Fashion and Transgressive Dressing in the Mid-To-Late Eighteenth Century British North Atlantic Brenna Buchanan Iowa State University
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Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Graduate Theses and Dissertations Dissertations 2017 "To Dress Against Nature and Reason": fashion and transgressive dressing in the mid-to-late eighteenth century British North Atlantic Brenna Buchanan Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Buchanan, Brenna, ""To Dress Against Nature and Reason": fashion and transgressive dressing in the mid-to-late eighteenth century British North Atlantic" (2017). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 15267. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd/15267 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. “To dress against nature and reason”: Fashion and transgressive dressing in the mid- to-late eighteenth century British North Atlantic by Brenna Holly Buchanan A dissertation submitted to the graduate faculty in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Major: Rural Agricultural Technological and Environmental History Program of Study Committee: John Monroe, Co-major Professor Julie Courtwright, Co-major Professor Kathleen Hilliard Margaret LaWare Pamela Riney-Kehrberg The student author and the program of study committee are solely responsible for the content of this dissertation. The Graduate College will ensure this dissertation is globally accessible and will not permit alterations after a degree is conferred. Iowa State University Ames, Iowa 2017 Copyright © Brenna Holly Buchanan, 2017. All rights reserved. ii DEDICATION This work is dedicated to a great number of people who have assisted me throughout my life as well as my time as a graduate student. First and foremost, to my Mom, who has provided endless amounts of support and encouragement. Second to my niece, Sarah. The day you were born has been one of the happiest of my life. Third to my mentor, Jana Byars, who first suggested the idea of “cross-dressing,” which became a life of its own. Next to the rest of my family and my incredible circle of friends, especially my Dad, my sister, Chelsea, Mary Cenci, and Ahna Carlson. Asking me about my studies as well as your advocacy means more to me than I could ever fully convey. Thank you to the entire faculty, staff, and graduate students of both the History and Women’s Studies Departments. Everyone in the history department, past, present, and future, has contributed to my life in an uplifting and positive way. I would also like to thank my teaching team in Women’s Studies. There are so many of you, all who have helped me along the way. I cherish each one of you. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………... iv CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: ......................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 2 NATURAL VS. ARTIFICIAL: CHANGING CATEGORIES REFLECTED THOUGH CLOTHING........................................... 27 CHAPTER 3 THE NATURALNESS OF SOCIETY AND GENTILITY THROUGH CLOTHING................................................................ 69 CHAPTER 4 MONSTROUS EXAMPLES OF TRANSGRESSIVE DRESSING ..................................................................................... 105 CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION ............................................................................... 140 APPENDIX: CHAPTER ILLUSTRATIONS ........................................................... 160 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................................................... 190 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation project would not have been possible without the helpfulness and support of many individuals. I would like to thank my co-advisors, Dr. John Monroe and Dr. Julie Courtwright for working with me tirelessly, providing guidance and support every step of the way. My committee members Dr. Kathleen Hilliard, Dr. Pamela Riney-Kehrberg, and Dr. Maggie LaWare for helping to mold my project with suggestions and great feedback. Thank you to Rick Kehrberg for reading over several of my chapters and providing additional guidance. Thanks to Samuel Twitchell for all your support and encouragement. Also thank you to the History Department secretary, Jennifer Rivera. You are the glue who holds everything together. I would like to thank all the professors that I have been a teaching assistant for: Dr. Jeff Bremer, Dr. Jana Byars, Dr. Lawrence McDonnell, Dr. Kathleen Hilliard, Dr. Tim Wolters, Dr. John Monroe, and Dr. Michèle Schaal. I would also like to thank those who I have been a teaching assistant with. I have learned an incredible amount from all of you. A special thank you to my first advisor and my friend, Jana Byars, for all that you have done to help me in my scholarly work over the years. You have helped guide this dissertation from start to finish. I would like to thank the history department for providing me with grants and the Garst Fellowship which enabled me to complete my research. Thank you to the various institutions such as the American Antiquarian Society, the Massachusetts State Archives, the Boston Public Library, Iowa State University, the University of Iowa and others for providing me with access to research materials as well the permissions to use images in my dissertation. 1 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION Deborah Sampson Gannett proves a difficult person for historians to overlook, even if key facts of her life remain unknown.1 During the American Revolution, she flouted the rules of her time by dressing as a man and enlisting. For seventeen months, in 1782-1783, she lived as “Robert Shurtliff” until her discovery and resulting discharge at West Point on October 25, 1783.2 Afterward, she returned to Massachusetts, to the town of Sharon, married in 1785, and in 1792 petitioned the Massachusetts legislature for funds not received during her time in the Continental Army.3 Between March and October of 1802, she publicly lectured on her experience as a soldier in New England and parts of New York, to earn money for her family.4 Because of her experience, recognition, and celebration as a female soldier, she represents a taboo character whose actions inspire great curiosity. Two biographers have told her story. The first, during her lifetime; the second, after she was long dead. With the goal of securing a pension to help her and her husband’s struggling farm, Herman Mann, a printer/publisher/journalist hoped to create a national following for her life and service. Mann’s 1797 biography of Gannett, The Female Review, highlighted “The most remarkable feature of the case” which was, “…that during those entire campaigns, while mingling constantly with men, night and day, in all their exercises, through so many months, she maintained her virtue unsullied, so that her sex was not even suspected.”5 Despite the focus on 1 Scholars disagree on the spelling of Gannett’s name. Sources list it as Gannet, Gannett, Sampson, and Samson. 2 Alfred Young, Masquerade: The Life and Times of Deborah Sampson, Continental Soldier (Alfred A. Knopf: New York, 2004), 5. 3 Ibid, 4. 4 Judith R. Hiltner, ““Like a Bewildered Star”: Deborah Sampson, Herman Mann, and Address, Delivered with Applause,” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 29 (Spring, 1999): 5, accessed January 25, 2017, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3886083. 5 John Adams Vinton, “Introduction,” in Herman Mann, The Female Review: Life of Deborah Sampson: The Female Soldier in the War of Revolution with An Introduction and Notes by John Adams Vinton (Boston: J.K. Wiggin & WM. Parsons Lunt, 1916), 22-23. 2 Gannett’s time as a soldier, analysis of her clothing is a small portion of the story. The second biographer, Alfred Young, in 2004, told a more detailed story of her life, including one substantially important argument in his epilogue. Even though he believed that Sampson could not be considered a cross-dresser6, he conceded that clothing did play an important part in her “masquerade.”7 While his recognition of the importance of clothing is good, it is problematic that he rejects the term “cross-dresser.” Young argues that this more modern word indicates an inner “desire,” or compulsion to wear cross-gendered clothing.8 Therefore, it does not define Gannett or others like her. For him, Gannett masqueraded as a man because she wanted a different and perhaps even better life and also because she recognized that “performing gender” as a man was the only way she could act on her desire to serve in the military. Therefore, there is no connection to an urge to cross-dress, if it is understood as a symptom of an erotic compulsion or psychological disorder. However, multiple studies on transvestism during the eighteenth century and the early modern era do use the term of cross-dressing to characterize female-to-male transgressions. Modern conceptions should not prevent the utilization of the term. On the surface, this appears to be a disagreement over semantics. But, rejection of the term misrepresents Gannett’s wartime, “Amazonian” cross-gendered dressing. 6 Young argues that, “She should not be categorized as a “cross-dresser” or “transvestite,” modern terms with connotations of a condition or an obsession…Then, it was the only way for a woman to serve in the army, as opposed to serving in an army camp…In