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Clothing (Atlantic History)

Apr 26th, 2016
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  1. Introduction
  2.  
  3. The study of clothing offers a distinctive methodological approach to understanding the Atlantic world. It engages with key questions such as the movement of people—and of things—around the Atlantic (as well as between the Atlantic and the wider world). It also offers an especially rich means of uncovering the lived experiences of inhabitants of the Atlantic basin through their projection of a visual and three-dimensional expression of identity. Because the history of dress as an academic discipline first developed in Europe as an offshoot of art history, readers will note a preponderance of scholarship on Europe, especially England. As this interdisciplinary field has expanded to encompass approaches from the social sciences and humanities, and reflecting the interest in Atlantic studies, the focus of dress history has expanded immeasurably to address topics such as the construction of gender and of race in colonial contexts. Indeed, in its broadest definition, dress encompasses apparel, accessories, hairstyling, even tattoos, and everyone—not simply those who have left us documentary sources for writing the history of the Atlantic world—wore some form of dress. The analysis of clothing is therefore especially valuable in illuminating the lives of the nonliterate and the colonized. Finally, because clothing is a form of material culture, it is highly recommended that readers consult the Oxford Bibliographies article on Material Culture.
  4.  
  5. General Overviews
  6.  
  7. There are no general surveys per se of clothing in the Atlantic world, but a number of texts provide useful overviews of dress in discrete segments of the Atlantic (e.g., Baumgarten 2002, Loren 2010, and Wass and Fandrich 2010 for North America; Bouttiaux 2008 for Africa; Ribeiro 2002, Roche 1994, and Styles 2007 for Europe), with Ross 2008 offering a valuable global history of dress.
  8.  
  9. Baumgarten, Linda. What Clothes Reveal: The Language of Clothing in Colonial and Federal America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002.
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  11. The best general overview of dress in British early America, incorporating surviving dress (from the collections of Colonial Williamsburg) as well as visual images and written sources. Researched and written by the costume curator at Colonial Williamsburg, the volume is especially useful in its attention to topics such as slave dress; homespun, common dress; and the dress worn during life passages.
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  13. Bouttiaux, Anne-Marie, Frieda Sorber, and Anne van Cutsem. African Costumes and Textiles from the Berbers to the Zulus: The Zaira and Marcel Mis Collection. Milan: 5 Continents Editions, 2008.
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  15. Essays that explore cloth and clothing from different regions of Africa and across a range of historical periods.
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  17. Loren, Diana DiPaolo. The Archaeology of Clothing and Bodily Adornment in Colonial America. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2010.
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  19. The only overview of clothing in archaeological finds in North America and one that builds on the author’s many articles on aspects of archaeological clothing.
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  21. Ribeiro, Aileen. Dress in Eighteenth-Century Europe, 1751–1789. Rev. ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002.
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  23. The best analysis of dress in different parts of Europe in the 18th century by a leading historian of dress history, predominantly focused on elite fashion and drawing on a wide variety of visual and written sources.
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  25. Roche, Daniel. The Culture of Clothing: Dress and Fashion in the Ancien Régime. Translated by Jean Birrell. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
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  27. A major piece of scholarship on the cultural importance of dress, anchored by the assessment of changes in fashion consumption over the course of the 18th century in Paris, by social rank and occupation. Originally published as La culture des apparences: Une histoire du vêtement, XVIIe–XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Fayard, 1989).
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  29. Ross, Robert. Clothing: A Global History. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2008.
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  31. A sweeping survey of the influence of Europe on dress around the world, with much coverage of Atlantic regions in the early modern period and drawing on extensive knowledge of the best scholarly literature on dress history.
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  33. Styles, John. The Dress of the People: Everyday Fashion in Eighteenth-Century England. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007.
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  35. The most significant work published to date on non-elite dress; very thorough, drawing on a sweeping range of hitherto underexplored primary sources, and methodologically innovative.
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  37. Wass, Ann Buermann, and Michelle Webb Fandrich. Clothing through American History: The Federal Era through Antebellum, 1786–1860. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2010.
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  39. A mostly reliable descriptive survey of dress in the early republic and antebellum periods.
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  41. Reference Works
  42.  
  43. The following volumes provide useful guides to the cut and construction of clothing (especially European—see Arnold 1982–2008; Baumgarten, et al. 1999; Hart and North 2009), definitions of clothing terms (Gousse and Gousse 1995, Pellegrin 1989), aids for the identification and interpretation of visual illustrations of fashion (Ribeiro and Cumming 1989), and how to approach the study of dress (Taylor 2002 and, for a sampling of scholarly treatments of dress, McNeil 2009). See also the section on Textiles.
  44.  
  45. Arnold, Janet. Patterns of Fashion. 4 vols. London: Macmillan, 1982–2008.
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  47. The standard guide to the cut and construction based on surviving garments that date from c. 1540 to 1940, arranged chronologically in four volumes.
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  49. Baumgarten, Linda, John Watson, and Florine Car Baumgarten. Costume Close-Up: Clothing Construction and Pattern, 1750–1790. Williamsburg, VA: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1999.
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  51. A study of the cut and construction of select surviving garments in the collections of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
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  53. Gousse, Suzanne, and André Gousse. Lexique illustré du costume en Nouvelle-France, 1740–1760. Chambly, Quebec: Fleur de Lyse, 1995.
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  55. A reliable dictionary of costume terminology in New France, based on definitions found in historical sources.
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  57. Hart, Avril, and Susan North. Historical Fashion in Detail: The 17th and 18th Centuries. London: V & A, 2009.
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  59. One in a series of publications on the costume holdings of the Victoria and Albert Museum, researched and written by their first-rate curators.
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  61. McNeil, Peter K., ed. Fashion: Critical and Primary Sources. 4 vols. Oxford: Berg, 2009.
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  63. A leading cultural historian of fashion has carefully selected many exemplary models of scholarship on, and methodological approaches to, fashion, together with primary sources. This is sold as a four-volume set and is overly expensive (Vol. 1, Late Medieval to Renaissance; Vol. 2, 18th Century; Vol. 3, 19th Century; Vol. 4, 20th Century to Today).
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  65. Pellegrin, Nicole. Les vêtements de la liberté: Abécédaire des pratiques vestimentaires en France de 1780 à 1800. Aix-en-Provence, France: Alinea, 1989.
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  67. A French-language glossary of clothing and textile terms in revolutionary France. Given the fashion for adopting French-language terms, this volume is also useful for understanding dress in England and her colonies.
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  69. Ribeiro, Aileen, and Valerie Cumming. The Visual History of Costume. London: Batsford, 1989.
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  71. An invaluable guide to the visual appearance of clothing from the 14th to the 20th century, with full-page illustrations and detailed discussions of the head, body, and accessories. This volume is a condensed version of a series of individual volumes devoted to the visual history of costume for each century (A Visual History of Costume, 5 vols. New York: Drama Books, 1983–1984), and readers are urged to consult the relevant volumes, as they contain more material.
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  73. Taylor, Lou. The Study of Dress History. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2002.
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  75. A useful interdisciplinary overview of approaches to dress history, with an emphasis on the various methodologies appropriate to different types of sources.
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  77. Journals
  78.  
  79. There are a number of journals dedicated to clothing history. The most established (such as Costume and Dress) are published by societies devoted to the study of dress and combine scholarship by academics and nonacademics, including museum professionals and independent scholars. Others, including Fashion Theory and Textile History, define themselves as scholarly journals of dress history, with Textile: The Journal of Cloth & Culture aimed more at contemporary issues. Beyond these publications, a number of journals devoted to material culture studies regularly include articles on clothing (Apparence(s), Material Culture Review, Winterthur Portfolio).
  80.  
  81. Apparence(s): Histoire et culture du paraïtre. 2000–.
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  83. A French-language electronic journal devoted to the historical study of sartorial appearance.
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  85. Costume. 1967–.
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  87. The annual journal of the Costume Society of Great Britain, this journal’s contributors are primarily historians, art historians, and museum curators. It is particularly strong in its coverage of England and of Western dress and in its empirical and artifact-based studies.
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  89. Dress. 1975–.
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  91. The annual journal of the Costume Society of America reflects the historical base of clothing history in the United States within the field of home economics and fashion merchandising. Many of the articles continue this social science/consumer science foundation, though there are also offerings from the humanities and museum curators. Its coverage leans toward the United States, but it also publishes articles that span the globe.
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  93. Fashion Theory. 1997–.
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  95. A theoretically driven journal that emphasizes cultural studies approaches to fashion; coverage is heavily weighted toward the 20th century, but there are regular offerings on earlier periods.
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  97. Material Culture Review / Revue de la culture matérielle. 2006–.
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  99. Formerly Material History Bulletin / Bulletin d’histoire de la culture matérielle (1976–1990), then Material History Review / Revue d’histoire de la culture matérielle (1991–2005). Good for its coverage of early America, this interdisciplinary journal includes articles on clothing in Canada, the United States, and beyond.
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  101. Textile History. 1968–.
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  103. This journal’s editorial board keeps standards high. Coverage of textiles in European history is especially prominent, but the journal also actively solicits articles on textiles and dress in transnational contexts.
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  105. Textile: The Journal of Cloth & Culture. 2003–.
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  107. An interdisciplinary journal encompassing social science and humanities approaches, with worldwide coverage though slanted toward contemporary issues rather than historical ones.
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  109. Winterthur Portfolio: A Journal of American Material Culture. 1964–.
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  111. This is the leading journal of material culture in the United States, with special strengths in historical, art historical, and artifact-based approaches, and incorporating occasional articles on clothing.
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  113. Primary Sources
  114.  
  115. A wide variety of primary sources, whether verbal, visual, or material, can be mined for information on dress and are broken down below in terms of Surviving Dress (including archaeological finds), Archaeological Sources, Visual Sources, and Written Sources. Please note that the following represent just a tiny sampling of resources, cited here to indicate the huge varieties and types of sources available for analyzing dress.
  116.  
  117. Surviving Dress
  118.  
  119. Because most items of dress are made from organic materials, their survival rate is not good. Where items of clothing are extant they tend to be items of formal dress (and mainly female), a problem of coverage that is exacerbated by the historical lack of interest in safeguarding the dress of nonelites. There are, however, some important museum collections of extant clothing, from underwear to accessories and ranging from the 16th century (very rare) to the 19th century (for surviving dress from archaeological excavations, see the section on Archaeological Sources). Many of these costume collections have been photographed and digitized for study online. For ease of searching and coverage, the best online collections are those of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Costume Institute, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Costume and Textile Collection, and the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (18th-Century Clothing), but museums such as the Fashion Museum in Bath and the Gallery of Costume, Manchester Art Gallery also have important holdings. The serious student of dress should also investigate smaller regional museums that may have collections of surviving dress; exceptional collections include those of Chester County Pennsylvania (Burnston 2000) and less well-known holdings around the Atlantic Basin, for which there are seldom catalogs.
  120.  
  121. Burnston, Sharon Ann. Fitting & Proper: 18th Century Clothing from the Collection of the Chester County Historical Society. Texarkana, TX: Scurlock, 2000.
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  123. An exceptional collection of 18th-century colonists’ dress, discussed in depth in terms of cut and construction.
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  125. Costume Institute, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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  127. A collection of more than 35,000 costumes and accessories, representing five continents and seven centuries of fashionable dress, regional costumes, and accessories for men, women, and children, from the 15th century to the present, with an easily searchable database.
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  129. Costume and Textile Collection, Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
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  131. The Costume and Textiles Department contains over 20,000 items dating to over 2,000 years ago and covering more than one hundred cultures. One particular area of strength is European/American high fashion.
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  133. 18th-Century Clothing. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
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  135. An important collection of colonial period dress. The website contains valuable thematic online exhibits, for example, on “Looking at 18th Century Clothing,” “Anatomy of a Gown,” and “Historic Threads: Three Centuries of Clothing.”
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  137. Fashion Museum.
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  139. Known as the Museum of Costume until 2007. An important collection of fashionable dress, with the earliest pieces dating from the 1600s. One useful feature of the searchable database is that it is organized around types of garments and historical periods.
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  141. Gallery of Costume, Manchester Art Gallery.
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  143. A collection of over 20,000 items of mostly fashionable dress (with strengths in the 18th century) but also incorporating the dress of working people and regional British dress. A searchable database of some of the holdings, with thematic online exhibits (e.g., “Materials and Making,” “Underwear,” and “Clothes for Work”).
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  145. Victoria and Albert Museum.
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  147. The best collection in the world in terms of scale and range of holdings; also has excellent textile collections from around the world. The website has a searchable database and is rich in thematic online exhibits, with links to the museum’s various series of books on its costume holdings.
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  149. Archaeological Sources
  150.  
  151. Because they are organic, few items of dress survive to be excavated, and most that do are incomplete fragments or discolored; for example, see Ordoñez and Welters 1998 for a discussion of finds in a Boston 17th-century Puritan household; also see Voss 2008. Near-complete garments are extremely rare (for a few exceptions, see Bolland 1991, Brown 1971), though archaeological excavations do have one clear advantage over museum collections, which are biased toward elite dress and formal or special dress, in that what survives does not rely on what was deemed worthy of keeping. Because of shortcomings in the survival of dress, archaeologists often rely on related artifacts such as cloth seals (Adams 1989) or documentary records (Loren 2010, Anderson 1994).
  152.  
  153. Adams, Diane L. Lead Seals from Fort Michilimackinac, 1715–1781. Archaeological Completion Report 14. Mackinac Island, MI: Mackinac State Historic Parks, 1989.
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  155. Where textiles do not survive in archaeological excavations, lead seals (which were attached to bolts of fabric upon manufacture or quality control) provide invaluable evidence about the types of textiles available at any one site.
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  157. Anderson, Dean L. “The Flow of European Trade Goods into the Western Great Lakes Region, 1715–1760.” In The Fur Trade Revisited: Selected Papers of the Sixth North American Fur Trade Conference, Mackinac Island, Michigan, 1991. Edited by Jennifer S. H. Brown, W. J. Eccles, and Donald P. Heldman, 93–115. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1994.
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  159. An article that reveals the dominance of textiles in the Indian trade in the Great Lakes region.
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  161. Bolland, Rita. Tellem Textiles: Archaeological Finds from Burial Caves in Mali’s Bandiagara Cliff. Amsterdam: Royal Tropical Institute, 1991.
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  163. A catalog with weave and dye analysis of an extraordinary cache of nearly five hundred textiles and garments (11th–16th century) found in the Tellem Caves in West Africa.
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  165. Brown, Margaret Kimball. “An Eighteenth Century Trade Coat.” Plains Anthropologist 16.52 (1971): 128–133.
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  167. A rare archaeological survival, in the form of a near-complete French coat from c. 1740, worn by a Native American, is reconstructed and analyzed. Available online by subscription.
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  169. Loren, Diana DiPaolo. The Archaeology of Clothing and Bodily Adornment in Colonial America. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2010.
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  171. The only overall synthesis of clothing in archaeological finds in North America and one that builds on the author’s many articles on aspects of archaeological clothing. Provides a thematic analysis of the archaeology of clothing in North America; deftly handles shortcomings in the survival of clothing to provide a model of scholarship on dress.
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  173. Ordoñez, Margaret T., and Linda Welters. “Textiles from the Seventeenth-Century Privy at the Cross Street Back Lot Site.” Historical Archaeology 32.3 (1998): 81–90.
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  175. Provides a rich analysis of textile and dress fragments found in a Puritan household archaeological site. Available online by subscription.
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  177. Voss, Barbara L. “‘Poor People in Silk Shirts’: Dress and Ethnogenesis in Spanish-Colonial San Francisco.” Journal of Social Archaeology 8.3 (2008): 404–432.
  178. DOI: 10.1177/1469605308095011Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  179. Drawing on archaeological evidence, examines how colonial institutions deployed dress. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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  181. Visual Sources
  182.  
  183. Given the inherently visual dimension of clothing, a grasp of visual sources is essential to the study of dress in the Atlantic. Scholars new to visual studies approaches should beware of using images only as illustrations and keep in mind that images are subject to artistic conventions and are in and of themselves forms of cultural production. For examples of dress historical approaches to visual sources, the reader is encouraged to consult the texts in the General Overviews and Reference Works sections. A growing number of online databases is facilitating the task of locating images (though please note that some of these sites, such as ARTstor and Oxford Art Online require subscriptions); see also the Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Online Catalog. For general visual arts databases geared toward the Western cannon, see especially ARTstor and Oxford Art Online. Images of Africans are the focus of a number of databases and publications such as the Image of the Black in Western Art volumes and website; The Black Figure in 18th Century Art (Dabydeen); Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database; and the Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas database. Ethnographic museums are especially useful for examples of indigenous clothing of the New World (Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology). Scholars should be cautious about using visual sources merely as illustrations and should approach them as they would any other primary source: carefully and in context.
  184.  
  185. ARTstor.
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  187. The ARTstor Digital Library is a nonprofit resource that provides more than 1 million digital images in the arts, architecture, humanities, and sciences with an accessible suite of software tools for teaching and research.
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  189. Dabydeen, David. The Black Figure in 18th-Century Art. BBC History.
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  191. Online exhibit at the British Museum, London, on representations of Africans in 18th-century British art.
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  193. Handler, Jerome S. and Michael L. Tuite, Jr. The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record.
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  195. Contains approximately 1,280 images from a wide range of sources, most of them dating from the period of slavery.
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  197. The Image of the Black in Western Art.
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  199. Gateway to an important ongoing book series published by Harvard University Press, with online image gallery and related information.
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  201. Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Online Catalog.
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  203. The Prints & Photographs Online Catalog contains catalog records and digital images representing a rich cross-section of still pictures held by the Prints & Photographs Division and, in some cases, other units of the Library of Congress. While international in scope, the collections are particularly rich in materials produced in, or documenting the history of, the United States and the lives, interests, and achievements of the American people.
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  205. Oxford Art Online.
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  207. Oxford Art Online is a gateway to multiple trusted online art reference resources.
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  209. Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Harvard University.
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  211. Special strengths in indigenous ethnographic collections, many of which are reproduced in the searchable database.
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  213. Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database.
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  215. Contains a section on images, continually added to.
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  217. Written Sources
  218.  
  219. Where extant artifacts and visual sources can come up short for the study of the Atlantic world, written sources can often add some balance. Virtually any written source can be valuable to the dress historian, and only a very small sampling is given here. Among the most reliable are probate inventories, which provide information about the items of dress owned by an individual (and sometimes those of the spouse and children) at his or her death, and often including valuations; see Probing the Past: Virginia and Maryland Probate Inventories, 1740–1810 and Transcription of Estate Papers at the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa. There are shortcomings in that details of cut, construction, and trimmings are not always given, and appraisers were inconsistent in providing details about textiles and colors. Merchants’ records, such as Mary Alexander’s papers (Guide to the Alexander Papers, Series 3: Mary Alexander, 1736–1760), and inventories of ship cargoes provide important information about the movement of goods across the Atlantic. Other written sources include newspapers, both for advertisements of the types of goods available for sale and for advertisements for runaway slaves, apprentices, and indentured servants (Readex Digital Collections, Virginia Runaways). Runaway ads must be used carefully because they were produced by masters; however, because the purpose of these ads was to secure the recapture of runaways, they can be exceptionally useful thanks to the vivid details of dress provided as a means to identify individuals from the lower sorts. Court records offer another useful source on clothing; in French colonies, for example, the enslaved could testify in person in criminal cases, and their testimony can be analyzed for information on their appearance and their role in the licit and illicit circulation of goods (some of these are included in the Plymouth Colony Archive Project). First-person accounts and correspondence by travelers, colonists, officials, and missionaries can also provide rich material for the study of dress (their own and that of the groups they encountered); see, for example, In the First Person: Index to Letters, Diaries, Oral Histories, and Personal Narratives and the Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, 1610 to 1791. It is wise to be wary of ethnocentrism in their descriptions of non-Europeans and of bias against those of lesser rank.
  220.  
  221. Guide to the Alexander Papers, Series 3: Mary Alexander, 1736–1760. New York Historical Society.
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  223. The papers of Mary Alexander contain numerous extant fabric samples that she requested or purchased for her trade.
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  225. In the First Person: Index to Letters, Diaries, Oral Histories, and Personal Narratives.
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  227. In-depth index of nearly four thousand collections of personal narratives in English from around the world.
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  229. Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, 1610 to 1791.
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  231. Letters written by Jesuit missionaries in North America (in original French and English translation). Though these letters tend to reflect the Eurocentrism of the missionaries, these accounts are extremely useful for ethnographic-type descriptions of the dress of specific Native American groups they encountered and sought to convert.
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  233. Plymouth Colony Archive Project.
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  235. This archive presents a collection of fully searchable texts, including court records, colony laws, 17th-century journals and memoirs, probate inventories, and wills.
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  237. Probing the Past: Virginia and Maryland Probate Inventories, 1740–1810.
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  239. Contains 325 probate inventories from the Chesapeake region of Maryland and Virginia for the period 1740 to 1810. The inventories are transcribed and the household items entered into a searchable database. Includes a useful guide to approaching probate inventories.
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  241. Readex Digital Collections.
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  243. Readex Digital Collections provide access to comprehensive collections of primary source materials (primarily in English), including historical imprints, historical newspapers, and American women’s diaries. Titles are constantly being added to this fully searchable database.
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  245. Transcription of Estate Papers at the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa.
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  247. Digitized transcriptions of selected papers from the Orphan Chamber (Weeskamer) at the Cape (South Africa), including post-mortem dating from c. 1690 and 1834 and associated documents such as auction lists (vendurollen). Most pertain to European settlers (especially from the Netherlands) but includes material on the clothing of slaves.
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  249. Virginia Runaways.
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  251. Searchable database for ads for enslaved, apprentice, and indentured servant runaways, most of which contain descriptions of clothing. See also the Geography of Slavery Project.
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  253. Europe
  254.  
  255. Most of the foundational studies of Western dress in the early modern world were produced in Europe, with the first attempt to establish the study of dress history as an academic discipline originating in England. Most of these center on individual countries (Anderson 1979 on Spain; Buck 1979, Ribeiro 1986, Styles 2007, and Vincent 2009 on Great Britain; Roche 1994 on France), but see Ribeiro 2002 for an all-too-rare attempt to broaden the geographical scope of fashion history to a wider span of European regions. Many of these works focus on elite dress and high fashion, but others, such as Buck 1979, Roche 1994, and Styles 2007, are committed to a more inclusive approach.
  256.  
  257. Anderson, Ruth M. Hispanic Costume, 1480–1530. New York: Hispanic Society of America, 1979.
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  259. Organized by gender and costume type, this offers a clear study of dress in Spain that draws on visual and written sources, as well as surviving dress.
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  261. Buck, Anne. Dress in Eighteenth-Century England. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1979.
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  263. A classic analysis, especially useful in its coverage of nonelite dress.
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  265. Paresys, Isabelle, ed. Paraître et apparences en Europe occidentale du Moyen Âge à nos jours. Villeneuve d’Ascq, France: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 2008.
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  267. A multidisciplinary volume on fashion developments, and their spatial context, in western Europe from the Medieval period to the modern day.
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  269. Ribeiro, Aileen. Dress and Morality. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1986.
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  271. An essential introduction to the history of dress and societal anxieties about fashion and gender. Coverage from the ancient Greeks to the 20th century.
  272. Find this resource:
  273. Ribeiro, Aileen. Dress in Eighteenth-Century Europe, 1751–1789. Rev. ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002.
  274. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  275. The best analysis of dress in different parts of Europe in the 18th century, predominantly focused on elite fashion.
  276. Find this resource:
  277. Roche, Daniel. The Culture of Clothing: Dress and Fashion in the Ancien Régime. Translated by Jean Birrell. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
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  279. A major piece of scholarship on the cultural importance of dress, anchored around the assessment of changes in fashion consumption over the course of the 18th century in Paris, by social rank and occupation. Originally published as La Culture des apparences: Une histoire du vêtement, XVIIe–XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Fayard, 1989).
  280. Find this resource:
  281. Styles, John. The Dress of the People: Everyday Fashion in Eighteenth-Century England. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007.
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  283. The most significant work published to date on non-elite dress in 18th-century England; very thorough, drawing on a sweeping range of hitherto underexplored primary sources (many of them regional), and methodologically innovative.
  284. Find this resource:
  285. Vincent, Susan J. The Anatomy of Fashion: Dressing the Body from the Renaissance to Today. Oxford: Berg, 2009.
  286. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  287. An unusual treatment of dress that divides sartorial development according to the clothing used on different body parts. Focused on England but relevant beyond this region.
  288. Find this resource:
  289. North America and the Caribbean
  290.  
  291. A distinctive feature of much of the scholarship on clothing in North America and the Caribbean is that the lives of nonelites are privileged. There is also strong interest in analyzing cross-cultural dress and growing attention to regional dress as well as religious and political dimensions of dress. See also the section on the African Diaspora.
  292.  
  293. Colonists
  294.  
  295. While some of the scholarship on the dress of colonists incorporates research on elites (especially where surviving dress is discussed, e.g., Baumgarten 2002, Burnston 2000, White 2004), it is important to note that there is also a clear focus on interpreting the relevance of clothing to the lives of nonelites (Audet 1980 for Canada; Buckridge 2004 for the Caribbean; Baumgarten 2002 and Prude 1991 for the United States). Much of this scholarship also addresses cross-cultural dress, regional dress (Burnston 2000, White 2004), as well as religious (Poppy 2003) and political dimensions of dress (Haulman 2011).
  296.  
  297. Audet, Bernard. Le costume paysan dans la région de Québec au XVIIe siècle. Montreal: Leméac, 1980.
  298. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  299. A thorough analysis of peasants’ dress in the 17th-century Quebec countryside, drawing extensively on probate records.
  300. Find this resource:
  301. Baumgarten, Linda. What Clothes Reveal: The Language of Clothing in Colonial and Federal America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002.
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  303. An excellent overview of dress in early America drawing the collection of surviving dress from Colonial Williamsburg Foundation as well as visual images and written sources. Provides coverage of colonists’ dress but also valuable in incorporating discussion of slave dress, homespun, military dress, the dress of the people and dress worn during life passages.
  304. Find this resource:
  305. Buckridge, Steeve O. The Language of Dress: Resistance and Accommodation in Jamaica, 1760–1890. Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press, 2004.
  306. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  307. Analyzes familiar themes of slave resistance and accommodation through the prism of dress.
  308. Find this resource:
  309. Burnston, Sharon Ann. Fitting & Proper: 18th Century Clothing from the Collection of the Chester County Historical Society. Texarkana, TX: Scurlock, 2000.
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  311. Focused on the holdings of one exceptional collection of 18th-century dress belonging to colonists on Pennsylvania, to provide an in-depth discussion of cut and construction.
  312. Find this resource:
  313. Haulman, Kate. The Politics of Fashion in Eighteenth-Century America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011.
  314. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  315. An important and original analysis of the role of fashion in shaping politics in the American Revolution and its aftermath.
  316. Find this resource:
  317. Poppy, Pat. “Mary Ring: The Clothing of an Early American Settler.” Costume 37 (2003): 33–40.
  318. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  319. An analysis of the Dutch-influenced clothing in the probate inventory of one of the earliest American settlers, a member of the Leiden Separatist Church. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  320. Find this resource:
  321. Prude, Jonathan. “To Look upon the ‘Lower Sort’: Runaway Ads and the Appearance of Unfree Laborers in America, 1750–1800.” Journal of American History 78.1 (1991): 124–159.
  322. DOI: 10.2307/2078091Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  323. Offers a subtle analysis of runaway advertisements with a particular focus on interpreting how dress and bodies were described, including that of servants of European origin. Available online by subscription.
  324. Find this resource:
  325. White, Sophie. “‘This Gown . . . Was Much Admired and Caused Much Jealousy’: Fashion and the Forging of Identities in French Colonial Louisiana.” In George Washington’s South. Edited by Tamara Harvey and Greg O’Brien, 86–118. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2004.
  326. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  327. Analyzes the dress of elites in New Orleans as a way of understanding the processes of social cohesion in a colonial context.
  328. Find this resource:
  329. Native Americans and Cross-Cultural Dressing
  330.  
  331. There are numerous general overviews of Native American clothing, most focused on Plains Indians or Navajo textiles and usually targeted at collectors and the general public rather than academics; Brasser 2009 is one of the most learned of these types of publications. A more analytical contribution to dress history is provided by the many rich interpretations of European Indian cross-cultural dress (Castro 2008, DuPlessis 2000, Little 2001, Loren 2010, Shannon 1996).
  332.  
  333. Brasser, Theodore. Native American Clothing: An Illustrated History. Buffalo, NY: Firefly, 2009.
  334. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  335. A guide to surviving Native American clothing, organized by region and richly illustrated.
  336. Find this resource:
  337. Castro, Wendy Lucas. “Stripped: Clothing and Identity in Colonial Captivity Narratives.” Early American Studies 6.1 (2008): 104–136.
  338. DOI: 10.1353/eam.2008.0003Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  339. Explores the centrality of the motif of stripped bodies in captivity narratives. Available online by subscription.
  340. Find this resource:
  341. DuPlessis, Robert S. “Circulation et appropriation des mouchoirs chez les colons et aborigènes de la Nouvelle-France aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles.” In Le Mouchoir dans tous ses états: Actes du colloque international, Cholet, musée du textile, 12, 13 et 14 novembre 1997. Edited by Jean-Joseph Chevalier and Elisabeth Loir-Mongazon, 165–171. Cholet, France: Association des Amis du Musée du Textile Choletais, 2000.
  342. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  343. Just one of DuPlessis’s many excellent publications on the importance of looking to textiles and clothing to understand cross-cultural exchanges.
  344. Find this resource:
  345. Little, Ann M. “‘Shoot That Rogue, for He Hath an Englishman’s Coat On!’: Cultural Cross-Dressing on the New England Frontier, 1620–1760.” New England Quarterly 74.2 (2001): 238–273.
  346. DOI: 10.2307/3185478Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  347. A key text on the complex uses and meanings of cross-cultural clothing in encounters between colonists and Indians. Available online by subscription.
  348. Find this resource:
  349. Loren, Diana DiPaolo. The Archaeology of Clothing and Bodily Adornment in Colonial America. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2010.
  350. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  351. The only overview of clothing in archaeological finds in North America, with much coverage of Native American dress as well as evidence of cross-cultural dress.
  352. Find this resource:
  353. Shannon, Timothy J. “Dressing for Success on the Mohawk Frontier: Hendrick, William Johnson, and the Indian Fashion.” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., 53.1 (1996): 13–42.
  354. DOI: 10.2307/2946822Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  355. Offers a brilliant interpretation of cross-cultural dress. Available online by subscription.
  356. Find this resource:
  357. South America and Hispanic America
  358.  
  359. This scholarship is especially rich in the analysis of the role of dress in expressing and creating social and ethnic/racial stratifications before (Anawalt 1981) and after colonization (Meléndez 2005, McKim-Smith 2006, Root 2005, Root 2010, Voss 2008, Walker 2009). Other texts focus more explicitly on the clothing goods that flowed via Spain to South America (Vicente 2006).
  360.  
  361. Anawalt, Patricia R. Indian Clothing before Cortés: Mesoamerican Costumes from the Codices. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1981.
  362. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  363. An analysis of the centrality of dress to pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican identity.
  364. Find this resource:
  365. McKim-Smith, Gridley. “Dressing Colonial, Dressing Diaspora.” In The Arts in Latin America, 1492–1820. Edited by Joseph J. Rishel. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006.
  366. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  367. Tied to a major exhibition on the visual arts in Latin America, this essay is particularly focused on the interpretation of creole self-fashioning, especially in portraiture of colonial Mexico and Peru.
  368. Find this resource:
  369. Meléndez, Mariselle. “Visualizing Difference: The Rhetoric of Clothing in Colonial Spanish America.” In The Latin American Fashion Reader. Edited by Regina A. Root, 17–30. New York: Berg, 2005.
  370. DOI: 10.2752/9781847881052Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  371. On clothing as a way to inscribe difference visually.
  372. Find this resource:
  373. Root, Regina A., ed. The Latin American Fashion Reader. New York: Berg, 2005.
  374. DOI: 10.2752/9781847881052Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  375. Though slanted toward contemporary fashion, among the essays are a number that pertain to the colonial period and to Atlantic history.
  376. Find this resource:
  377. Root, Regina A. Couture and Consensus: Fashion and Politics in Postcolonial Argentina. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010.
  378. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  379. A detailed analysis of the role of fashion in nation formation in the early 19th century.
  380. Find this resource:
  381. Vicente, Marta V. Clothing the Spanish Empire: Families and the Calico Trade in the Early Modern Atlantic World. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
  382. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  383. Primarily focused on the fashion for calico-type fabrics in Spain and its American colonies.
  384. Find this resource:
  385. Voss, Barbara L. “‘Poor People in Silk Shirts’: Dress and Ethnogenesis in Spanish-Colonial San Francisco.” Journal of Social Archaeology 8.3 (2008): 404–432.
  386. DOI: 10.1177/1469605308095011Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  387. Draws on archaeological evidence to evaluate how colonial institutions deployed dress. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  388. Find this resource:
  389. Walker, Tamara J. “‘He Outfitted His Family in Notable Decency’: Slavery, Honour, and Dress in Eighteenth-Century Lima, Peru.” Slavery & Abolition: A Journal of Slave and Post-Slave Studies 30.3 (2009): 383–402.
  390. DOI: 10.1080/01440390903098011Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  391. A perceptive assessment of dress of enslaved Africans in the gendered context of Spanish codes of honor. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  392. Find this resource:
  393. Africa
  394.  
  395. Much of this scholarship is focused on textiles—the production of textiles and the use of textiles in clothing (Bouttiaux, et al. 2008; Ross 1998). West Africa’s extensive history of technological development is the subject of research in Bolland 1991 and Kriger 2006, while the central role of textiles in the slave trade is addressed in Inikori 1989.
  396.  
  397. Bolland, Rita. Tellem Textiles: Archaeological Finds from Burial Caves in Mali’s Bandiagara Cliff. Amsterdam: Royal Tropical Institute, 1991.
  398. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  399. A catalog with weave and dye analysis of an extraordinary cache of almost 500 textiles and garments found in the Tellem burial Caves in Mali West Africa, dating from the 11th to the 16th centuries.
  400. Find this resource:
  401. Bouttiaux, Anne-Marie, Frieda Sorber, and Anne van Cutsem. African Costumes and Textiles from the Berbers to the Zulus: The Zaira and Marcel Mis Collection. Milan: 5 Continents Editions, 2008.
  402. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  403. Wide ranging essays on clothing and textiles from around Africa and across a range of historical periods.
  404. Find this resource:
  405. Inikori, Joseph E. “Slavery and the Revolution in Cotton Textile Production in England.” Social Science History 13.4 (1989): 343–379.
  406. DOI: 10.2307/1171219Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  407. Argues that African slavery, and the taste for Asian-style cottons in West Africa, contributed to the development of industrialization in England as well as to commerce in the Atlantic. Available online by subscription.
  408. Find this resource:
  409. Kriger, Colleen E. Cloth in West African History. Lanham, MD: AltaMira, 2006.
  410. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  411. A history of cloth and cloth making in West Africa, with emphasis on the social, economic, and cultural importance of this history of textile production pre- and post-contact with European and Asian cloths.
  412. Find this resource:
  413. Ross, Doran H. Wrapped in Pride: Ghanaian Kente and African American Identity. Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, 1998.
  414. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  415. A study of Kente strip-weaving, and its continuing impact on the African diaspora.
  416. Find this resource:
  417. African Diaspora
  418.  
  419. Research on clothing in the African diaspora is one of the most distinctive and richest new developments in the history of dress. Much of this research addresses the question of retention versus acculturation (Foster 1997, Prude 1991) and clothing as a means of resistance and cultural autonomy (Buckridge 2004, Walker 2009, White and White 1998, White 2003, White 2011).
  420.  
  421. Buckridge, Steeve O. The Language of Dress: Resistance and Accommodation in Jamaica, 1760–1890. Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press, 2004.
  422. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  423. A rare book-length analysis of the role of dress in the African diaspora, especially centered on themes of slave resistance and accommodation.
  424. Find this resource:
  425. Foster, Helen Bradley. New Raiments of Self: African American Clothing in the Antebellum South. New York: Berg, 1997.
  426. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  427. Though this book is stronger in the sections on the 19th century, where the author has mined WPA American slave narratives, there is also material on West African dress and its retention in North America.
  428. Find this resource:
  429. Prude, Jonathan. “To Look upon the ‘Lower Sort’: Runaway Ads and the Appearance of Unfree Laborers in America, 1750–1800.” Journal of American History 78.1 (1991): 124–159.
  430. DOI: 10.2307/2078091Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  431. Offers a subtle analysis of runaway advertisements (including those for the recapture of slaves), with a particular focus on interpreting how dress and bodies were described. Available online by subscription.
  432. Find this resource:
  433. Walker, Tamara J. “‘He Outfitted His Family in Notable Decency’: Slavery, Honour, and Dress in Eighteenth-Century Lima, Peru.” Slavery & Abolition: A Journal of Slave and Post-Slave Studies 30.3 (2009): 383–402.
  434. DOI: 10.1080/01440390903098011Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  435. Analyzes the dress of enslaved Africans through the prism of Spanish codes of honor. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  436. Find this resource:
  437. White, Shane, and Graham J. White. Stylin’: African American Expressive Culture from Its Beginnings to the Zoot Suit. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998.
  438. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  439. An excellent and original study of the meaning of dress (including hairstyles) to enslaved Africans in British North America. The earlier chapters will be especially useful to historians of the Atlantic world.
  440. Find this resource:
  441. White, Sophie. “‘Wearing Three or Four Handkerchiefs around His Neck, and Elsewhere about Him’: Slaves’ Constructions of Masculinity and Ethnicity in French Colonial New Orleans.” Gender & History 15.3 (2003): 528–549.
  442. DOI: 10.1111/j.0953-5233.2003.00319.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  443. Analyzes the role of clothing in enslaved Africans’ performance of gender and ethnicity.
  444. Find this resource:
  445. White, Sophie. “Geographies of Slave Consumption: French Colonial Louisiana and a World of Things.” Winterthur Portfolio 44 (2011): 229–248.
  446. DOI: 10.1086/661557Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  447. Discusses the role of enslaved Africans in the circulation of global consumer objects across French and Spanish empires.
  448. Find this resource:
  449. Shopping and Consumption
  450.  
  451. The acquisition of clothing is an integral aspect of the study of dress that has emerged from an interest in consumption studies and gender studies. This scholarship incorporates not only the making of new garments and the purchase of ready-made apparel (Martin 2008, Vickery 1993, Weatherill 1991, Welch 2005) but also the redistribution of second-hand clothing goods (Crawford 2004, Lemire 1997, Spufford 1984).
  452.  
  453. Crawford, Joanna. “Clothing Distributions and Social Relations c. 1350–1500.” In Clothing Culture, 1350–1650. Edited by Catherine Richardson, 153–164. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2004.
  454. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  455. An introduction to an alternative means of clothing dissemination and distribution.
  456. Find this resource:
  457. Lemire, Beverly. Dress, Culture, and Commerce: The English Clothing Trade before the Factory, 1660–1800. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1997.
  458. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  459. An analysis of the licit and illicit clothing trade in England in the early modern period by one of the most original thinkers about consumerism.
  460. Find this resource:
  461. Martin, Ann Smart. Buying into the World of Goods: Early Consumers in Backcountry Virginia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008.
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  463. Not about clothing per se, but touches on cloth and clothing-related retail purchases, including by enslaved Africans.
  464. Find this resource:
  465. Spufford, Margaret. The Great Reclothing of Rural England: Petty Chapmen and Their Wares in the Seventeenth Century. London: Hambledon, 1984.
  466. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  467. Analyzes the work of peddlers in introducing new goods and new fashions to consumers (especially non-elites) in the English countryside.
  468. Find this resource:
  469. Vickery, Amanda. “Women and the World of Goods: A Lancashire Consumer and Her Possessions, 1751–81.” In Consumption and the World of Goods. Edited by John Brewer and Roy Porter, 274–301. London: Routledge, 1993.
  470. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  471. An important study of one Englishwoman’s consumerism that makes several methodological and theoretical contributions to the study of dress history.
  472. Find this resource:
  473. Weatherill, Lorna. “Consumer Behaviour, Textiles and Dress in the Late Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries.” Textile History 22.2 (1991): 297–310.
  474. DOI: 10.1179/004049691793712512Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  475. An economic history study of the consumption of dress.
  476. Find this resource:
  477. Welch, Evelyn S. Shopping in the Renaissance: Consumer Cultures in Italy, 1400–1600. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005.
  478. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  479. Not limited to clothing but an excellent analysis overall of shopping in Renaissance Italy.
  480. Find this resource:
  481. Making, Maintenance, and Trade
  482.  
  483. The manufacture of clothing was organized by gender in societies organized around European models (Crowston 2001, Miller 2006). As a general rule, men reserved for themselves the right to formal training in the making of tailored garments; women were responsible for the sewing of small linens and less structured garments. For women, this work was often a part of home industry, though they could also work for wages (Pellegrin 1999), just as they had ways to participate in the formal and informal selling of new and second-hand clothes (Lemire 1997, Sanderson 1997). In the colonies, male and female enslaved populations were given the training needed to do this work, and enslaved women were deployed in providing the laundry services that were essential to maintaining European standards of body cleanliness (Brown 2009).
  484.  
  485. Brown, Kathleen M. Foul Bodies: Cleanliness in Early America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009.
  486. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  487. An innovative history of the cultural implications of bodies and cleanliness in the Atlantic world, with a valuable section on the gendered work of laundering clothing.
  488. Find this resource:
  489. Crowston, Clare Haru. Fabricating Women: The Seamstresses of Old Regime France, 1675–1791. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001.
  490. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  491. Offers a thorough analysis of the gendered framework for the manufacture of clothing.
  492. Find this resource:
  493. Lemire, Beverly. Dress, Culture, and Commerce: The English Clothing Trade before the Factory, 1660–1800. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1997.
  494. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  495. An original analysis of the clothing trade in England incorporating the trade in the second-hand clothes and illicit trade.
  496. Find this resource:
  497. Miller, Marla R. The Needle’s Eye: Women and Work in the Age of Revolution. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2006.
  498. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  499. Analyzes women’s work in the clothing trades in early America, based on specific case-studies that draw on extensive archival research.
  500. Find this resource:
  501. Pellegrin, Nicole. “Les vertus de l’ouvrage: Recherches sur la féminisation des travaux d’aiguille (XVIe–XVIIIe siècles).” Revue d’histoire modern et contemporaine 46.4 (1999): 747–769.
  502. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  503. Offers an in-depth critical discussion of the feminization of sewing work in France from the 16th to the 18th century. Available online by subscription.
  504. Find this resource:
  505. Sanderson, Elizabeth C. “Nearly New: The Second-Hand Clothing Trade in Eighteenth Century Edinburgh.” Costume 31 (1997): 38–48.
  506. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  507. A useful case study of the importance of used clothes to the market for apparel.
  508. Find this resource:
  509. Textiles
  510.  
  511. The cost of clothing was based on the value of its textile, and an extraordinarily wide range of fabrics was available. These were differentiated by their fiber content and weave structure to produce infinite variations in functionality, tactile qualities, grade, and cost (Blum 2006, Montgomery 1984, Stavenow-Hidemark 1990). Some of these textiles were produced locally in sites across Africa, Europe, and the Americas (Adenaike 1998, Hood 2003, Ruddel 1990). However, the Atlantic world is more accurately characterized by the transnational circulation of textile goods (DuPlessis 2005). Textiles from India, and therefore from well beyond the Atlantic, were key in this respect. These had a major impact on fashion in Europe and her colonies (Lemire 1991; Vicente 2006, the latter cited under Asia in the Atlantic), but they were also central to the slave trade in West Africa, where imported Asian textiles were the key objects of trade for the acquisition of enslaved Africans. See the sections on Asia in the Atlantic, Africa, and the African Diaspora. There is a rich body of scholarship on all aspects of textiles, and the following represent just a small sampling.
  512.  
  513. Adenaike, Carolyn Keyes. “West African Textiles, 1500–1800.” In Textiles: Production, Trade and Demand. Edited by Maureen Fennell Mazzaoui, 251–262. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1998.
  514. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  515. A reconsideration of textile production in West Africa over 300 years.
  516. Find this resource:
  517. Blum, Dilys E. “Textiles in Colonial Latin America.” In The Arts in Latin America. Edited by Joseph J. Rishel, 146–163. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006.
  518. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  519. Tied to a major exhibition on the visual arts in Latin America, this brief essay is particularly useful in providing an introduction to the types of primary sources available for the study of textiles in colonial Latin America.
  520. Find this resource:
  521. DuPlessis, Robert S. “Cloth and the Emergence of the Atlantic Economy.” In The Atlantic Economy during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: Organization, Operation, Practice, and Personnel. Edited by Peter A. Coclanis, 72–94. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2005.
  522. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  523. Demonstrates the importance of cloth to the Atlantic economy.
  524. Find this resource:
  525. Hood, Adrienne D. The Weaver’s Craft: Cloth, Commerce, and Industry in Early Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003.
  526. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  527. A rich, detailed study of professional weaving and homespun in Pennsylvania.
  528. Find this resource:
  529. Lemire, Beverly. Fashion’s Favourite: The Cotton Trade and the Consumer in Britain, 1660–1800. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
  530. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  531. This now classic work on Europeans’ exposure in the 17th century to the novelty of cotton textiles from India has been rightly influential in arguing for the importance of fashion and consumerism to economic development in Europe.
  532. Find this resource:
  533. Montgomery, Florence M. Textiles in America, 1650–1870. New York: Norton, 1984.
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  535. The standard reference for textiles in use in North America (hence including Asian and a few African-produced textiles), copiously illustrated with surviving textiles.
  536. Find this resource:
  537. Ruddel, David Thierry. “Domestic Textile Production in Colonial Quebec, 1608–1840.” Material History Bulletin 31 (1990): 39–49.
  538. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  539. A survey of local textile production in Quebec that corrects some assumptions about the myth that homespun production of textiles was prevalent.
  540. Find this resource:
  541. Stavenow-Hidemark, Elisabet. 18th Century Textiles: The Anders Berch Collection at the Nordiska Museet. Stockholm: Nordiska Museets Förlag, 1990.
  542. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  543. An annotated guide to an extraordinary collection of surviving textile samples from the 18th century, encompassing textiles manufactured across Europe as well as India.
  544. Find this resource:
  545. Asia in the Atlantic
  546.  
  547. Textiles (especially printed cottons) from India as well as Indonesia, and therefore from well beyond the Atlantic, had a major impact on fashion in Europe and her colonies from the late 17th century on (Berinstain 1997, Calico Museum of Textiles 1998, Lemire 1991, Riello and Roy 2009, Vicente 2006). These textiles were also central to the slave trade in West Africa, where imported Asian textiles were the key objects of trade for the acquisition of enslaved Africans (Roberts 1994). See also the sections on Africa and the African Diaspora.
  548.  
  549. Berinstain, Valérie. “Les toiles de l’Inde et la Compagnie des Indes (XVIIe–XVIIIe siècles).” Cahiers de la Compagnie des Indes 2 (1997): 25–32.
  550. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  551. An analysis of textiles imported by the French Company of the Indies for consumption in Europe, Africa, and North America.
  552. Find this resource:
  553. Calico Museum of Textiles. Textile Trade of India with the Outside World, 15th–19th Century. Ahmedabad, India: Calico Museum of Textiles, 1988.
  554. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  555. A valuable reference work documenting the variety of Indian textiles exported for trade with the Atlantic.
  556. Find this resource:
  557. Lemire, Beverly. Fashion’s Favourite: The Cotton Trade and the Consumer in Britain, 1660–1800. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
  558. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  559. An influential analysis of the role of novelty cotton textiles imported from India on fashion and economic development in Europe.
  560. Find this resource:
  561. Riello, Giorgio, and Tirthankar Roy, eds. How India Clothed the World: The World of South Asian Textiles, 1500–1850. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2009.
  562. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  563. A series of essays that reveal the economic and cultural importance of Indian textiles to European, African, and American consumers.
  564. Find this resource:
  565. Roberts, Richard. “West Africa and the Pondicherry Textile Industry.” Indian Economic & Social History Review 31.2 (1994): 117–145.
  566. DOI: 10.1177/001946469403100201Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  567. Showcases the economic impact of West African consumer demand for Indian textiles on the textile industry of one region of India. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  568. Find this resource:
  569. Vicente, Marta V. Clothing the Spanish Empire: Families and the Calico Trade in the Early Modern Atlantic World. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
  570. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  571. A study of the fashion for calico-type fabrics in Spain and its American colonies.
  572. Find this resource:
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