Teaching Everyday : Using Primary Sources in the Classroom

Victoria Pass, PhD Maryland Institute College of Art @visualsustenance Flappers, probably at a football game, Griffith Stadium, 1920s

Joan Crawford after filming The Understanding Heart, 1927 1924

1924 The Times 1926

1924 Tampa Bay Times Sun, October 17, 1926

Miami Tribune, Wed May 5, 1926 The Birmingham News Sun, May 11, 1924 3 Ideas for Using Primary Sources

• Organize a debate around a significant shift in fashion history • Build an mini-archive to examine an a garment, style, or product over time. • Curate a selection of different types of sources on one historical moment An Imagined Dress Debate on Utopian Reform Debate in Edna and Unisex Dress Woolman Chase’s Office

Edna Woolman Chase (1877-1957) editor of Vogue, 1914 – 1952 ’d Monokimi in Life, Ada S. Ballin (1863-1906), The Science Renato Di Bosso (1905-1982) & of Dress in Theory and Practice, 1885 Ignazio Scurto, “The Futurist Manifesto of the Italian Tie,” 1933

Thayat (1893-1959) & Ruggerio William Henry Flower (1831-1899), Michahelles (1898-1976), Fashion in Deformity, 1881 “Manifesto for the Transformation of Male Clothing,” 1932

Amelia Bloomer (1818-1894), “The Varvara “Varst” Stepanova, Reform Dress,” 1885, and “Dress (1894-1958), “Present Day Dress— Reform,” The Lilly, 1853 Production Clothing,” 1923

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902), Nadezhda Lamanova (1861-1941), “The New Dress,” The Lily, 1852 “Concerning Contemporary Dress,” 1923

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), “Slaves of Fashion,” a lecture given in the US in 1882; Elizabeth Hawes, (1903-1971), “Woman’s Dress,” and “More Radical Ideas Upon It’s Still Spinach, 1954 Dress Reform” in Pall Mall Gazette, 1884

Henry Van de Velde (1863-1957), “A New Rudi Gernreich (1922-1985), Art Principle in Modern Women’s Clothing,” in “Fashion for the 70s,” 1969 Deutsche Kunst und Deckoration, 1902 The Rational Dress Society, Joseph Hoffman (1870-1956), “The founded in 2014 by Abigail Glaum- Individual Dress,” Writing in Die Waage, Lathbury and Maura Brewer, “The Sales 1898 Pitch to Buy Less,” 2016 Radu Stern, Against Fashion: Clothing as Art, 1850-1930 (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2004).

Rebecca Mitchell, Fashioning the Victorians: A Critical Sourcebook (London: Bloomsbury, 2018). Useful Sourcebooks

Kim K.P. Johnson, Susan J. Torntore, and Joanne B. Eicher, eds., Fashion Foundations: Early Writings on Fashion and Dress (London: Berg, 2003). Debate Prep:

• Brief(!!) background lecture • 20-30 minutes in small groups • Based on a reading and pre-writing done at home • Remind students they are portraying historical figures opinions, not their own. • Students will develop: • An Opening Statement • Answers to Key Questions **Important Caveat: “If you can’t answer any of these questions directly from what you read, see if you can extrapolate some ideas from the writing you have in front of you.” Running the Debate: • Introduce yourself and the contenders—do this in character! • Know what issues you want on the table and reverse engineer questions to get you there • Call on people (remember it’s a group and they prepped so you aren’t putting them on the spot) Debrief Example Dress: Reform Debate Key Points: • There is no “natural” • Women are positioned as victims or dupes • Do these ideas really make things better for women? ? • It’s really sports and social change that changes things • These examples show how fashion starts to represent values, aesthetics, and political or artistic identity. Why Bother? • People will talk who haven’t talked before • You can call on people • You can illuminate the issues in a really dynamic way • Students will learn how to engage deeply with a text • They will also exercise speaking and listening skills • The debate pushes students to take ideas from a text and extend and apply them to something new • It’s super fun!! Clara Tice, Vanity Fair,1915

Irene Castle, who bobbed Getting a bob in a barbershop, 1920s her hair in 1915 Mary Louise Roberts, "Sampson and Delilah Revisited: The Politics of Fashion in 1920s France," in The Modern Woman Revisited: Paris between the Wars, edited by Whitney Chadwick and Tirza True Latimer (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2003): 65-94.

Chanel bobbed her hair in 1916 “Coiffures Garconnes,” Le C ill i t 1925 The Process: Before Class: • Students read for homework— perhaps give them some guiding questions or a pre-writing In Class: • Through a class discussion we identify the thesis of the essay and define terms In Small Groups: • Group primary sources thematically • Ask students to look for evidence that either supports or contradicts the thesis Back Together: • Ask each group to summarize their primary sources and share their opinion

How are these ideas/images playing out in public discourse and in media images? How do they change over time? Alternate Strategy: • Use a article to give students a language for talking about white supremacy and/or patriarchy in fashion • I use Janelle Hobson’s essay “The Batty Politic: Toward and Aesthetic of the Black Female Body,” in Venus in the Dark: Blackness and Beauty in Popular Culture (Milton: Routledge, 2018) and Elizabeth Wilson’s chapter, “Fashion and Eroticism,” in Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity, revised and updated edition (London” I.B. Taurus, 2003). 1875 satirical cartoon titled “Origem dos puffs” (“Origin of Bustles”) published in Semana Illustrada, a Brazilian illustrated weekly

Wire bustle, c. 1880s

“The Grecian Bend,” an US-made bustle from 1886 British ad from 1887 anti-fashion satire 1868 • Then share an archive of sources where they can start to deploy that language and look for how it’s playing out in fashion images • I use ads for cosmetics and undergarments Why Bother? • Sources are often funny, or shocking, because they are so granular they give students a sense that this stuff really happened to real people—this isn’t about a model on a runway • The sources can make an article personal or more real to students • You can use sources to expose blind spots in an article (particularly questions of race, sexuality, and class) • Help them understand how these histories are constructed • Give students a chance to practice critical thinking, analysis and synthesis skills—all good for their independent research Using a Mix of Source Types ’ Steady: A Quicksand, , 1965 X Rockin , The Autobiography Larsen, Walt Frazier and Frazier Walt Ira Berkow Guide to Basketball & Cool 1974 of Malcolm Malcolm of Malcolm X told Malcolm (as to Alex Haley), Nella 1928 • Nora Ephron, “The Man in The Bill Blass Suit,” The New York Times (8 December 1968). • “Male Plumage,” LIFE (September 25, 1970) 42-9. & • “Revolt in Men’s Wear,” LIFE (May 13, 1966) 81-90. • Peter Bailey, “Walt Frazier: Athlete, Businessman, Man About Town,” Ebony (March 1974) 46-54. • Ronald E. Kisner, “Walt Frazier: His Sex Image and His Lifestyle,” Jet (April 4, 1974) 52-56.

Use a memoir as one of a number of documents Walt “Clyde” Frazier in the 1970s Jet, April 4, 1974 Bill Blass • Nora Ephron, “The Man in The Bill Blass Suit,” The New York Times (8 December 1968). • “Male Plumage,” LIFE (September 25, 1970) 42-9. & • “Revolt in Men’s Wear,” LIFE (May 13, 1966) 81-90. • Peter Bailey, “Walt Frazier: Athlete, Businessman, Man About Town,” Ebony (March 1974) 46-54. • Ronald E. Kisner, “Walt Frazier: His Sex Image and His Lifestyle,” Jet (April 4, 1974) 52-56. I was measured, and the young salesman picked off a rack a zoot suit that was just wild: sky-blue pants thirty inches in the knee and angle narrowed down to twelve inches at the bottom, and a long coat that pinched my waist and flared out below my knees. As a gift, the salesman said, the store would give me a narrow leather belt with my initial 'L' on it. Then he said I ought to also buy a hat, and I did - blue, with a feather in the four-inch brim. Then the store gave me another present: a long, thick-lined, gold plated chain that swung down lower than my coat hem. I was sold forever on credit. … I took three of those twenty-five cent sepia-toned, while-you wait pictures of myself, posed the way 'hipsters' wearing their zoots would 'cool it' - hat angled, knees drawn close together, feet wide apart, both index fingers jabbed toward the floor. The long coat and swinging chain and the Punjab pants were much more dramatic if you stood that way.‘ –Malcom X

Malcolm X, c. 1946 Cab Calloway wearing a zoot suit in Stormy Weather, 1943 The suit cost $185, $2,535.58 in today’s money

Ramona Fonseca (later Frias), poses in a zoot suit, June 26, 1944. MARCH 26, 1942: Girls show up in slacks at Abraham Lincoln High School, Brooklyn, in protest because a classmate, Beverly Bernstein, was suspended the day before for wearing slacks. From left are: Roslyn Goldberg, Esther Cohen, Marian Hartman, Maryln Bodkin, Eleanor Groper Harper’s Bazaar, August 1931; Illustrations by Charles Martin

Use a novel to add a different voice to thinking about mass media images

Dodo (Dörte Clara Wolff ), Ulk (a satirical German magazine) no. 46, November 16, 1928 “I already have Josephine’s figure. Now just one of Emil’s hysterical fits, until I’m black and blue, and I’ll be there.” 1926 Vogue, July 1, 1928 Turning from the window, her gaze wandered contemptuously over the dull attire of the women workers. Drab colors, mostly navy blue, black, brown, unrelieved, save for a scrap of white or tan about the hands and necks. Fragments of a speech made by the dean of women floated through her thoughts--"Bright colors are vulgar"--"Black, gray, brown, and navy blue are the most becoming colors for colored people"--"Dark-complected people shouldn't wear yellow, or green or red."--The dean was a woman from one of the "first families" --a great "race" woman; she, Helga Crane, a despised mulatto; but something intuitive, some unanalyzed driving spirit of loyalty to the inherent racial need for gorgeousness told her that bright colors were fitting and that dark-complexioned people should wear yellow, green, and red. Black, brown, and gray were ruinous to them, actually destroyed the luminous tones lurking in their dusky skins. One of the loveliest sights Helga had ever seen had been a sooty black girl decked out in a flaming orange dress, which a horrified matron had next day consigned to the dyer. Why, she wondered, didn't someone write A Plea for Color? These people yapped loudly of race, of race consciousness, of race pride, and yet suppressed its most delightful manifestations, love of color, joy of rhythmic motion, naive, spontaneous laughter. Harmony, radiance, and simplicity, all the essentials of spiritual beauty in the race they had marked for destruction. -Nella Larsen, Quicksand, 1928 http://www.designhistoryteachingresource s.org

LIFE, September 8, 1941