Abstract Fashioning Slavery: Slaves and Clothing in the U.S. South, 1830–1865 By Katie Knowles This dissertation examines such varied sources as Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Eastman Johnson’s genre paintings, runaway advertisements, published narratives, plantation records, the WPA ex-slave narratives, and nearly thirty items of clothing with provenance connections to enslaved wearers. The research presented in the following pages seeks to reveal the complexities surrounding clothing and slave life in the antebellum South by examining a variety of sources in combination. Enslaved people resisted race-based slavery by individualizing their appearance when working and when playing, but they were ultimately unsuccessful in resisting their exclusion from the race-based American fashion system. In bringing together previous scholarship on slavery in the American South, material culture, and fashion studies, this project reveals the deep connections between race and fashion in the antebellum United States. Enslaved people struggled against a racist culture that attempted to exclude them as valid participants in American culture. The individuality expressed by slaves through personalizing their clothing was a tactic of resistance against racism and race- based slavery. In many instances, enslaved people chose to acquire and dress in fashionable Euro-American clothing, a method of resistance because it was an attempt by them to disrupt the racially exclusionary fashion system of the antebellum United States. Though relatively few garments survive today, the voices of enslaved people and the records of their oppressors provide a rich narrative that helps deconstruct the many ways in which slaves encountered clothing. Clothing played an integral part in the daily life of enslaved African Americans in the antebellum South and functioned in multi-faceted ways across the antebellum United States to racialize and engender difference, and to oppress a variety of people through the visual signs and cues of the fashion system. By combining written, visual, and material sources, this study demonstrates the imperative that dress be a central part of the analysis as scholars continue to explore the history of race and slavery in the United States. Acknowledgments My love affair with history began when I first read Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women at age nine. The life and times of the March sisters became an obsession that extended beyond the realm of Alcott’s imagination and into her own history. I owe a special debt of gratitude to women like Alcott who were not afraid to be bold or dream big, especially the women listed in these acknowledgments (and those I had to leave out) whom I have come to know professionally and personally as exemplars of strength. This dissertation has taken a long time to research and write, but the extended journey was well worth the delayed arrival. Numerous people have contributed to this project through their mentorship, scholarship, and friendship; I will try to thank as many as possible here without writing acknowledgments as long as the dissertation itself. First on this list is Dr. John B. Boles, world-renowned adviser, mentor, and leader of successful dissertations. Dr. Boles accepted me as a student even with my unconventional goals; he embraced my desire to study material culture and encouraged me to pursue this line of inquiry. It was in his research seminar that the seeds of this project began as a case study of slave clothing in South Carolina. He saw something in that early research that I did not, and he pushed me to believe that I could take on a daunting topic that seemed at the time to have a small amount of sources (how wrong I was on that front). Without his steady, quiet guidance this project would not exist. Randal Hall brought his careful editorial eye and his deep knowledge of southern historiography into this project. I am incredibly grateful to him for forcing v me to stand behind my arguments and to make them clearer and bolder. Randal graciously stepped into the role of second reader at a very late stage of the project despite his incredibly busy schedule, a testament to his dedication to the field. Switching to a different second reader for this project near the end was the sad result of Stephanie M. H. Camp’s illness and passing. Though she came to Rice after I had completed coursework, she enthusiastically took a position on my committee and she continued to correspond with recommendations and advice after returning to the University of Washington. Her comments on early parts of the writing were instrumental, and I hope that this project does justice to the legacy of her own excellent scholarship. Caroline Levander stuck with this project from the beginning even with her increasingly demanding administrative duties at the university. In coursework, she taught me to read literature at a deeper level and to consider written sources as objects, and she encouraged me further in my pursuit of interdisciplinary approaches to historical scholarship. Finally, Linda Eaton served as a fourth outside reader, bringing her vast knowledge of textiles and clothing to the research and analysis. Linda taught me how to read textiles and clothing and to understand their contributions as sources at a level I never could have imagined. Her unbridled enthusiasm for all young scholars, especially textilians, is invaluable. The nature of this project required quite a bit of travel to a variety of archives and museums, as well as the assistance of staff who corresponded vi virtually when I could not make it in person. I would particularly like to thank the librarians, curators, and others at the following institutions: South Carolina Historical Society, Charleston; South Caroliniana Library at the University of South Carolina, Columbia; Duke University Special Collections, Durham, North Carolina; Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Witte Museum, San Antonio, Texas; Alamance County Historical Society, Burlington, North Carolina; Chicago History Museum; Museum of the Confederacy, Richmond, Virginia; Charleston Museum; Louisiana State Museum, New Orleans; and Historic New Orleans Collection. I received support from several avenues for this project, including monetary assistance for conducting research, presenting at conferences, and in the final stages of writing. For this aid I would like to the thank the Costume Society of America for awarding me the Stella Blum Research Grant, which was matched with funds from the Rice History Department. The History Department has funded numerous smaller research trips and conference presentations over the years that have added depth and value to my work. Finally, the Coordinating Council for Women in History provided support for writing through the Ida B. Wells Graduate Student Fellowship. Portions of this dissertation appeared previously as “Fashioning Slavery: Slaves and Clothing in the United States South, 1830–1865,” in Dress: The Journal of the Costume Society of America 38 (November 2012). Sections from chapter 8 were first presented in “No Cotton in the Kingdom: Textiles in the Civil War South,” Proceedings of the 3rd Biannual David B. Warren Symposium on vii the Material Culture of Texas, the Lower South, and Southwest (Houston, Tex.: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2012). I am grateful to the Costume Society of America and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston for permission to include portions of these publications in the dissertation. The images throughout this work are integral to the analysis. The following institutions allowed me to use images of objects in their collections: Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia; The Library Company of Philadelphia; Rubenstein Library at Duke University; New York Historical Society; Art Institute of Chicago; Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Museum of the Confederacy; Stephens County Historical Society; Charleston Museum; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Louisiana State Museum; Historic New Orleans Collection; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts; South Carolina State Museum; Chicago History Museum; Alamance County Historical Society; Witte Museum; Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library; and Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Many of these places allowed me to use images without cost, including those that allow open access: National Portrait Gallery; National Archives and Records Administration; and Library of Congress. I would particularly like to thank the following institutions for waiving reproduction and rights fees: The Art Institute of Chicago, The Charleston Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Beyond the scope of research and writing, completing a dissertation requires assistance from other colleagues. Many of these people contributed by sharing their knowledge, while others provided moments to escape from the viii rigors of dissertating. The entire staff at Winterthur Museum, Garden, and Library deserve special recognition for welcoming me into their world and sharing with me all they could stuff into my brain about material culture. Linda Eaton is foremost among this group, but I would like to especially thank everyone at Winterthur for making my time there intensely entertaining. I have spent so much time in the Rice History Department that thanking all of the faculty, staff, and fellow graduate students who have gotten me through would take pages. And so I will collectively thank this invaluable group of people and let them know that I definitely could not have done it without their guidance, informative emails about paperwork, or meandering conversations over drinks (that invariable led to historiographical debates no matter how hard we tried to avoid them). I must call special attention to the staff at the Journal of Southern History, which has bookended my time at Rice. Learning the ins and outs of academic publishing is a wonderful asset to my knowledge, and all of the cookies, cakes, and camaraderie certainly helped to make graduate school a little bit fun.