What you do if you found an old dress tuck away in a box and put it away in the back of a university library archive section in the library? And it was left there almost three-quarters of a century.
Will it still fit?
Maybe not, that is what happened at a Catholic’s District of Columbia campus where a student found a box-like sweater tuck away where eventually no one will look for it.
Now it is found.
Inside the box was Dorothy Gale’s outfit worn by Judy Garland in the famous and classical 1939 movie “The Wizard of Oz”; the garment is an artifact and a piece of Hollywood history. First, it was lost at some point, but now it is found. The rest of the Wizard of Oz collection is at the Smithsonian, where they have the ruby shoes, Scarecrow costume, a technicolor camera, and the original script, but no dress.
But how did it get there in the first place? In 1973 Actress Mercedes McCambridge gave the dress to Father Gilbert Hartke, head of the drama program at the Catholic’s District of Columbia campus, to keep the dress safe.
The outfit is a farm girl blue gingham dress, one of the rarest. It is a little bit faded, but that is okay. The Smithsonian authenticated that this is the dress is that Judy Garland wore. So, it had her name and the designer’s name too.
So, it is not in Kansas anymore, but in a museum where it belongs and preserves for a long time.