Widener Library:

I spoke with Fred Burchsted at Widener Library. He helped me understand which collections at Harvard would be worth checking out, as well as other sources in Boston. In particular, he recommended visiting the Baker library and Massachusetts Historical Society, and suggested the use of City Directories as a resource.

Harvard Archives:

At the Harvard Archives, I met with Timothy Driscoll, Barbara Meloni, and Robin McElheny. They primarily helped me navigate HOLLIS, suggested various Harvard image databases, and showed me how to find other ditigized sources such as guides for new students at Harvard College, which might include etiquette or dress codes. Also at the archives I found Harvard Yearbooks and a surprisingly interesting "dictionary" that had some useful mentions of dress, though none of these ended up being useful as a real dataset for this project.

Baker Library

I met with Christine Riggle at the Baker Library, and returned for a research appointment. They had only a few items of interest, mostly a tailoring catalogue from 1840, similar to some I'd seen before. They have quite strict policies on photographing and publishing, and if I could find that source elsewhere I would. One useful takeaway from our meeting was again looking through City Directories. While I can't find a use for that right now, it might prove useful in the future to see who tailors were in Boston or New york.

Harvard Map Collection

I met with George Clark in the Harvard Map collection, and he showed me how to access the maps that have been digitized, and how to request other maps if I'm interested. Ultimately useful to know that enough were digitized that I could find what I needed there. Another interesting thing we covered was geolocating maps - so interesting!

Houghton Library

Houghton Library I have not yet visited, but they might be an interesting source for diaries or ephemera.

Massachusetts Historical Society:

I attended the graduate student open house for the Massachusetts Historical Society, and spoke with Christopher Minty, assistant editor of the Adams Papers. We talked about the possibility of looking at the journals of John Quincy Adams (US President 1825-1829) as a source of information about men's clothing.

New York Public Library:

I made a research appointment to look at a number of special collections at the NYPL. The Art & Architecture collection in particular had some good fashion periodicals. The Pforsheimer collection had a few things, as well as the general SASB offsite storage.