Two Centuries of Costume in America, Volume 1 (1620-1820)

hen we reflect that in any community the number of “the younger sort” is far larger than of grown folk, when we know, too, what large families our ancestors had, in all the colo...

have expressed a doubt that the dress of Cavalier and Puritan varied as much as has been popularly believed; I feel sure that the dress of Puritan women did not differ from the...

t is difficult to discover the reasons, to trace the influences which have resulted in the production in the modern mind of that composite figure which serves to the everyday re...

t is a matter of deep regret that no “Lists of Apparel” were made out for the women emigrants in any of the colonies. Doubtless many came who had a distinct allotment of clothin...

oth word and garment—coat—are of curious interest, one as a philological study, the other as an evolution. A singular transfer of meaning from cot or cote, a house and shelter,...

o-day, when every man, save a football player or some eccentric reformer or religious fanatic, displays in youth a close-cropped head, and when even hoary age is seldom graced w...

here was a certain family prominent in affairs in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with members resident in England, New England, and the Barbadoes. They were gentlefol...

ny student of English history and letters would know that caps would positively be part of the outfit of every emigrating Englishman. A cap was, for centuries, both the enforced...

_“An honest Stationer (or Publisher) is he, that exercizeth his Mystery (whether it be in printing, bynding or selling of Bookes) with more respect to the glory of God & the pub...

e have in this poem of the old “Water Poet” a definite statement of the date of the introduction of ruffs for English wear. We are afforded in the portraiture given in this book...

nder the general heading of cloaks I intend to write of the various capelike shoulder-coverings, for both men and women, which were worn in the two centuries of costume whereof...

ne of the first sumptuary laws in New England declared that men of mean estate should not walk abroad in immoderate great boots. It was a natural prohibition where all extravaga...

e are told by the great Viollet le Duc that the faces of fifteenth-century women were of a uniform type. Certainly a uniform head-dress tends to establish a seeming resemblance...

hen this old pigskin trunk was new, the men who fought in the Revolution were young. Here is the date, “1756,” and the initials in brass-headed nails, “J.E.H.” It was a bride’s...

en’s hair on their heads hath ever been at odds with that on their face. If the head were well covered and the hair long, then the face was smooth shaven. William the Conqueror...

_“Nowe my deare hearte let me parlye a little with thee about trifles, for when I am present with thee, my speeche is preiudiced by thy presence which drawes my mind from itself...

_“Within my memory the Ladies covered their lovely Necks with a Cloak, this was exchanged for the Manteel; this again was succeeded by the Pelorine; the Pelorine by the Neckatee...

_“Never was it happier in England than when an Englishman was known abroad by his own cloth; and contented himself at home with his fine russet carsey hosen, and a warm slop; hi...

_“Paul saith, that a woman ought to have a Power on her head. This Power that some of them have is disguised gear and strange fashions. They must wear French Hoods—and I cannot...

“Two things I love, two usuall thinges they are: The Firste, New-fashioned cloaths I love to wear, Newe Tires, newe Ruffes; aye, and newe Gestures too In all newe Fashions I do...

_“Fashion has brought in deep ruffs and shallow ruffs, thick ruffs and thin ruffs, double ruffs and no ruffs. When the Judge of the quick and the dead shall appear he will not k...

real word was the Heliotropium of the ancients, our blood-stone. It was a favorite stone of the day not only for those fancy-handled knives, but for seals, finger-rings and othe...

_This day the King began to put on his vest; and I did see several persons of the House of Lords and Commons too, great courtiers who are in it, being a long cassock close to th...

_“When thou thyself, a watery, pulpy, slobbery Freshman and newcomer on this Planet, sattest mewling in thy nurse’s arms; sucking thy coral, and looking forth into the world in...

_“As to a Periwigg, my best and Greatest Friend begun to find me with Hair before I was Born, and has continued to do so ever since, and I could not find it in my Heart to go to...

_“By my Faith! Master Inkpen, thou hast put thy foot in it! Tis a pretty subject and a strange one, and a vast one, but we’ll leave it never a sole to stand on. The proverb hath...