Digital Story
Digital Story Script:
Have you ever notice those gorgeous southern attires in Gone with The Wind? Since the first time I saw the movie when I was seven years old, I has been profoundly attracted by those beautiful clothing in the movie. In my childhood memory, I always told my mother that I wanted to dress like a princess. Those splendid and voluminous hemlines together with embroidered sleeves in antebellum southern women attires make my imagination come true. Southern attires are fancy, gorgeous and noble.However, those clothing not only reveal southerners’ aesthetic pursuits, but also reflect distinct social lives among different social strata in the South.
During the antebellum period, just as now, age, sex, and class determined who wore what and when specific styles of clothing should be worn.The years from 1830 to 1870 were the ideal period of the perfect lady. Women of the antebellum south wore traditional Victorian hoop skirts, grandly embellished with ribbons and bows.
We can see the beautiful and gorgeous style of southern attires and this heavy and omplicated style of women clothing was what mainstream southerners believed women should wear. The wrapped and tight clothing in fact lay at the heart of the image of a typical southern lady. Upper class Southern ladies dressed to be elegant and serious, showing their roles in antebellum southern society. Although women at that time still be seen as biologically weak and seldom took part in the public social sphere, upper class southern women in fact had a voice for home and childcare, as well as moral or religious situations. Slave ownership also endowed upper-class women more power and authority in plantations. The complicated and gorgeous style of the clothing helped them build noble and capable images.
The dress of men during the Antebellum period was much more conventional than that favored by the women. The ministers dressed in all black and the majority of other men wore black, gray, and dark colors in general.
The clothing of slaves in fact can also present the upper class southerner’s life, especially their superiority to their slaves and intense control of them. Slaves always dressed plainly and shabbily. It is not only because the slaves did not have enough money to buy fancier clothes, but also they were not allowed to do that. As early as the eighteenth century, southern governments devised the “slave codes”, which included the requirements for
clothing.
Agricultural pursuits and agrarian values have always been at the heart of the southern society and identity during the antebellum period .Compared to northerners, who preferred to discover novelty things, southerners prefer to keep tradition and lived a balanced life. While northerners focused on how to create more profit and lived under the idea of materialism, the southern planter typically recoiled at the notions that profit should be the goal of life: that the approach to production and exchange should be internally rational and uncomplicated by social value.
In fact, the southern aristocracy mainly consisted of planters, who were landed gentry originally from the English midlands or mostly Britons from other regions who patterned their lives closely to landed gentry. However, differed from the Londoners, they preferred a more elegant and leisurely life, while observing faithfully the code of chivalry.
The chivalric spirit was deeply rooted in southerners’ minds and lives. They emphasized personalized ties, in contrast to all factual and impersonal relationships. From this standpoint luxury is not a superfluous frill but a means of self-assertion and a weapon in the struggle for power.
In general, clothing provided a great perspective for people to see and understand the south aristocrat culture in the antebellum south. Southerners during this period showed a profound persistence and laid great stress on the chivalric spirit
Have you ever notice those gorgeous southern attires in Gone with The Wind? Since the first time I saw the movie when I was seven years old, I has been profoundly attracted by those beautiful clothing in the movie. In my childhood memory, I always told my mother that I wanted to dress like a princess. Those splendid and voluminous hemlines together with embroidered sleeves in antebellum southern women attires make my imagination come true. Southern attires are fancy, gorgeous and noble.However, those clothing not only reveal southerners’ aesthetic pursuits, but also reflect distinct social lives among different social strata in the South.
During the antebellum period, just as now, age, sex, and class determined who wore what and when specific styles of clothing should be worn.The years from 1830 to 1870 were the ideal period of the perfect lady. Women of the antebellum south wore traditional Victorian hoop skirts, grandly embellished with ribbons and bows.
We can see the beautiful and gorgeous style of southern attires and this heavy and omplicated style of women clothing was what mainstream southerners believed women should wear. The wrapped and tight clothing in fact lay at the heart of the image of a typical southern lady. Upper class Southern ladies dressed to be elegant and serious, showing their roles in antebellum southern society. Although women at that time still be seen as biologically weak and seldom took part in the public social sphere, upper class southern women in fact had a voice for home and childcare, as well as moral or religious situations. Slave ownership also endowed upper-class women more power and authority in plantations. The complicated and gorgeous style of the clothing helped them build noble and capable images.
The dress of men during the Antebellum period was much more conventional than that favored by the women. The ministers dressed in all black and the majority of other men wore black, gray, and dark colors in general.
The clothing of slaves in fact can also present the upper class southerner’s life, especially their superiority to their slaves and intense control of them. Slaves always dressed plainly and shabbily. It is not only because the slaves did not have enough money to buy fancier clothes, but also they were not allowed to do that. As early as the eighteenth century, southern governments devised the “slave codes”, which included the requirements for
clothing.
Agricultural pursuits and agrarian values have always been at the heart of the southern society and identity during the antebellum period .Compared to northerners, who preferred to discover novelty things, southerners prefer to keep tradition and lived a balanced life. While northerners focused on how to create more profit and lived under the idea of materialism, the southern planter typically recoiled at the notions that profit should be the goal of life: that the approach to production and exchange should be internally rational and uncomplicated by social value.
In fact, the southern aristocracy mainly consisted of planters, who were landed gentry originally from the English midlands or mostly Britons from other regions who patterned their lives closely to landed gentry. However, differed from the Londoners, they preferred a more elegant and leisurely life, while observing faithfully the code of chivalry.
The chivalric spirit was deeply rooted in southerners’ minds and lives. They emphasized personalized ties, in contrast to all factual and impersonal relationships. From this standpoint luxury is not a superfluous frill but a means of self-assertion and a weapon in the struggle for power.
In general, clothing provided a great perspective for people to see and understand the south aristocrat culture in the antebellum south. Southerners during this period showed a profound persistence and laid great stress on the chivalric spirit