Major Written Project
Jin Cheng
Lauren Holt
December 4, 2013
V2 Major Written Project
The Language of Clothing of Social Life in Southern America
As a carrier of culture, dress not only reflects distinct social lives among different social strata in the South, but also discloses the difference of spiritual pursuits between northerners and southerners. In the antebellum south, people are mainly classified into two groups, the dominating class, planters, and the dominated class, slaves. The dominating planters, a group of southerners that value personalized ties as the most significant relations in life, are also called southern aristocrats. Their social lives were filled with an aristocratic, anti-bourgeois spirit with “values and mores emphasizing family and status, a strong code of honor, and aspirations to luxury, ease and accomplishment” (Fredrickson 137). This strong persistence on noble and luxurious life determines southern prevailing social culture and gorgeous styles of clothing.
Agricultural pursuits and agrarian values have always been at the heart of the southern society and identity during the antebellum period(Wass 45). Compared to northerners, who had the spirit of discovering novelty things, southerners preferred 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 (Cords, Gerster 59). 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 form the Londoners, they preferred a more elegant and leisurely life, while observing faithfully the code of chivalry (Michael).
This 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 (Cords, Gerster 60). Their persistence on self fulfillment manifested in the later repetitive romanticism of the “Lost Cause” idea. Southerners attributed their failure in the Civil War to the factors they cannot determine or change, and this “Lost Cause” notion greatly influenced the southern culture. For instance, the representative work of the “Lost Cause” literature, Gone With The Wind, presented a wealth of nostalgia and romanticism through the characters’ mentality and behaviors.
Southern chivalry also shows in southerners’ gentility and hospitality in their social life. Social life in southern colonies included town meetings, which brought farmers and plantation owners from all over the area to a single meeting hall. These events often included lavish dinners and dancing. Other social activities included church attendance and games. Shooting contests and games of skill were very popular in the southern colonies. Many colonists also spent time creating relationships by meeting to trade items that were grown or farmed on those plantations. Meeting houses were lively areas of southern social life (Russell). The emphasis on lavish social life indeed required southerners to dress in fancy attire and wear different clothing in various social circumstances.
Except for the social requirement for the south aristocracy to pay great attention on their dress, they also need to dress up because clothing reveals people’s social status as well. Differences of material and styles represent different demands for social life and disparity in economic power. For instance, in the 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 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 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 (Foster 134).
During the antebellum period, just as now, except for class, age and sex also 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. Evening attire featured drop shoulder sleeves, low necklines, and voluminous skirts, held out by layers of petticoats, crinolines, or hoops. Daywear dresses were high necked. It was unseemly for a woman to show skin before late afternoon. As pale skin was the style, necks and shoulders had to be covered to avoid the sun. Outdoors, during the day, women carried parasols to avoid sunlight. And that is also why their sleeves were full, at the elbow, erupting from a gathered shoulder seam (Monet). This heavy and complicated 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. However, southern belle also tried to protest against this disguised oppression. Throughout the Antebellum period, Southern women continued to delight in showing off their shapely bodies. Although they were expected to appear submissive, sweet and resigned at the same time, women decided to be as seductive as possible in order to emphasize their independence (Manners and Etiquette). Even about this time in Athens, Georgia, some women chose to break the norm and wear men’s clothing. Southern Women’s requirement and action on their dress expressed their desire for liberation and self-assertion. In her book The Education of the Southern Belle, Christie Ann Farnham reveals that educational reform in the South prior to the Civil War was impressive, with many more colleges for women being established in the South than in the North. The self liberation on clothing was also a way that southern women showed their demand for self control.
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. Their clothes remained the same, with a “high stovepipe hat; a long frock coat, at first full and later fitted; trousers with straps beneath the instep; a puffy cravat skillfully knotted to create an impression of deliberate negligence” (Manners and Etiquette).
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. Instead of trying to make more profit or focus on monetary accomplishment, southerners preferred to achieve great success on personal ties. Thus, they spent great time to hold together and prosper their family and society. They also devoted to live luxurious life, which intensely showed in their complex and beautiful clothing. Because of high social position of upper-class planters, they also determined the clothing of their slaves. The plain style and limited amount of clothing that a slave could get signified their poor working and living condition, disclosing their downtrodden life. The distinctive styles of southern women and gentlemen also revealed southerner’s daily life and common conceptions. It is a romantic and conservative time that southern people behave and think in the antebellum south. While somehow overwhelmed banal, antebellum southern culture deserved respect for southerners’ gentility and reverence on decency and trustworthiness.
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. 30-55
Calberg, A. M. "Historical Fiction Writers Research Blog." Historical Fiction Writers Research Blog. Blog.WordPress.com, 16 Mar. 2010. Web. 27 Oct. 2013.First Paragraph
Cunningham, Patricia A., and Susan Voso. Lab. Dress in American Culture. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular, 1993. 1-73
Farnham, Christie Anne. The Education of the Southern Belle: Higher Education and Student Socialization in the Antebellum South. New York: New York University Press, 1994.
Foster, Helen Bradley. New Raiments of Self: African American Clothing in the Antebellum South. Oxford: Berg, 1997. Print. 134-150
Fredrickson, George M. White Supremacy: A Comparative Study of American and South African History. New York: Oxford UP, 1981. 137. Print.
Gerster, Patrick, and Nicholas Cords. Myth and Southern History,. Vol. 2. Chicago: Rand McNally College Pub., 1974. 59-60. Print.
Lynch, Annette. Dress, Gender and Cultural Change: Asian American and African American Rites of Passage. Oxford: Berg, 1999. Print.81-97
Manners and Etiquette." Manners and Etiquette. Island Girl, n.d. Web. 10 Nov. 2013.
Michael. “Southern Planters, Farmers & Culture.” Southern Nationalist Network. WordPress, 29 May 2012. Web. 28 Oct. 2013
Monet, Dolores. "Women's Clothing of the South in the American Civil War." HubPages. HubPages Inc., n.d. Web. 10 Nov. 2013.
Russell, David Lee. "Life in the Southern Colonies (Part 1 of 3)." Journal of the American Revolution RSS. Journal of the American Revolution (allthingsliberty.com), 23 Jan. 2013. Web. 10 Nov. 2013.
Sharpless, Rebecca. Cooking in Other Women's Kitchens: Domestic Workers in the South, 1865-1960. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2010. Print.129-173
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
December 4, 2013
V2 Major Written Project
The Language of Clothing of Social Life in Southern America
As a carrier of culture, dress not only reflects distinct social lives among different social strata in the South, but also discloses the difference of spiritual pursuits between northerners and southerners. In the antebellum south, people are mainly classified into two groups, the dominating class, planters, and the dominated class, slaves. The dominating planters, a group of southerners that value personalized ties as the most significant relations in life, are also called southern aristocrats. Their social lives were filled with an aristocratic, anti-bourgeois spirit with “values and mores emphasizing family and status, a strong code of honor, and aspirations to luxury, ease and accomplishment” (Fredrickson 137). This strong persistence on noble and luxurious life determines southern prevailing social culture and gorgeous styles of clothing.
Agricultural pursuits and agrarian values have always been at the heart of the southern society and identity during the antebellum period(Wass 45). Compared to northerners, who had the spirit of discovering novelty things, southerners preferred 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 (Cords, Gerster 59). 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 form the Londoners, they preferred a more elegant and leisurely life, while observing faithfully the code of chivalry (Michael).
This 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 (Cords, Gerster 60). Their persistence on self fulfillment manifested in the later repetitive romanticism of the “Lost Cause” idea. Southerners attributed their failure in the Civil War to the factors they cannot determine or change, and this “Lost Cause” notion greatly influenced the southern culture. For instance, the representative work of the “Lost Cause” literature, Gone With The Wind, presented a wealth of nostalgia and romanticism through the characters’ mentality and behaviors.
Southern chivalry also shows in southerners’ gentility and hospitality in their social life. Social life in southern colonies included town meetings, which brought farmers and plantation owners from all over the area to a single meeting hall. These events often included lavish dinners and dancing. Other social activities included church attendance and games. Shooting contests and games of skill were very popular in the southern colonies. Many colonists also spent time creating relationships by meeting to trade items that were grown or farmed on those plantations. Meeting houses were lively areas of southern social life (Russell). The emphasis on lavish social life indeed required southerners to dress in fancy attire and wear different clothing in various social circumstances.
Except for the social requirement for the south aristocracy to pay great attention on their dress, they also need to dress up because clothing reveals people’s social status as well. Differences of material and styles represent different demands for social life and disparity in economic power. For instance, in the 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 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 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 (Foster 134).
During the antebellum period, just as now, except for class, age and sex also 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. Evening attire featured drop shoulder sleeves, low necklines, and voluminous skirts, held out by layers of petticoats, crinolines, or hoops. Daywear dresses were high necked. It was unseemly for a woman to show skin before late afternoon. As pale skin was the style, necks and shoulders had to be covered to avoid the sun. Outdoors, during the day, women carried parasols to avoid sunlight. And that is also why their sleeves were full, at the elbow, erupting from a gathered shoulder seam (Monet). This heavy and complicated 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. However, southern belle also tried to protest against this disguised oppression. Throughout the Antebellum period, Southern women continued to delight in showing off their shapely bodies. Although they were expected to appear submissive, sweet and resigned at the same time, women decided to be as seductive as possible in order to emphasize their independence (Manners and Etiquette). Even about this time in Athens, Georgia, some women chose to break the norm and wear men’s clothing. Southern Women’s requirement and action on their dress expressed their desire for liberation and self-assertion. In her book The Education of the Southern Belle, Christie Ann Farnham reveals that educational reform in the South prior to the Civil War was impressive, with many more colleges for women being established in the South than in the North. The self liberation on clothing was also a way that southern women showed their demand for self control.
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. Their clothes remained the same, with a “high stovepipe hat; a long frock coat, at first full and later fitted; trousers with straps beneath the instep; a puffy cravat skillfully knotted to create an impression of deliberate negligence” (Manners and Etiquette).
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. Instead of trying to make more profit or focus on monetary accomplishment, southerners preferred to achieve great success on personal ties. Thus, they spent great time to hold together and prosper their family and society. They also devoted to live luxurious life, which intensely showed in their complex and beautiful clothing. Because of high social position of upper-class planters, they also determined the clothing of their slaves. The plain style and limited amount of clothing that a slave could get signified their poor working and living condition, disclosing their downtrodden life. The distinctive styles of southern women and gentlemen also revealed southerner’s daily life and common conceptions. It is a romantic and conservative time that southern people behave and think in the antebellum south. While somehow overwhelmed banal, antebellum southern culture deserved respect for southerners’ gentility and reverence on decency and trustworthiness.
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. 30-55
Calberg, A. M. "Historical Fiction Writers Research Blog." Historical Fiction Writers Research Blog. Blog.WordPress.com, 16 Mar. 2010. Web. 27 Oct. 2013.First Paragraph
Cunningham, Patricia A., and Susan Voso. Lab. Dress in American Culture. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular, 1993. 1-73
Farnham, Christie Anne. The Education of the Southern Belle: Higher Education and Student Socialization in the Antebellum South. New York: New York University Press, 1994.
Foster, Helen Bradley. New Raiments of Self: African American Clothing in the Antebellum South. Oxford: Berg, 1997. Print. 134-150
Fredrickson, George M. White Supremacy: A Comparative Study of American and South African History. New York: Oxford UP, 1981. 137. Print.
Gerster, Patrick, and Nicholas Cords. Myth and Southern History,. Vol. 2. Chicago: Rand McNally College Pub., 1974. 59-60. Print.
Lynch, Annette. Dress, Gender and Cultural Change: Asian American and African American Rites of Passage. Oxford: Berg, 1999. Print.81-97
Manners and Etiquette." Manners and Etiquette. Island Girl, n.d. Web. 10 Nov. 2013.
Michael. “Southern Planters, Farmers & Culture.” Southern Nationalist Network. WordPress, 29 May 2012. Web. 28 Oct. 2013
Monet, Dolores. "Women's Clothing of the South in the American Civil War." HubPages. HubPages Inc., n.d. Web. 10 Nov. 2013.
Russell, David Lee. "Life in the Southern Colonies (Part 1 of 3)." Journal of the American Revolution RSS. Journal of the American Revolution (allthingsliberty.com), 23 Jan. 2013. Web. 10 Nov. 2013.
Sharpless, Rebecca. Cooking in Other Women's Kitchens: Domestic Workers in the South, 1865-1960. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2010. Print.129-173
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