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

The object in the museum catalogue

This bustle 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.”

While never shown on-screen, the bustle is an important part of the waitress ensemble. Cut in a half-moon shape, the bustle is fastened with a metal hook and eye closure and would have been worn under all layers. The bustle gives the ensemble fullness in the hips that was a popular fashion trend during the turn-of-the-century. The multiple petticoat layers soften the bustle’s shape, providing a historically inspired 1890’s silhouette.

Materials, dates and provenance

• date made: 1946
• wearer: Garland, Judy
• Object Name: Bustle
• Physical Description: cloth (overall material)
• Physical Description: metal (overall material)
• Measurements: overall: 10 in x 21 in; 25.4 cm x 53.34 cm
• Subject: Movie
• Subject: Music
• ID Number: 1992.0348.06
• catalog number: 1992.0348.06
• 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.