 |
President Lincoln's bedroom slippers
|
Above Bedroom shoes given by Abraham Lincoln to the proprietor of the famous Willard Hotel in Washington DC. These are the slippers that Lincoln wore when he stayed at that hotel during his inaugural. Photograph by Carol M. Highsmith, c1985. Image courtesy Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Collection online here.
In March 1918, the two ballrooms at the Willard Hotel were transformed by members of the American Camouflage Corps, stationed at American University Camp, in preparation for a fundraising Camouflage Ball, to be held on Wednesday evening, March 6.
The hotel’s large ballroom was given the appearance of “a quaint French village,” while the smaller one became a “sunny street in Italy.” The artists who designed all this were “past masters in the art of scene painting. When they get to France [to serve as wartime camoufleurs] they will fool [the enemy] into believing there are things where they aren’t but just at present they’re busy in making the Willard ballroom look like anything but a ballroom.”
•••
ENGLISH FACTORY GIRLS CAMOUFLAGE SHOES in Los Angeles Evening Express, January 2, 1918—
London, Jan. 2—Girl workers in the danger buildings at Woolwich arsenal are not allowed to wear jewelry. They have therefore hit on the idea of wearing colored shoe laces.
The Cap Shop girls appeared one morning with bright emerald green ribbons on their shoes, much to the envy of other departments. The next morning the whole factory was in the fashion, says the principal supervisor.
Shoes were tied with blue, pink, red, white ribbons; with anything but the government boot lace of untanned leather. The fashion spread to the office and women clerks paraded the platform during the dinner hour with resplendent shoe laces.
