History Commons^™

Satorial Manipulation Within Historical Politics, Heather Dew

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Fashion's impact on the course of history largely unexplored. Herbert Blumer, a noted sociologist at UC Berkeley, accurately credits this oversight to

"a failure to observe and appreciate the wide range of operation of fashion; a false assumption that fashion has only nivial or peripheral significance; a mistaken idea that fashion falls in the area of the abnormal and irrational and thus is out of the mainsneam of human group life; and, finally, a misunderstanding of the nature of fashion."

Blumer was criticizing sociologists, but he may as well have been criticizing historians; scholarly works analyzing fashion's impact are rare …

Different Fabrics, Same Threads: How Fashion Reflects Cultural History And Gendered Perceptions, Emma Walston

Whittier Scholars Program

Fashion acts as both a reflection of, and as a lens through which to view history, culture, and perceptions of gender over time and across the world. To explore this observation, this essay will examine in detail the historical, cultural, and gendered contexts of 19th-century fashion in three different cultures: Northern Wales, the Fante people in Southern Ghana, and Jewish people living in the western sections of what was called the Pale of Settlement, and what is now Poland. These cultures were chosen due to the drastically different parts of the world that they represent and because they all have …

Back To Nature: Marie Antionette And The Cottagecore Fantasy, Rose Caughie

Anthós

This essay is an examination of the legacy of Marie Antionette's Chemise a la Reine. At the end of the 18th century, a portrait of the queen in this dress caused scandal and outrage. Despite, or perhaps because of this, the Chemise a la Reine became a staple in the wardrobe of the Western woman. Today, this style continues to be popular. This is particularly notable in the Cottagecore aesthetic movement. Much like Marie Antionette's use of this style, Cottagecore fashion carries deep ties to an escapist pastoral fantasy. However, more important is the continued legacy of Neoclassicism and the …

Militure, Bingdong Duan

Masters Theses

The aim of this research is to explore how individual soldier equipment can be systematically integrated into everyday life. War, as the epitome of struggle and conflict, stimulates the fundamental human instinct for survival. To achieve this end, various methods involving a wide range of fields such as technology, culture, economy, and politics are utilized. Under the driving force of survival, explorations are conducted in various areas, with individual soldier equipment being notably prominent. Nations spend a substantial amount each year on developing individual soldier equipment, which optimizes functionality to such an extent that it has formed its unique aesthetics …

From Fashion, To Violence, To A Forgotten Era: The Zoot Suit And Mexican-American Youth Culture In 1940’S America, Adelaide Iris Ord Treadwell

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College

From Fashion, To Violence, To A Forgotten Era: The Zoot Suit And Mexican-American Youth Culture In 1940’S America, Adelaide Iris Ord Treadwell

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to the Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Los Bordados De La Indumentaria Indígena Andina Tradicional De Canchis, Nathalie Santisteban-D.

Tejiendo imágenes. Homenaje a Victòria Solanilla Demestre

Este estudio trata sobre las influencias artísticas, prehispánica y colonial, que han tenido y tienen los bordadores en la creación de los diseños bordados que adornan el vestido tradicional indígena contemporáneo de los pueblos de San Pablo, de Tinta y de Marangani de la provincia de Canchis (Cuzco, Perú). El bordado con máquina (maquinasqa) apareció, posiblemente, en la primera mitad del siglo xx. Creación que es atribuida al costurero indígena sampablino Julián Choquevilca que revolucionó el vestido y el vestir femenino de estos pueblos, cambiando la historia del vestido en esta provincia. Choquevilca junto a los bordadores contemporáneos, hicieron de …

Unlaced:The Dress Reform Movement Of The Late Nineteenth And Early Twentieth Century, Andrea Marie Severson Lopez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Unlaced: The Dress Reform Movement of the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries examines the history of the dress reform movement in the United States with particular regard to its emphasis on corsets and pants as well as its social connections to other movements of the time. The late 1800s and early 1900s gave rise to many formalized movements, particularly during the Progressive Era. The dress reform movement took place in the United States roughly between 1840 and 1920 and sought to change women's clothing to make it healthier, less cumbersome, and more practical. On the surface, dress reform appears …

The Making Of Everyday Hollywood: 1930s Film Influence On Everyday Women’S Fashion In Nebraska, Anna Naomi Kuhlman

Department of Textiles, Merchandising, and Fashion Design: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This research examines the influence of film fashions on middle-class, Nebraskan women’s dress during the Great Depression (1932-1940). The Great Depression challenged the middle class: while standards of living remained high, the economic means to achieve those standards diminished. Despite the crisis, women strove to keep up with current fashion trends. While previous literature has examined how Hollywood directly affected trends and styles of the 1930s in major American metropolitan contexts, the manifestation of trends in the dress of middle to lower socio-economic classes in Middle America remains under-examined. Against the backdrop of Depression-era hardships specific to Nebraska’s agricultural economy, …

The Liberatory Potential Of Fashion, David Billie Suoth

Honors Theses and Capstones

Fashion has the potential to be liberatory and this can be seen in the ways fashion has been targeted by systems of oppression. Fashion is the use of clothes as a vessel to create a greater social meaning. According to Edward Sapir, the meaning of fashion “while it is primarily applied to dress and the exhibition of the human body is not essentially concerned with the fact of dress or ornament, but with its symbolism” (Barnard, 2007, p. 65). Fashion with the symbolism behind it is able to show the sentiments and attitudes of civilization at different points in history …

Power Dressing: Feather Fans And The Visual Language Of Female Portraiture, Charlotte Svetkey

Theses and Dissertations

Feather fans in sixteenth-century portraiture not only allowed the female sitter to express her own claims to wealth, status, and power but also acted as a visual indicator of changes that were occurring on the global stage. Both fans and sitters will be evaluated through ideas of gender and class.

The History Of Bridal Gowns, Mesopotamia To The Present, Tamar Adler

2021 Academic Exhibition

This presentation offers an overview of the history of bridal gowns from Mesopotamia to the present.

Martin Margiela And The Japanese Designers: An Exploration Of Cultural Exchange Through Fashion, Bechet Dumaine Allen

Senior Projects Spring 2021

This paper will explore the exchange of culture and the topic of cultural appropriation. Using the Belgian fashion designer Martin Margiela as a case study, it will discuss the way in which he was inspired by Japanese culture and Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto, and Rei Kawakubo– three Japanese fashion designers who first appeared in Paris in the 1970’s and 80’s.

The Englishwoman’S Domestic Magazine’S Influence On Nineteenth-Century Middle-Class Women, Amber Cook

History Undergraduate Theses

Depictions and study of women’s fashion from mid-nineteenth-century England have largely focused on upper-class women and suffragettes. The purpose of this research is to highlight another group, middle-class women, and their fashion choices through analysis of the Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine. This magazine not only gave fashion advice and instruction but guided middle-class women’s choices on what materials to purchase and where to purchase them. The fashion columns steered women into building a new middle-class identity that was unique and set them apart from the extravagant upper class.

By examining the articles printed in the magazine I was able to …

The Personification Of The Perfect Citizen: The English Political Cartoon, Colonial Anxiety, And Identity During The American Revolution, Sarah Johns

History Summer Fellows

When studying the American Revolution, there is a variety of written source materials from the actors involved that have been used to decipher the many social and political changes that occurred throughout the conflict; however, imagery, especially political cartoons, can be key to uncovering avenues of cultural debate that highlight these changes in new and more detailed ways. With Great Britain experiencing its golden age of political caricature during the late 18^th century, what might these images have to say about gender and race during this tumultuous period? In this project, I argue that British political cartoons were essential …

Find Your Decade: A Study Of Beauty Ideals From The 1900s To The 2020s, Kristi Roshto

Honors Colloquium

This is the flyer for Kristi Roshto's Honors Colloquium.

Mary, Queen Of Style: Documenting Catholic Modest Fashion In Special Collections, Jillian M. Ewalt

Marian Library Faculty Presentations

In postwar America, Catholic teenage girls found themselves at the center of a debate. Everyone, it seemed, had a different opinion about what kind of clothing they should wear. Two modest fashion movements emerged that aimed to solve this problem. Supply the Demand for the Supply (SDS) was a lay initiative founded by teenage girls in the Midwest that quickly spread into a national Catholic youth movement. Meanwhile, the Marilyke Crusade, orchestrated by parish priest Father Bernard Kunkel and the Purity Crusade of Mary Immaculate, promulgated and sold modest clothing based on a particular brand of fear-mongering, Fatima-centric Marian devotion. …

Linda Welters And Abby Lillethun, Fashion History: A Global View (2018), Zeynep Ozdamar-Ertekin

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

No abstract provided.

Getting Located: Queer Semiotics In Dress, Callen Zimmerman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The body, a long contested site of identity construction, has been used by historically by queers to convey desire, build affinity and transgress norms. Looking at the fashioned queer body, this capstone takes the form of a proposal for an art exhibition at the Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art. Seeking to engage with objects, performance and film which approximate, provide proxy for or depart from the body as a site, it explores the social and political quagmire of getting dressed. Comprised of contemporary art that looks at the rupture of legible bodily semiotics, this show wonders what …

Sins Against Our Soles: The Morality And Hygiene Of Nineteenth-Century Women's Shoes, Nicole Rudolph

Department of Textiles, Merchandising, and Fashion Design: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Our understanding of the Victorian woman has long centered around the idea of the “Angel in the House,” made famous by Coventry Patmore’s 1854 poem. This mythical ideal to which a middle-class woman should endeavor can be found in endless numbers of nineteenth-century texts and has become an oft-referenced concept in modern historiography. Representations of the attributes of the ideal woman circulated widely in society, pictured in etiquette books, medical journals, and especially advertisements. They were an ever-present reminder to women of the social norms governing their roles and life trajectories. As consumers, women were responsible for the presentation of …

On The Advantage And Disadvantage Of History For Life, Stephen Schloesser

History: Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

The War To End All Wars On Ideal Female Figures: An Analysis Of Wwi And Its Effects On U.S. Women's Fashion From 1917-1927, Ayrika Johnson

Ursidae: The Undergraduate Research Journal at the University of Northern Colorado

This paper looks at fashion in America prior to, during, and after WWI to give a more holistic understanding of how war affected women's fashion. It will argue the trend towards the Flapper and "New Woman" movement were directly connected to war and how it affected women in the early 1900s. The paper will look specifically at propaganda posters and magazine ads from the time period to argue the correlation, as well as utilize supplemental material from U.S. and fashion historians.

Fashion Under The Swastika: An Analysis Of Women's Fashion During The Third Reich, Ayrika Johnson

Ursidae: The Undergraduate Research Journal at the University of Northern Colorado

This paper works to demonstrate women's fashion in Germany during WWII and how it was impacted by Nazi culture. Within Hitler's Germany, there was a desire to create a uniform community separate from the rest of the world, and greater than all others. Fashion is one way to analyze how the Nazis tried to accomplish this goal. The paper relies on speeches, magazines, and their fashion pages, and advertisement clippings to uncover the social, economic, and political factors at play. By using fashion as a means of expressing cultural, societal, economic, and political goals, the desires of the Nazi government …

Rand, Erica, Danella Demary

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Erica lived in Chicago for many years, but relocated to Maine because of her teaching position at Bates College. She is a Professor of Art and Visual Culture and of Gender and Sexuality Studies, and is acting interim chair of the Gender and Sexuality Studies department. She discussed her coming out process as well as her experiences as a budding activist in ACT UP and a branch of ACT UP, called The Pissed Off Dyke Cell. Erica talked significantly about her previous relationships and how those connections shaped her activisim as well as how her activism shaped her relationships. She …

What Not To Wear To A Riot: Fashioning Race, Class, And Gender Respectability Amidst Racial Violence, Lou W. Robinson

The Confluence (2009-2020)

The descriptions of participants and events in the 1917 East St. Louis riot carried messages about biases. Lou W. Robinson argues that even descriptions of the ways African American women were dressed at the time conveyed biases that sought to question the morals and respectability of women living in East St. Louis at the time.

Guide To The Nena Ivon Collection, College Archives & Special Collections

Collection Guides / Finding Aids

This guide describes the organization and scope of the Nena Ivon archival collection, housed within the College Archives & Special Collections at Columbia College Chicago. At age 17, Nena Ivon was promoted to Assistant Fashion Director of the Saks Fifth Avenue store in Chicago and later became the Director of Fashion and Special Events for forty years. She began teaching in the Fashion Studies program at Columbia College Chicago and works extensively with Fashion Columbia.

Flapperism: A National Phenomenon Comes To New Orleans, Tracy Carrero

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Vance, Edward Richard, 1833-1902 (Mss 612), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 612. Correspondence, diaries, scrapbooks, photographs and family papers of Richard Vance, a Warren County, Kentucky native and U.S. Army officer. After his Civil War service, Vance spent his career at several posts in the South and on the frontier until his retirement in 1892.

Broughton, Bessie (Downing), 1903-1993 (Mss 607), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 607. Multi-volume diary of Bessie (Downing) Broughton from Holland in Allen County, Kentucky. The diaries include information about Bessie’s daily life, the weather, her involvement in different organizations, comments about her gardening and needlework, her family and church involvement and school activities.

Bowling Green Woman's Club - Bowling Green, Kentucky (Mss 601), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 601. Minutes, membership lists, publications, press books, event programs, and other records of the Bowling Green Woman’s Club, a civic organization in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Includes some materials relating to its affiliation with the Kentucky Federation of Women’s Clubs.