Major Project Proposal + Bibliography
Jin Cheng
Lauren Holt
Oct.15, 2013
The Language of Clothing in Southern America
To understand culture directly might be difficult. However, it should be a lot easier if we find a breakthrough to dig in and analyze it . Clothing, one of the critical components of culture, is a great breakthrough. Instead of just introducing the different styles of clothing or the vagaries of fashion, the central focus of this project is on the relationship of dress to the unique American experience. Changes occurred in clothing behavior when external culture merged into the country. If we examine how Americans matched, adapted and applied their dress, we may need to reconsider the place of clothing in the interpretation of American culture and life.
In this paper, I will specially focus on southern American clothing. By introducing the features of southern costumes and making contrast to those of northern attire, I will consider the cultural difference behind this dress distinctiveness. I may also contemplate how Americans have been challenged by natural climate,aesthetic demand and social customs to manipulate different clothing in different regions.
The paper will address the subject of clothing in southern culture from the certain time period, the period from the antebellum south to the “Lost Cause” culture. Great changes and magnificent unrest took place in economy, politics and technology at this specific period. These changes profoundly resulted in the alternations of southern clothing.
In addition, clothing reveals people’s social status as well. Differences of material and styles represent the different demands for social life and disparity in economic power. For instance, in antebellum south, slave owners, who were regarded as the upper class people, had fancy and complicated dress and decorations while the slaves had simpler and plainer clothing. The difference of clothing among different social classes people with no doubt occurred throughout history. I will also introduce some other examples about this phenomena. By examining the clothing of slave owners and slaves, we can understand slavery culture more profoundly in antebellum south.
I will also mention why the slaves wore simple clothes and how simple the clothes are. 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. In fact, there were strict restrictions for southerners’ wearing. As early as the eighteenth century, southern governments devised the “slave codes”, which included the requirements and restraints for clothing. These legalities functioned to maintain white supremacy in a society based economically and socially on racial slavery.In effect, whites used these dress codes to outwardly distinguish those without power from those who held it.
In general, during the antebellum period, just as now, age, sex and class determined who wear what and when specific styles of clothing should be worn. These factors determined not only the African Americans but also the white people. For instance, children and adults wore different clothing; women and men wore different clothing; and poor people wore different clothing from middle class people. Thus, clothes at at time were critical status symbols.
In antebellum south, the largest segment of the enslaved population were employed as agricultural laborers.This work environment also led to the distinction of the wearing of southerners, especially the slaves. In my paper, I will discuss the relationship between different styled articles of clothes and their corresponding wearing circumstances. For instance, during the Civil War, the southern rural women always wore the familiar blouse of the decade with their sleeves rolled up. Their skirts are pulled up and tucked over the petticoat bands or belts. This clothing design fit their demand for working conveniently. I will mention other typical clothing of southerners when I talk about this part in my later paper.
Although slaves having different responsibilities had different clothing, there was little individualization of personal style in each kind of dress. In fact,sources of plantation records have indicated that an annual clothing allotment was routinely given to adults whether male or female.(Starke 878) And this is not surprising since clothing and fabric could then be ordered in lots with no special difference except for sizes. Plantation records cited by the Stampp relate that “four shirts, four pairs of pants(two cotton and two wool), and one or two paris of shoes were the yearly issue for men. Women were issued four dresses, head kerchiefs, and material to make four more dresses”. For the slaves, the clothing was meant to serve only a protective function and left them little space to show their specific personality.
Furthermore, at the same time, the clothes of the northerners was exceptionally fancy and had a wealth of decoration. For northerners, dressing served both as a source of amusement or entertainment, and as a vehicle through which people could measure or assess where and who they were and how far they had come. Thus, the clothing had more elaborate embellishment and more fullness in skirt. In the later version of my paper, I will elaborate on the difference of northern and southern clothes.
In a nutshell, clothing provided us a great perspective to see and understand the American culture and I found to dig in my research of southern culture through discussing about the attire truly fascinating. I will find more resources and combine them together to make my paper more persuasive and inclusive.
Work Cited
Baumgarten, Linda. What Clothes Reveal: The Language of Clothing in Colonial and Federal America : The Colonial Williamsburg Collection. Williamsburg, VA: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in Association with Yale UP, New Haven, 2002. Print.
Cunningham, Patricia A., and Susan Voso. Lab. Dress in American Culture. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular, 1993. Print.
Foster, Helen Bradley. New Raiments of Self: African American Clothing in the Antebellum South. Oxford: Berg, 1997. Print.
Lynch, Annette. Dress, Gender and Cultural Change: Asian American and African American Rites of Passage. Oxford: Berg, 1999. Print.
Sharpless, Rebecca. Cooking in Other Women's Kitchens: Domestic Workers in the South, 1865-1960. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2010. Print.
Starke, Barbara M. “A Mini View of the Microenvironment of Slaves and Freed Blacks Living in the Virginia and Maryland Areas from the 17th through the 19th Centuries.” Negro History Bulletin, 41.5(1987): 878
Jin Cheng
Lauren Holt
Oct.15, 2013
The Language of Clothing in Southern America
To understand culture directly might be difficult. However, it should be a lot easier if we find a breakthrough to dig in and analyze it . Clothing, one of the critical components of culture, is a great breakthrough. Instead of just introducing the different styles of clothing or the vagaries of fashion, the central focus of this project is on the relationship of dress to the unique American experience. Changes occurred in clothing behavior when external culture merged into the country. If we examine how Americans matched, adapted and applied their dress, we may need to reconsider the place of clothing in the interpretation of American culture and life.
In this paper, I will specially focus on southern American clothing. By introducing the features of southern costumes and making contrast to those of northern attire, I will consider the cultural difference behind this dress distinctiveness. I may also contemplate how Americans have been challenged by natural climate,aesthetic demand and social customs to manipulate different clothing in different regions.
The paper will address the subject of clothing in southern culture from the certain time period, the period from the antebellum south to the “Lost Cause” culture. Great changes and magnificent unrest took place in economy, politics and technology at this specific period. These changes profoundly resulted in the alternations of southern clothing.
In addition, clothing reveals people’s social status as well. Differences of material and styles represent the different demands for social life and disparity in economic power. For instance, in antebellum south, slave owners, who were regarded as the upper class people, had fancy and complicated dress and decorations while the slaves had simpler and plainer clothing. The difference of clothing among different social classes people with no doubt occurred throughout history. I will also introduce some other examples about this phenomena. By examining the clothing of slave owners and slaves, we can understand slavery culture more profoundly in antebellum south.
I will also mention why the slaves wore simple clothes and how simple the clothes are. 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. In fact, there were strict restrictions for southerners’ wearing. As early as the eighteenth century, southern governments devised the “slave codes”, which included the requirements and restraints for clothing. These legalities functioned to maintain white supremacy in a society based economically and socially on racial slavery.In effect, whites used these dress codes to outwardly distinguish those without power from those who held it.
In general, during the antebellum period, just as now, age, sex and class determined who wear what and when specific styles of clothing should be worn. These factors determined not only the African Americans but also the white people. For instance, children and adults wore different clothing; women and men wore different clothing; and poor people wore different clothing from middle class people. Thus, clothes at at time were critical status symbols.
In antebellum south, the largest segment of the enslaved population were employed as agricultural laborers.This work environment also led to the distinction of the wearing of southerners, especially the slaves. In my paper, I will discuss the relationship between different styled articles of clothes and their corresponding wearing circumstances. For instance, during the Civil War, the southern rural women always wore the familiar blouse of the decade with their sleeves rolled up. Their skirts are pulled up and tucked over the petticoat bands or belts. This clothing design fit their demand for working conveniently. I will mention other typical clothing of southerners when I talk about this part in my later paper.
Although slaves having different responsibilities had different clothing, there was little individualization of personal style in each kind of dress. In fact,sources of plantation records have indicated that an annual clothing allotment was routinely given to adults whether male or female.(Starke 878) And this is not surprising since clothing and fabric could then be ordered in lots with no special difference except for sizes. Plantation records cited by the Stampp relate that “four shirts, four pairs of pants(two cotton and two wool), and one or two paris of shoes were the yearly issue for men. Women were issued four dresses, head kerchiefs, and material to make four more dresses”. For the slaves, the clothing was meant to serve only a protective function and left them little space to show their specific personality.
Furthermore, at the same time, the clothes of the northerners was exceptionally fancy and had a wealth of decoration. For northerners, dressing served both as a source of amusement or entertainment, and as a vehicle through which people could measure or assess where and who they were and how far they had come. Thus, the clothing had more elaborate embellishment and more fullness in skirt. In the later version of my paper, I will elaborate on the difference of northern and southern clothes.
In a nutshell, clothing provided us a great perspective to see and understand the American culture and I found to dig in my research of southern culture through discussing about the attire truly fascinating. I will find more resources and combine them together to make my paper more persuasive and inclusive.
Work Cited
Baumgarten, Linda. What Clothes Reveal: The Language of Clothing in Colonial and Federal America : The Colonial Williamsburg Collection. Williamsburg, VA: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in Association with Yale UP, New Haven, 2002. Print.
Cunningham, Patricia A., and Susan Voso. Lab. Dress in American Culture. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular, 1993. Print.
Foster, Helen Bradley. New Raiments of Self: African American Clothing in the Antebellum South. Oxford: Berg, 1997. Print.
Lynch, Annette. Dress, Gender and Cultural Change: Asian American and African American Rites of Passage. Oxford: Berg, 1999. Print.
Sharpless, Rebecca. Cooking in Other Women's Kitchens: Domestic Workers in the South, 1865-1960. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2010. Print.
Starke, Barbara M. “A Mini View of the Microenvironment of Slaves and Freed Blacks Living in the Virginia and Maryland Areas from the 17th through the 19th Centuries.” Negro History Bulletin, 41.5(1987): 878