which they lived and raised their children, and the socio-political elements of their lives provided by the details surrounding a white muslin dress offer an inside look at the beginnings of an “everyday” American family.
Object Description
Once pure white, Anna’s dress has yellowed slightly through the years due to oxidation. However, when she wore the dress, it probably would not have stayed white for long. Women in the nineteenth century did not wash their clothing as often as women in the present. In addition, roads were not paved and the slight train of the dress would have dragged behind Anna, catching dirt and grass. There is a slight orange rust stain on the left breast of the dress about the size of a small pea. Not a typical day outfit, Anna would have worn the dress at special occasions, such as an invitation to tea or a day in town. This dress would have been one of three in Anna’s wardrobe: one for church, one for daily wear, and one for special occasions.
A sartorial articulation of the French Revolution of 1800-1815, the muslin dress is much simpler than dresses that preceded it and those that followed. Muslin, which originates from East India, is a fabric made of spun cotton with a plain weave varying in weight,
style, and dye. The name muslin comes from the name of port town, Maisolos (Riello). During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, muslin was traded by the East Indians to the ancient Greeks and Romans, contributing to the fashion of draping muslin gowns. This particular dress is crafted from thin, practically see-through white muslin. Empire-waisted gowns gained popularity during the height of Napoleonic Rule in France and were considered high fashion between 1810 and 1815 (Arnold). Afterward, more ornate outfits came back into popularity. Countries such as Germany, England, France, and the United States indulged in the female couture that arose due to the resurgence of Ancient Greek and Roman ideals and aesthetics.
The simple shift-like quality of the dress is a nod to the loose-fitting, draped togas of ancient Greco-Roman design when simplicity was the key to femininity. This apparent simplicity is the effect of a complex fashioning through time-consuming detail. For instance, along the hem runs a woven stripe where the weaving loom inserted a denser number of lines creating a stripe to separate the main bodice of the dress from its decorative seam. Almost hidden among the white expanse of the dress’s bottom is a hand-stitched whitewashed embroidery pattern. This pattern looks akin to holly berries and is almost not seen upon first inspection of the dress. The near-invisibility of this design indicates humbleness, thereby articulating the simplistic elegance of the dress.
The empire waist paired with a low neckline creates a very feminine display of the wearer’s cleavage. There is little to no shaping underneath the empire waist—this higher cut creates a draping form for the bottom of the dress. The draping was meant to subtly hint at the female form without giving too much away or creating unrealistic waist and bust lines (Winterer). According to contemporary sizing, Anna’s gown is the equivalent to a size 10 child’s form with a waistline measuring only 28.5 inches. From armscye, or the armhole, to cuff, the sleeves measure 25 inches long. Measuring from the top of the neckline to the front hem, the gown is 45.5 inches and from the back of the neckline to the train, the gown measures 48.2 inches. While Anna would have most likely worn this gown from around the ages of ten to sixteen, today this dress would only fit a girl of about seven to eleven-years-old. The dress has a simple tie closure at the top of the back made of strands of cotton cording. Underneath the tie closure at the back is a row of cartridge pleats. Cartridge pleating is a “method of gathering large
amounts of fabric to a small waistband or shoulder armscye without adding bulk to the seam” (Leed).
In the midst of a cultural, artistic, and fashionable shift from the traditionally formal Regency to the more loose and free-formed Neoclassicism, this gown embodies simplicity. Take for example the clothing Anna would have worn growing up.
As a child and young woman, she would have been subjected to the body-binding shape of the corset with its bone or steel stays and constricting ties. However, in her teens at the height of the Neoclassical period, women’s fashion was more focused on free-flowing
simplicity and femininity. According to Cybele Gontar, “at that time the fashion for high-waisted, diaphanous, Grecian-style dresses emphasized the natural female form and required undergarments with little to no reinforcement.” Gone were the painful corsets, instead women wore simple shifts or chemises under their dresses for shaping and modesty. In fact, some even say that “the early 19th century was the golden age of comfort in women’s apparel until present day” (Gannon). Simplicity and comfort reigned supreme with little to no gaudy decoration or ornamentation on ladies’ dresses, as clearly seen on Anna’s simple yet beautiful gown.
Prairie-point edging runs around the hems of the neckline, sleeves and train. This popular edging technique for quilters and dressmakers can be created through two different methods. One technique, called nesting, is created by folding a square of fabric in half diagonally then folding it diagonally again. This creates a squat triangle with an opening on the side into which another triangle can be inserted and tacked into the garment. The other technique is called overlapping. This method is created by folding a square of fabric in half and then bending the corners in and down to create a triangular shape. These triangles are then overlapped and taken onto the garment. The former technique was used to create the prairie point on Anna’s gown. In total, the dress features 526 hand-stitched triangles. The neckline has 119, the right sleeve has 41, the left sleeve has 44, and the hemline has 322.
Although the process seems simple, and the end result appears equally unassuming, the amount of time necessary to craft such an intricate piece of clothing would have numbered well over 50 hours of work. An outrageous span of time for one dress according to modern times, but to Anna and her family, this dress represented their social class, status, and wealth. Even in its apparent simplicity, Anna’s gown holds immense intricacies and insights into her life.
With no concrete birth date for Anna, there is only mere evidence that suggests that she was born sometime between 1800 and 1810 in Braunschweig, Germany. This would put her childhood during the Confederation of the Rhine. Formed in 1806, the Confederation of the Rhine was made of sixteen German states that decided to ally with Napoleon Bonaparte and France, forcing the abdication of Frances II of the Holy Roman Empire. The Confederation provided a “physical barrier against enemies on France’s eastern border;” it also provided significantly more troops for the Napoleonic military force (Moore). This was a time when Germany was experiencing tumultuous social and political changes, such as the end of the Holy Roman Empire and the beginning of Napoleonic occupation. Established in 1806, the Napoleonic Code would have been in full effect during Anna’s childhood. The introduction of the Code, which gave men stronger authority over their families, “deprived women of any individual rights and reduced the rights of illegitimate children” (History.com Staff). Men were also given equal rights under the law, especially in regard to religious dissent. In some parts of Europe, colonial slavery was even reintroduced, but not, however, in Germany. Napoleonic Code “forbade privileges based on birth, allowed freedom of religion and specified government jobs should go to the most qualified” (“1800s”). The Code would have granted her father freedom but denied Anna and her mother most civil liberties and rights, not that they had many prior to this time.
Some cultural influences on Anna’s life include the publications of Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm, which were in the height of their popularity in 1812. Also, the Battle of Leipzig, which included over 600,000 soldiers, took place just one year later in 1813 (“Battle of Leipzig”). This was the largest war to occur in Europe prior to World War 1 and would have had a profound influence on Anna’s childhood. Another influence on Anna’s early life was the resurgence of Greek and Roman interest, which would have immersed her childhood in the Neoclassical movement.
Many important women of Anna’s time were painted wearing gowns made of imported Indian muslin. Napoleon Bonaparte’s sister-in-law, Elizabeth Patterson, wore a wedding gown made of Indian muslin and lace that supposedly could fold small enough to “fit easily into a gentlemen’s pocket” (Gontar). A portrait created by Francois Gerard of Madame de Tallyrand shows her dressed in “the iconic white gown evocative of the classical world”—a white muslin gown with a scandalously low neckline (Gontar). Other famous people to wear the pseudo-Grecian style of muslin gowns were Jane Austen’s heroines in Pride and Prejudice as well as Marie Antionette, though she was well ahead of the fashion curve for her day. The women who wore gowns of white muslin were women of class and understated elegance, embracing their femininity through simplicity.
Discrepancies among historical records in regard to Anna’s name indicate that there was less emphasis on documenting the lives of women in nineteenth-century Germany than there was on documenting men. For instance, on four different birth records for Anna, she is given four different names: Anna Margaretha Davin (Ancestry.com), Margrete Davin (FamilySearch), Margarett David (FamilySearch) and Annie Davin (Ancestry.com). Perhaps some of these different forms of her name came from different sources. For instance, Annie, a diminutive of Anna, could have been documented by someone close to her who only referred to her by a nickname. Other inconsistencies with her documentation can be attributed to simple human error by census takers or even a lack of diligence by government clerks.
Anna was born in Braunschweig, a northern German center of industrialization that drew many immigrants from neighboring countries. Davin, Anna’s surname, is a name of Irish origin, originally written in Gaelic as O Daimhin, meaning either “an ox” or “a stag” (Robb 87). The origins of her surname as well as her birthplace in an immigrant hub of Germany suggest that Anna’s family might have family roots in Ireland. Religiously, early nineteenth-century Germany was separated geographically with Catholics in the south and Lutherans in the north (“Germany-History”). Regardless of this, it is suspected that Anna’s family practiced Catholicism, most likely due to her Irish Roman Catholic heritage.
Because of the ownership of such a gown, Anna’s family would have been roughly middle to upper-middle class. In Catholic tradition, inheritance was based on a primogeniture system meaning the eldest son receives all of the family’s inheritance. But all of the children-except the girls-would have received the same level of education (“Partible Inheritance”). If Anna’s father was the eldest son then his wealth and ability to afford such an exorbitant dress for Anna fits. This would explain why Anna’s eldest son had the most prosperous and wealthy lifestyle out of all of her children as a merchant. This also explains why he kept Anna’s family heirloom: her white muslin dress.
Regardless of Davin’s chosen faith, there was a strong Lutheran presence in Braunschweig with church officials, from church organists to clergymen, serving in the schools. Due to a 1763 mandate by Frederick the Great of Prussia, all children ages five through fourteen were required to have a public education, a mandate that was still in effect during Anna’s youth (Schulze). This shows that Anna would have had some formal education even as a woman in a male-dominated time period. However, as a woman, Anna would have been considered inferior to men. The “3 K’s ‘Kinder, Kuche, Kirche’” meaning “children, kitchen, church” became prevalent when discussing women and their roles in society (Oergel). This saying essentially put women in their “rightful place” in the home according to nineteenth-century male standards. Men mainly used this argument to combat women’s fight for rights, stating that a woman could not provide for her family if she was not at home to do so. Historically speaking, Anna would have received a more domestic education from her mother-learning how to cook, clean, sew and maintain a proper household. Thus, she would be more apt and prepared to find a husband to support her.
In 1840, Anna married Stephen Henry Peine, who was also from Braunschweig, but whose family had originated in England (Ancestry.com). Together the couple had four children: Henry Adam (1844-1917), Hettie (1850-?), Stephen Phillip (1853-1926) and George Edward (1857-1941). Their eldest child, Henry, was born while the family was still in Germany, but shortly after his second birthday in 1846, the family immigrated to the United States settling in Minier, Tazewell, Illinois where the other three children were born (Ancestry.com). Minier is a small farming village located in north-central Illinois founded by a minister named George Washington Minier in October 1867 (Graber 3).
Most German immigrants travelled through Holland to the French port of Le Havre in order to board a ship across the Atlantic (Huber). From 1830-1880 Germans made up almost 25 percent of the immigrants traveling to America (“Germany-History”). The motivation for most Germans was economic. The early industrialization of the late 1830s caused a structural crisis of urban trades. Bad harvests led to poor sales and insufficient funds for farmers, thus they were forced to look elsewhere for employment and monetary opportunities, which the United States readily provided. Once in America, immigrants were employed mainly as skilled laborers and farmers.
According to a 1850s census, Stephen was documented as a working farmer in Minier (“United States Census, 1850”). Though he probably had not worked as a farmer in Germany, farming provided one of the most available job sources in Illinois at this time, so Stephen would have had to adapt to provide for his wife and children. As a farmer, Stephen would have been considered middle class, not among the wealthiest of men, but also not destitute as some unfortunate immigrants became. Both Stephen Phillip and George were farmers alongside their father. Henry, however, became a successful merchant and his brothers did the same years later (Ancestry.com). Henry worked as the manager of a dry goods store known as “Old Reliable” while in Minier, which was sold to his brother George in 1882. After retiring in 1903, Henry passed down management to his son William W. Peine (Graber 12). This choice of employment allowed Henry to elevate his branch of the family’s economic status, provide for his family of six children, and send them off for formal higher education.
While records of Anna are vague at best, the records for Anna’s children and grandchildren are rich in detail and illuminate their influence on society, most specifically in the educational realm. In 1915, Arthur Frederick Peine (Anna’s grandson) moved his branch of the family to Manhattan, Kansas, thus beginning a lasting legacy of the Peine family at Kansas State University (Reagan). Arthur Frederick became an active member within educated society when he became a professor of History at Kansas State College in 1916 until 1926 and then became the first director of the Endowment Association from 1953 to 1956 (Reagan). In his lifetime, Peine was a supporter of the arts as well as the general city of Manhattan. He was active in many organizations, including, but not limited to, the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce, Riley County Roll Call, Community Chest, Kansas Poultry Institute, and St. Paul’s Episcopal Church (Reagan). The Peine family has given generously to the city of Manhattan and Kansas State University. Not only did they donate their family’s heirlooms, such as Anna’s dress, to the Historic Costume and Textile Museum, but they also donated funds to the Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art and Danforth Chapel.
Arthur’s daughter, Caroline Frances Peine, also became a household name at Kansas State. Caroline helped create the Caroline Peine Charitable Foundation: The Manhattan Fund to “improve the quality of life in the City of Manhattan, Kansas, to benefit the KONZA Prairie and to provide for recreational development in the town of Keats, Kansas” (“Manhattan Fund”). Arthur’s son, Perry C. Peine, the biosecurity chair for Kansas State, and Caroline donated the Peine Gate to Kansas State University in honor of their family on November 8, 2002. This gate marks the southwest entrance to campus on the corner of 17th Street and Anderson Avenue and bears the words “Kansas State University, Founded 1863.” This gate has become a staple photo spot for graduating seniors in their cap and gowns. The influence of the Peine family is all over the Kansas State campus whether students realize it or not, quietly memorializing Anna and Stephen’s legacy.
From humble German beginnings, the Peine family became one of the most influential families in Eastern Kansas. The tale of one family making its journey to the United States has an impact that expands far beyond the campus of Kansas State University. From the history of Anna Davin Peine, and the donations made by her family, a reverence for documenting the past is made apparent. Through the donation of their family heirlooms, there is an indication of the Peine’s dedication to, not only documenting their own family history, but also the history of Kansas. Through the preservation of this dress, a better understanding is created of the type of people who make up what is considered the “everyday” American.
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