50 Years of Costume Society of America
On September 12, 1973, CSA was incorporated as a non-profit in the state of New York
Costume Society of America (CSA) was founded on March 28, 1973, when Stella Blum, Herbert Callister, Elizabeth Ann Coleman, Adele Filene, Cora Ginsburg, and Elizabeth Jachimowicz held an organizational meeting at Filene’s apartment in New York, New York. Formal recognition came on September 12, 1973, when the organization was incorporated as a non-profit in the state of New York. Callister was the first President of the organization, and he has been followed by nineteen successors to date. Governance of CSA is overseen in accordance with our by-laws and constitution by the organization’s Board of Directors, made up of fifteen members who are elected by the membership and who serve for three-year terms. An executive committee of thirteen officers are elected by the Board of Directors for two-year terms.
The mission of CSA, as adopted in 2018, is to “foster an understanding of appearance and dress practices of people across the globe through research, education, preservation, and design. Our network of members studies the past, examines the present, and anticipates the future of clothing and fashion.” CSA serves it members and promotes its goals with programs on the national and regional level and with digital and print publications.
Given that CSA’s members are dispersed throughout the United States and Canada, the Board of Directors began to recognize Regional groups in the following order: Region V (1978), Region III (1982), Region II (1983), Region I (1984), and Regions VI and VIII (1985). Regions III and IV were combined in 1994.[1] Currently, the Regions are designated as Mid-Atlantic, Midwestern, Northeastern, Southeastern, Southwestern, Western, and International. All CSA members are automatically members of the Regions in which they reside, and a dedicated group of members lead Regional Advisory Councils that provide newsletters, annual meetings, and other programs for members throughout the service areas.
The Annual Meeting and Symposium event has been an important offering of the organization since 1975. In 2024 the 50th such program will be held in Washington, D.C. with the theme, “Looking Forward, Reflecting Back.” In addition to a meeting of the members, as is required by the articles of incorporation, by-laws, and constitution, the activities include keynote lectures, plenary presentations by award winners, concurrent sessions of papers, tours of local sites, and silent auctions. The proceeds are published, and editions from 2007 forward are available electronically to members.
Additional publications provided by CSA include the organization’s scholarly journal, Dress, first published in 1975. Dress examines the many facets of clothing and appearance through the study of art, social history, anthropology, and material culture. Articles based in diverse theoretical, analytical, and research methods command a great deal of respect in the field. Editors have included Robert Riley, Alez Gildzen, Richard Martin, Patricia Trautman, Patricia Cunningham, Sally Helvenston Gray, Tina Bates, and Ingrid Mida. Originally published with one issue annually, this increased to two issues per year with Volume 39 in 2013. Since 2016 Dress has been produced by Taylor & Francis, who host the entire catalogue digitally on their website.
The field of dress study has been advanced by the CSA Series, which began in 2001 as an avenue to aid CSA members in publishing their scholarship. It was founded under the leadership of CSA Vice President for Publications Rosalyn Lester and in partnership with Texas Tech University Press (TTUP).[2] Phyllis Specht, the founding editor, served for fifteen years, and with TTUP’s editor Judith Keeling, she directed the publication of fourteen books. In 2017, the series was taken on by Kent State University Press, and as editor Jennifer Mower oversaw four additional publications. Kelly Reddy-Best was named editor of the Series in 2023. Books in the series vary from primarily textual to highly illustrated and have included subjects as diverse as eighteenth-century shoemaking to the cultural history of Black hair in broader American society.
Scholarship and service to the field is celebrated by CSA annually with numerous awards, honors, grants, and projects. The most prestigious is the Fellows Honor, which recognizes outstanding dedication, commitment, and leadership to the organization and to the field of costume. The first class of CSA Fellows, recognized in 1991, included founders Blum, Callister, Coleman, Filene, Ginsburg, and Jachimowicz, as well as Jack Handford and Shannon Rodgers.[3] Fifty-three additional Fellows have been named since then. Other honors include the Mary D. Doering Guardian Honor, instituted in 2019, that recognizes the legacy of Doering and others like her who celebrate and protect significant objects of dress and appearance. Since 1997, the Scholars’ Roundtable Honor has charged a group of costume scholars to lead a discussion at the National Symposium that speaks to a current issue in the field.
Awards given annually celebrate excellence and honor our important members through named awards that include the Millia Davenport Publication Award (first given in 1991), Richard Martin Exhibition Award (instituted in 2002), Betty Kirke Excellence in Research Award (established in 2016), and the Howard Vincent Kurtz Emerging Theatre Artist Award (first given in 2022). First given in 2004, the President’s Award recognizes the extraordinary service of member or members during the preceding year. An award for Costume Design was first given in 2008, and the Entrepreneur Recognition Award was established by Wendy Goldstein in 2022.
Grants have allowed scholars and organizations to fund valuable research, materials, and professional help. The Stella Blum Student Research Grant, instituted in 1987, was followed by the Adele Filene Student Presenter and Travel Research Grants (both in 1996), the Small Museum Collection Care Grant (2003), the College and University Collection Care Grant (2006), and most recently the Dependent Care Grant (2020).
The CSA Angels Project, which first took place in 2006, sends volunteers to a small and deserving costume collection located in or near the host city of that year’s National Symposium to provide conservation, storage, and curatorial assistance. The program is skillfully led by Martha Winslow Grimm and Margaret Ordoñez with the support of Patti Borrello and Marie Schlag. In 2007, Patricia Wesp, who was chair of the CSA Grants Committee, and Loreen Finkelstein, who was CSA’s Vice President of External Relations, wrote and received a $60,000 grant to fund the 2008-2010 projects at the Jackson Barracks Military Museum, New Orleans; Phoenix Museum of History, Phoenix, AZ; and Penn Valley Community College, Kansas City, MO. In 2011, the Angels Project received a $1,000 grant from the American Association of Conservation $1,000 grant. The Endowment funded the rest of the project that year, and it has done so in full since 2015.
The funds for the rest of the organization’s grants, awards, and projects are also provided by the CSA Endowment. Inspired by a Rotary Club endowment that she learned about through her husband, President Rosalyn Lester proposed that CSA begin its own in order to fund these programs, as well as to provide a permanent place for contributions from members. Having seen a presentation by CSA Western Region member Judy Mathey and her husband Bob about managing investments,[4] Rosalyn sought Judy’s help, and with the oversight of Executive Director Kaye Boyer Ryan, the CSA Endowment was begun in 2007. Since then, the Endowment has consistently received over $20,000 in donations annually. The generous contributions of donors are invested, and the interest is used to fund awards, grants and projects developed and administered by the CSA Board of Directors. As of the end of Fiscal Year 2023, there were over $450,000 in the Endowment Fund. In this anniversary year, a special $50 for 50 Years Endowment Campaign has been launched under the leadership of Howard Vincent Kurtz and Sheryl Farnan.
Opportunities to expand CSA’s outreach and programs were brought about in the challenging year of 2020. In response to members’ questions about issues raised by the Black Lives Matter movement, the Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Belonging (DEAB) Committee was established to promote and advocate for DEAB initiatives and philosophies throughout the organization. Due to our inability to gather in person during the COVID-19 pandemic, our Conversations on Dress webinar series was launched by Graham Wetzbarger, Vice President for Technology. To date as of this writing in late August 2023, the series has produced over 75 programs, with over 3,500 attendees and an additional reach of almost 15,000 views of the recordings on CSA’s YouTube channel. The first annual meeting to be held virtually took place in 2020, and our first virtual annual symposium was held in 2021.
From its earliest years, CSA updated the membership with goings-on in the field through printed mailings and quarterly newsletters. More recently, communication has taken a digital turn, with emails, a website, an e-newsletter, and a presence on various social media platforms.[5] The organization’s logo was given its first complete makeover in 2018, and a companion logo was produced for the 50th anniversary in 2023.
To mark our 25th anniversary in 1993, Elizabeth Ann Coleman and Elizabeth Brown wrote an excellent history of our organization.[6] Since then, we have continued programs that have fostered the field as well as adding digital and virtual offerings and a host of awards, honors, grants, and projects. Costume Society of America is an organization run by its members for its members. Our current President, Lalon Alexander, has instituted a new series of Town Hall Forums as a place where members can ask questions of the leadership and learn behind-the-scenes information about how CSA is run.
From the national office in Columbus, Georgia, where I have served the organization since 2015, thanks go to the thousands of volunteers who have contributed to the growth and smooth operation of the organization and to the excellent contributions in the fields of clothing, fashion, and costume. Here’s to another fantastic 50 years as we honor our past, celebrate today, and build the future!
Kristen Miller Zohn
Executive Director
[1] Elizabeth Ann Coleman and Elizabeth Brown (1998), “In the Beginning … A Brief Background of the Costume Society of America,”
Dress, 25:1, 88-90, DOI: 10.1179/036121198805297873
[2] No author (2006), “CSA Fellows: Rosalyn Lester,” Dress, 33:1, 121, DOI: 10.1179/036121106805252981
[3] Phyllis Specht (1991), “The Costume Society of America presents The Class of 1991 Fellows,” Dress, 18:1, 92-96, DOI: 10.1179/036121191803657133
[4] Phyllis Specht (2022) “In Memoriam: Judy Mathey (1940–2021),” Dress, 48:2, 219-220, DOI: 10.1080/03612112.2022.2090104
[5] See Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram
