Tag Archives: clothing

Bequest – Captain’s Henley jacket

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Title: Captain’s Henley jacket

General Information about Item:

  • Genre: Material, Customary Folklore
    • Subgenre: folk costume, traditions
  • Language: English
  • Country of origin: USA

Informant Data: Grant McArtor ’19 is a 21-year-old caucasian male student from Spartenburg, South Carolina in the United States. He was originally born in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. He has been rowing light-weight crew for five years (since junior year of high school) and has rowed on Dartmouth’s D150 varsity team since his freshman year.

Contextual Data:

Social Context: As with any bequest, this item is traditionally passed down from graduating seniors to underclassmen on the rowing team who are deemed most fit to receive the object. This exchange happens annually in the spring after the competition season has come to a close. The event involves the whole team and requires presence for several hours, as each senior may give away several bequests, each with a description of the significance of the item and why it goes to the recipient underclassmen. During the process, teammates must wait until they either bequeath or are bequeathed an item. It is a spectacle for the team and is often humorous and emotional. Underclassmen express gratitude through words and little physical contact as to expedite the process. It has been compared to receiving a Christmas present. This bequest is passed down from current captain to future captain.

Cultural Context: Bequests are handed down through a line of rowers throughout the years. This line is connected through a common trait (e.g., captainship, knowledge of statistics, heavy weight). The bequest links generations, creating team cohesiveness through history. The bequest indicates a unique importance and role in the team and generally shows that the recipient upholds the values of the team. Rowers wear bequests to exhibit that they are deserving of the honor bestowed upon them.

Item: This bequest is the Captain’s Henley jacket. It is green with white trim and has a D150 patch on the breast pocket. It is from the Henley Royal Regatta, a rowing event held annually on the River Thames in England. The jacket is a high honor on the team, only given to the rising captain of the next year.

Associated media:

Informant’s Comments: He expressed that bequests are not limited to clothing items, but clothing is a common way to exhibit membership to the team. He said that the Henley jacket is one of the highest honors in terms of bequests.

Collector’s Comments:

  • The informant recently left the team.
  • The receipt of this bequest in particular resembles the marking or transfiguration of the hero in Propp’s list of fairy tale functions.
  • The receipt of the bequest resembles a rite of passage. Before the ceremony, the rower is a freshman member. He is then separated from his fellow freshmen as he is called up by the senior. During the transition phase, he receives the bequest and shows gratitude to the senior. He is then incorporated back into the team as a new version (labeled by the bequest) of his old self.

Collector’s Name: Sam Gochman

Tags/Keywords: D150, Dartmouth Light-Weight Rowing, Bequests, Henley

Captain’s Jacket

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Title: Water Polo’s Captain’s Jacket

General Information about Item:

  • Material: Clothing
  • Language: English
  • Country where Item is from: USA

Informant Data:

  • Caleb Smith, 20, male. Smith was born in Los Angeles, CA, and is currently on the club water polo team. Although, he had no prior experience before attending Dartmouth, he has already experienced a great deal of success on the team, as Dartmouth took home the Ivy League title last year.

Contextual Data:

  • Many teams have a tradition of passing down items that are significant and have great personal value to them.

Item:

  • It is tradition every year for the Water Polo team to pass down or bequest the Captain’s Jacket from the old captain to the new.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

 

Informant’s Comments:

  • The jacket is from the glory days, back when we were a D1 team.

Collector’s Comments:

  • The jacket is significant because it comes from a time when the team was a D1 team and functions as a symbol of authority and excellence. The handing down of the jacket is like the transition into a new year and passing down of responsibility to the next generation of athletes.

Collector’s Name: Brandon Lee

Tags/Keywords:

  • Bequest, Jacket, Clothing, Material

Female Attire Etiquette for Interviews

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General Information about Item:

  • Genre and Sub Genre
    • Material Folklore: Clothing
  • Language: English
  • Country where Item is from: US

Informant Data:

  • Informant is a Dartmouth Student in the Class of 2018. She is from Westport, CT and is studying Economics and Biology. She is involved in multiple extracurriculars on campus, including the Red Cross Club, First Year Peer Mentors and Economics Tutoring. She has gone through the corporate recruiting process Summer and Fall 2016.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context: This folklore was collected in person on audio recording during an one-on-one interview during the Fall 2016 Dartmouth corporate recruiting season.
  • Cultural Context: Informant is a Junior studying Economics at Dartmouth – a typical participant of corporate recruiting as mostly Juniors and Seniors in Economics go through recruiting. Informant has not had any corporate experience prior to interview, but has a corporate job in Winter 2017 that was not obtained through the corporate recruiting process. She has gone through the corporate recruiting process twice.

Item:

  • Pencil skirts and blouses for women are typical attire worn during interviews. The dress code for interviews is implicitly known to be business casual even though no company explicity states it. Students participating in recruiting figure out the dress code by word-of-mouth, usually advice passed down from upperclassman or friends who have experienced recruiting interviews. Females try to avoid too many flashy colors and designs in order to maintain professional. Business casual attire during interviews are important because it demonstrates professionalism and respect.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Transcript of Associated File:

Informant’s Comments:

  • NA

Collector’s Comments:

  • NA

Collector’s Name: Emily MA

Tags/Keywords:

  • Material Lore, Clothes, Interviews, Corporate Recruiting

The Trousseau

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Title: The Trousseau

General Information about Item:

  • Material Folklore: Clothing/Linens
  • Italian, English
  • Italy

Informant Data:

  • Nancy Canepa has been an Italian professor at Dartmouth College since 1989. She is descended from Italian immigrants on her father’s side. Her paternal grandmother is from the Lombardy region of Italy, and her paternal grandfather is from the Liguria coast. She has attended two Italian weddings. Her husband is from the Apulia region of Italy.

Contextual Data:

  • Social/Cultural Context: It is customary for the bride at an Italian wedding to collect a trousseau – a box of embroidered linens and garments, which, according to Professor Canepa, are usually handmade by the bride’s female relatives. Once married, the husband and wife bring this set of linens home with them. According to Professor Canepa, the custom of presenting the bride with a trousseau is more common in the south of Italy.

Item:

  • The bride at an Italian wedding usually receives a trousseau. The informant noted that the items in the trousseau are very elaborately decorated because the value of the trousseau is associated with the success of the marriage.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Transcript of Associated File:

  • “Something that the… that the bride brings to her new married life – this still exists in some parts of the Italian south, which, as I mentioned before, you know is more steeped in tradition and is more connected, even today, to those traditions – is a uh – it’s called a ‘corredo’ in Italian – a trousseau – we usually use the French word – which is a big box full of very carefully, preciously prepared um lingerie, bed linens, table linens that traditionally have been prepared and usually very finely embroidered by sometimes, to some degree, the bride herself, but mostly her female relatives – her mother, her grandmother, her aunts. And so the bride would bring this big box of linens that the bride and groom would then use in their new house um and the richness of the trousseau was symbolically a, you know, connected to the… to the richness and success of the marriage – um so that’s not a gift that they get, but it’s something that is giftlike that the wife brings to the marriage.”

Informant’s Comments:

  • The informant believes that the richness of the trousseau is associated with the “richness and success of the marriage.” Therefore, it is important to have elaborately embroidered linens to ensure the material wealth of the couple. The informant did not consider the trousseau a wedding gift – probably because the bride sometimes makes the items in the trousseau herself – but said that it is ‘giftlike.’

Collector’s Comments:

  • It is possible that the embroidered linens are associated with fertility since they are used on the couple’s bed. The linens could also be a sign of wealth or status if they are purchased rather than handmade. The linens in the trousseau are an example of contagious magic since, as Professor Canepa mentioned, it is believed that the couple will become rich as a result of using richly decorated linens.

Collector’s Name: Peter Loomis

Tags/Keywords:

Homecoming Food and Clothing

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  1. Homecoming Food and Clothing
  2. Informant Data: Laura Sim is a 23-year-old, female, senior (‘16) who attends Dartmouth College. She was born in Southern California, but she now resides in Hanover, New Hampshire during the school year.
  3. Type of lore: Material; Genre: ritual
  4. Language: English
  5. Country of Origin: US
  6. Contextual Data: Laura Sim is a senior at Dartmouth College and has participated in homecoming during each of her years on campus.
  7. Item: Every year during homecoming, the school provides hot cider and donuts in front of Collis for students and former students to drink and eat while they watch the bonfire. Students also wear sweaters and t-shirts with their class years on them.
  9. n/a
  10. Informant’s comments: No comment; she simply stated that this is a tradition of many and seemed very happy about it
  11. Collector’s comments: The hot cider and donut ritual helps bond the Dartmouth community through food. The wearing of clothing with students’ class year on it helps the Dartmouth community to identify which grade everyone is in, who has participated in the bonfire before, and it also helps bond the individual classes year after year. These rituals serve to unify the community.
  12. Ritual, food, clothing