The 1883 founding of the annual National Horse Show, which ran for a week in October-November at Madison Square Garden in New York City, inaugurated the nation’s most prestigious venue for competitive equestrian display. Audiences from across the social spectrum filled the Garden’s 15,000-20,000 seat capacity to witness the finest horses, English riding and driving styles, and more.
Amid rising immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe, the National Horse Show promoted Anglo-American standards of “good breeding” for both humans and equines. While horses and riders competed in the arena, prominent socialites paraded on the surrounding promenade wearing the latest fashions. Along with riders, trainers, and grooms readying the horses, leading couturiers rushed to get their clothing collections ready for Horse Show Week. To some observers, the event proved to be even more a “clothes-horse show” than a horse show.
In addition to major newspapers such as The New York Times, nationally circulating magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Monthly, Life, and The Rider and Driver extensively covered Horse Show Week and spread its visual and behavioral messages around the country through lavishly detailed illustrations and articles.
In the case:
Each object in the cases is marked with a corresponding number unless otherwise noted.
75. Harper’s Weekly (Nov. 20, 1897)
Marra Collection
76. Antique Cut Crystal and Sterling Silver Ladies’ Shot Glass for after the Hunt
Marra Collection
Riding crop
Marra Collection
Vintage leather lady’s riding crop with gold band and polished horn head. This would be carried in the right hand. Its extended length helps compensate for the absence of the right leg on the horse when riding sidesaddle.
Antique sterling silver and crystal salt and pepper service
Marra Collection
As women of means became more interested in horses, a vast range of high-end equestrian-themed consumer goods entered their homes. Equestrianism became a lifestyle as well as a physical activity.
77. Canfield dress shields advertisement, 1899
Marra Collection
Although proper English equestrianism is meant to look physically contained with little extraneous movement, it still demands vigorous core, seat, and leg exercise to maintain one’s balance and communicate effectively with the horse. This product helped conceal the unladylike sweat that inevitably flowed from the activity.
78. Horsemanship for Women, Theodore Hoe Mead, originally published 1887
On loan from Michigan State University Library
Even as women began to publish their own instructive equestrian literature, men continued to write prescriptive manuals for lady riders to preserve male authority. Underlying anxieties about the emasculating effects of women’s growing expertise surface in these texts. Mead pointedly begins his chapter on “Leaping” with a vignette about a timid male rider, whom he terms a “muff,” juxtaposed with an illustration of a sidesaddle lady rider boldly galloping her horse to jump a ditch without hesitation.
79. Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper (Oct. 27, 1883)