"Wizard of Oz" dress thought to be worn by Judy Garland resides at Catholic University

WASHINGTON (FOX 5 DC) - Catholic University’s student newspaper, The Tower, wrote an article in 1973 about a gift to the university given as a source of "hope, strength, and courage" for the students. The gift was a dress that is believed to have been worn by Judy Garland in the classic "The Wizard of Oz."

PHOTO: Catholic University

The dress was given to Reverend Gilbert Hartke, the head of the drama program, by actress Mercedes McCambridge, who served as artist-in-residence at Catholic University in 1972.

For several years, rumors around the campus said that the dress was still located in Hartke, the building named after the priest it was given to, but no one knew exactly where it was located.

Matt Ripa, 2008 alum, lecturer and operations coordinator for the Department of Drama, heard those same rumors of the dress being in the building where he regularly works.

He looked for the dress all through the theatre’s archives and storage closets. Eventually was beginning to assume the legend of Dorothy’s dress was "a tall tale (of which many exist for Father Hartke)."

One day, however, while preparing for some renovations to the building, Ripa noticed a bag on top of the faculty mailboxes.

"I was curious what was inside and opened the bag. Inside was a shoebox, and inside the shoebox was the dress! I couldn’t believe it," Ripa says. "My co-worker and I quickly grabbed some gloves and looked at the dress and took some pictures before putting it back in the box and heading over to the (University) Archives. Needless to say, I have found many interesting things in Hartke during my time at Catholic University, but I think this one takes the cake!"

Rev. Gilbert Hartke holding the dress. (PHOTO: Catholic University)

By the time McCambridge had given the dress to Father Hartke, Judy Garland had died. The university does not have information on how McCambridge acquired the dress, however, it is widely known she was a contemporary of Garland and they were believed to be friends.

"As archivists, we were obliged to work on gaining additional documentation for this popular culture national treasure," says Maria Mazzenga, Ph.D. 2000, curator of the American Catholic History Collections at Catholic University. "We have several photos of Father Hartke holding the dress, and articles from The Tower and The Washington Post referencing it. So the circumstantial evidence is strong."

The dress is now in the university's archives. Mazzenga reached out to experts in cultural memorabilia at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

The museum is home to several artifacts from the set of "The Wizard of Oz," including a famous pair of Dorothy’s ruby slippers. Curator with the Division of Cultural and Community Life, Ryan Lintelman, an expert in the museum’s Oz memorabilia, offered a wealth of information and research he’s gathered on the history of the infamous Dorothy dresses.

There were several dresses, though it appears that only five, excluding Catholic University’s dress, have been verified as probably authentic. Each dress has certain "verifiable" characteristics, including, for example, a "secret pocket" on the right side of the pinafore skirt for Dorothy’s handkerchief, "Judy Garland" written by hand in a script specific to a single person who labeled all of the extant dresses in the same hand.

Apparently, the thin material of the archived blouse was prone to tearing when Garland took it off after filming, and a seamstress often had to repair it before she wore it in the next shoot.

The Hartke dress at Catholic University has all of these characteristics, including blouse tears where the pinafore straps sat on the shoulders.

Lintelman, along with his colleagues at the museum — Dawn Wallace, objects conservator, and Sunae Park Evans, senior costume conservator — visited Catholic University to get a look at the dress soon after it was discovered.

The employees of the museum are not authorized to authenticate objects such as this one, however, they suggested that the dress was consistent with the qualities of other objects from the film and that the evidence around the dress was enough to conclude its validity.

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Dorothy’s "Wizard of Oz" dress, once the subject of a myth, is now a verified piece in the University’s Special Collections.

It can now be preserved in proper storage in a temperature- and humidity-controlled environment so that it can be enjoyed many more years, as the source of "hope, strength, and courage" for Catholic University students.