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Fashion Nation: Picturing the United States in the Long Nineteenth Century
Sandra Tomc
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Fashion Nation argues that popular images of the United States as a place of glitter and lights, of gaudy costumes and dizzying visual surfaces—usually understood as features of technomodernity—were in fact brewed in the rich, strange world of early nineteenth-century British and European folk nationalism when nations were compelled to offer visual manifestations of their allegedly true ancestral form. Showing that folk and ethnic nationalism played a central role in writing and culture, the book draws on a rare and colorful visual archive of national costumes, cartoons, theatrical spectacles, and immersive entertainments to show how the United States sprung to life as a visual space for transatlantic audiences. Fashion Nation not only includes chapters on major U.S. travel writers like Nathaniel Parker Willis and James Fenimore Cooper, but it also presents explorations of the vogue for folk and ethnic costume, the role of Indigenous dress in Wild West spectacles, and the nationalistic décor on display at late nineteenth-century world's fairs and amusement parks. Engagingly written and beautifully illustrated, Fashion Nation opens the door to a forgotten legacy of visual symbols that still inhabit ethnic and white nationalism in the United States today, showing how fantasies of glittery surfaces were designed to draw the eye away from a sordid history.
Fig. 1. Eighteenth-century homespun coat. Coat, Isle of Wight County, Virginia. Ca. 1780. Cotton and wool with wooden buttons covered with fabric. Accession #1964–174, A, image #TC2001–577. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Museum Purchase.
Fig. 3. George A. Crofutt, American Progress. 1872. Chromolithograph. After the painting American Progress by John Gast. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division LC-DIG-ppmsca-09855.
Fig. 4. John Dadley, “A Female Inhabitant of Lapland,” Costume of the Russian Empire, Illustrated By Upwards of Seventy Richly Coloured Engravings. London: William Miller, 1804. Plate 2. Hand-painted stipple engraving. Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University.
Fig. 5. Edward Harding, “A Mordvin Woman of the Mokchanien Tribe,” Costume of the Russian Empire: Illustrated by Upwards of Seventy Richly Coloured Engravings. London: T. Bensley for J. Stockdale, 1811. Plate 12. Hand-painted stipple engraving. Author’s collection.
Fig. 6. Edward Harding, “A Female Mestscheraik,” Costume of the Russian Empire: Illustrated by Upwards of Seventy Richly Coloured Engravings. London: T. Bensley for J. Stockdale, 1811. Plate 28. Hand-painted stipple engraving. Author’s collection.
Fig. 7. William Alexander, “A Standard Bearer,” The Costume of China. Illustrated in Forty-Eight Engravings. London: William Miller, 1805. Aquatint. Getty Research Institute via Internet Archive.
Fig. 8. William Alexander, “A Soldier of Chu-San,” The Costume of China. Illustrated in Forty-Eight Engravings. London: William Miller, 1805. Aquatint. Getty Research Institute via Internet Archive.
Fig. 9. Joseph Reinhard, “Costumes du Canton de Zoug,” Collection de Costumes Suisses en 44 feuilles. J. Whatman, 1808. Outline etching and aquatint. Gugelmann Collection, Prints and Drawings Department, Swiss National Library.
Fig. 10. Johan Fredrik Eckersberg, Udvalgte Norske Nationaldragter (A Selection of Norwegian National Costumes) Christiania: Chr. Tønsberg, 1861. Plate 2. Hand-colored engraving. National Library of Norway.
Fig. 11. Alexandre Lacauchie, “Costumes Écossais,” Les Nations. Album des Costumes de Tous les Pays (publisher unknown). c. 1850. Hand-colored lithograph. Paris. Author’s collection.
Fig. 12. Alexandre Lacauchie, “Costumes Portugais,” Les Nations. Album des Costumes de Tous les Pays (publisher unknown). c. 1850. Hand-colored lithograph. Paris. Author’s collection.
Fig. 13. Alexandre Lacauchie, “Costumes Turc,” Les Nations. Album des Costumes de Tous les Pays (publisher unknown). c. 1850. Hand-colored lithograph. Paris. Author’s collection.
Fig. 16. “Londoners, English Peasants, Scottish Highlanders, Hollanders or Dutch,” Cosmorama: The Manners, Customs, and Costumes, of all the Nations of the World Described by J. Aspin. New Edition. London: John Harris, 1834. Plate 5. Hand-colored engraving. Special Collections and University Archives, Iowa State University Library.
Fig. 17. “Persians,” The Costume, Manners, and Peculiarities of Different Inhabitants of the Globe, Calculated to Instruct and Amuse the Little Folks of All Countries. London: John Harris, 1831. Page 7. Hand-colored wood engraving. Courtesy of Princeton University Library.
Fig. 19. “Otaheitans” [Tahitians]. The Costume, Manners, and Peculiarities of Different Inhabitants of the Globe, Calculated to Instruct and Amuse the Little Folks of All Countries. London: John Harris, 1831. Page 12. Hand-colored wood engraving. Courtesy of Princeton University Library.
Fig. 20. J. Steerwell, “Otaheiteans,” The Little Traveller; or, A Sketch of the Various Nations of the World. London: A. K. Newman, 1825. Page 31. Courtesy of Princeton University Library.
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