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Edward Stevenson (costume designer)

American costume designer (1906–1968)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 8, 2026
Entity authorityQ592131 ↗
Source-derived summary

Edward Manson Stevenson (May 13, 1906 – December 2, 1968) was an Academy Award-winning American costume designer. His film and television credits number well over two hundred, including Citizen Kane (1941) and It's a Wonderful Life (1946), both frequently cited as being among the greatest films of all time. In his later years, he worked for Lucille Ball as costume designer for I Love Lucy, The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, and Here’s Lucy. A large collection of his costume sketches are housed in the Department of Special collections at Eli M. Oboler Library in Pocatello, Idaho.

Early life

Edward Manson Stevenson was born in Pocatello, Idaho on May 13, 1906, to Jennie Uhland Stevenson (née Dolly) and Andrew Burtner Stevenson. Andrew worked for the Oregon Shortline Railroad, a subsidiary of Union Pacific, rising from dispatch clerk to division superintendent. He served a term in 1903 as senator from Bannock County in the Idaho state legislature and was the Republican nominee in 1907 for Pocatello mayor. Andrew's political activity was often limited by time spent fulfilling his duties with the railroad, duties which included a great deal of travel. Jennie, a widowed former schoolteacher, had two sons from her first marriage to Frank Uhland Sr. who died in Denver in 1904.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Edward Stevenson (costume designer)” is american costume designer (1906–1968). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Edward, Stevenson and costume, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1906, 1968, 1941, 1946—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1906-05-13. For this dossier, Edward, Stevenson and costume is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american costume designer (1906–1968)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q592131. VIAF identifies the subject as 120957281. The Library of Congress control number is no89000223. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1906, 1968, 1941 and 1946.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Edward Stevenson (costume designer)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Edward Stevenson (costume designer) primary sources, Edward Stevenson (costume designer) archive and Edward research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Edward Stevenson (costume designer)”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Edward Stevenson (costume designer)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.