Handbag and Stockings worn by Lieutenant Commander Claire Bloom
Lieutenant Commander Claire V. Bloom became the first woman to wear a reproduction 1800s officer’s uniform in the modern U.S. Navy when she served as executive officer (second in command) of USS Constitution from 1996 to 1998. Women were prohibited from serving in the U.S. Navy in the 1800s, so Bloom was the first woman to wear such a uniform.
Bloom’s reproduction uniform, which is based on 1802 U.S. Navy uniform regulations and is in the collection of Naval History and Heritage Command Detachment Boston, includes a jacket with a single gold epaulet, a shirt, waistcoat, breeches, jabot, and cocked hat. As part of her uniform, she also wore stockings and carried a handbag.
The handbag is standard 1990s-era U.S. Navy issue handbag that Bloom used while serving aboard Constitution. It is made of a synthetic black material and has a long shoulder strap and gold clasp. In a 1998 interview with the Boston Globe, Bloom explained that she wore the handbag because her reproduction uniform lacked adequate pockets.
Date Created
1996
Medium
Cloth
Catalog Number
1645.1-2
Credit Line
USS Constitution Museum Collection. Claire Bloom Gift.
Terms of Use
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
