Donor Paul Edel

Norah Worthington

As a professional costumer, it is a bit of a detour to go into the world of museum collections. Working on theater productions, I certainly have spent many hours researching a period, or recreating antique garments for a show. I’ve even found myself using pieces that are “vintage” in a production. But when does a piece crossover from vintage to antique? When does that dress-up piece from grandmother’s trunk deserve an acession number? What do I have in costume storage that should come out of rotation and enter the archive boxes of a “study collection”?

The Fashion Archives at the Maryland Historical Society contains items acquired through donation, purchase, and sometimes unknown provenance. One of the first items I have been able to study was a suit from the 1890’s. Inside the pockets was stamped “Paul Edel, Costumer, Baltimore, Md.” An initial search of donors shows he sold or donated multiple hats and other clothes to MdHS. In fact, one of the Civil War era children’s dresses donated by him just came off display and was included in a piece by Associate Curator of the Fashion Archives Allison Tolman for the Maryland Humanities blog. Who was Mr. Edel, and what was he doing that he had antiques to sell and donate to the Historical Society?

 1962.105.1a,b Men’s wool suit c.1890s, Gift of Mr. Paul Edel

It turns out Mr. Edel was a costumer right here in the Mt. Vernon neighborhood. He appears in the Baltimore Sun newspaper renting Santa suits and “Costumes for all occasions” from a shop at 204 W. Monument Street, literally across the street from the museum. He wasn’t just a costumer, however. He can be found directing Epiphany pageants at Grace and St Peter’s, the church around the corner, in the late 30’s and early 40’s, and seems to have been an actor and director of other theatricals as well. He even performed the role of the Marquis de Lafayette at a colonial themed Flower Mart around the Baltimore Washington Monument.

Paul Edel also appears as an actor, director, and costumer involved with Baltimore’s Vagabond Theater, the country’s oldest continuously operating “Little Theater.” The “Little Theater” movement was a turn-of-the-century trend that emphasized experimental work produced by amateurs — those who make theater for the sheer love of it. Artists like Eugene O’ Neill, in his work with Provincetown Players, was part of this trend. Here in Baltimore, the Vagabond Theater was located just down the street from the Maryland Historical Society on Read Street from the 1930’s to the 1950’s. There is a painting in the museum’s collection showing the theater in the carriage house of the Preston Mansion (now a parking lot).

Like the smaller experimental theater companies in Baltimore today (Acme, Single Carrot), Vagabond was an answer to the big touring and star-driven shows of the day. In a centennial retrospective in the Sun, Tim Smith quotes a circa 1919 company announcement: “The Vagabond Players are not made up of any one class or clique. … [All] who are genuinely interested in the work — whether in acting, producing, writing, designing — are welcomed to the community of effort.”[1]

Mr. Paul Edel seems to have been just such a multi-talented artist. I cannot help but think that, as in my own experience, people who knew he was a costumer would give him things that they knew should be saved, clothes that had meaning, but unclear value. Things that seemed old, but were of unclear date or significance. And we costumers first put those items on stage, then start to cherish them in a protective way. They become too fragile for performance, and we realize we are their caretakers. Eventually, we pull them and put them in a box, maybe with acid free tissue, if we’re lucky.

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References:

[1] ”Baltimore’s Vagabond Players still going strong 100 years after launch’ by Tim Smith, Baltimore Sun, August 28th, 2015.