In Progress

A New Home for the Washington Textile Collection

Mount Vernon’s superb collection of Washington textiles now has a new home, thanks to a generous bequest from the estate of Heather Karen Hunt. In 2020, curatorial and collections management staff re-installed more than 700 objects—the largest surviving group of original Washington clothing, needlework, lace, furnishing textiles, jewelry, and portrait miniatures, as well as commemorative and study collection textiles—into new state-of-the art storage cabinets. These cabinets feature custom-size shelves and drawers designed to maximize capacity within the storeroom and are tailored to accommodate the particular needs of our holdings—from George Washington’s coats, to Martha Washington’s eight-foot-square bed quilts, to hundreds of small cuttings taken from their clothing as souvenirs. One cabinet also features the Washington family jewelry and miniatures, allowing behind-the-scenes guests and researchers the opportunity to view these distinctive accessories in proximity to the clothing they originally adorned.

Installation of these storage units provides the essential foundation for an ongoing strategic program to both preserve and make more accessible these highly personal and evocative Washington items. The inherent fragility of textiles and, in some cases, their size or form, necessitates special handling, custom storage, and carefully controlled conditions to support their use in exhibitions and research. Future phases of this program will create storage mounts to fit precisely to the dimensions of each object and will provide conservation treatments and scientific analysis as needed. Ultimately, advancing the care of and research into the Washington textiles will enhance our understanding of not only the Washingtons, but also the broader context of society, politics, and trade in America and the world at the time of our nation’s founding.