Blouse worn by Judy Garland in The Harvey Girls: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

This blouse is a part of the waitress ensemble Judy Garland wore in the 1946 MGM film The Harvey Girls. Directed by George Sidney, The Harvey Girls was a historical musical that dramatized the real-life story of the eponymous hotel chain and its famous female waitresses. Based on the 1942 novel of the same name by Samuel Hopkins Adams the film was a critical and popular success and won an Academy Award for Best Original song in 1946 for "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe", written by Harry Warren and Johnny Mercer.

The Harvey Girls starred Judy Garland as Susan Bradley, a mail-order bride on a train headed to the town of Sandrock, New Mexico. When her plans get derailed, she turns to work at the newly opened Harvey House, modeled after the real-life Fred Harvey restaurant chain that sprouted along railway routes around the turn of the century. With the 1890s Western aesthetic as a backdrop, costume designers Irene Gibbons, Helen Rose, and Valles created stylized dresses for the Harvey House and antagonistic “Dance-Hall” Girls, contributing to a Hollywood mythologization of the American West and women’s role in “civilizing the frontier.”

Being set in the late 19th century, the blouse emulates quintessential aspects of turn-of-the-century fashion trends. The leg-of-mutton, or gigot style sleeves are the voluminous puffed sleeves seen on the blouse. Originating in the 1820s, this style returned with immense popularity at the turn of the century. While the size of the sleeves varied throughout the span of the 1890s, the designers incorporated a smaller puff sleeve, prioritizing the functionality of the waitress characters over mainstream period fashion trends. The blouse is also shut with hook and eye closures down the center back. When worn with the other costume components, this blouse emulates a historically inspired silhouette that is consistent with the film’s setting of the American West at the turn of the century.

Materials, dates and provenance

• date made: 1946
• wearer: Garland, Judy
• Object Name: Blouse
• Physical Description: cloth (overall material)
• Physical Description: metal (overall material)
• Measurements: overall: 15 in x 18 in; 38.1 cm x 45.72 cm
• Subject: Movie
• Subject: Music
• ID Number: 1992.0348.04
• catalog number: 1992.0348.04
• accession number: 1992.0348
• Credit Line: E. W. Einsporn
• Data Source: National Museum of American History

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of American History through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed.