Howard and Joyce Dunham Gift to the Texas Fashion Collection
The Texas Fashion Collection announces the addition of a new resource, a collection of fashion illustrations and clippings from the Dunham family. Mary Helen Holden Dunham’s fashion illustrations shed a light on early Dallas fashion history. Howard Dunham and his wife Joyce graciously donated examples of Mary Helen Holden Dunham’s work to the Texas Fashion Collection. Mary Dunham was a talented young woman who worked as a fashion artist for A. Harris & Co, a Dallas department store that predates Neiman Marcus.
A. Harris & Co. relied on the abilities of young artists, such as Mary Dunham to work in the rushed and fast-pace world of fashion and competition with other stores. Dunham, a Dallas native, was well-educated. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Texas, and studied at Parsons, and Fountainebleau in Paris. As a young woman, Dunham worked for A. Harris & Co. as a fashion artist for a period of years in the 1920s.
Adolph Harris came from Prussia to Texas through Galveston in 1859 and set up a dry goods store in 1862. Harris maintained a store in some form, with a variation of names until 1891, when A. Harris & Co. was formed in Dallas. Carrie Marcus Neiman was an assistant buyer for Harris & Co. and she actually met her future husband Abraham Neiman at the A. Harris & Co. department store. Although Adolph Harris passed away in 1912 on a buying trip to New York, A. Harris & Co. remained family owned and controlled until 1961 when A. Harris & Co. merged with Sanger Brothers. On the TV show Dallas, the character, Pamela Barnes Ewing worked at “The Store” and it is rumored that “The Store” was Sanger-Harris.
Howard and Joyce Dunham Gift to the Texas Fashion Collection
Created by Jamie Martin Alter as part of her Summer 2010 Internship for the Texas Fashion Collection.
Monday, June 28th, 2010
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