Dress in American culture

Out of necessity early Americans accommodated, adapted and manipulated their clothing to adjust to their physical and social environment. In this book we focus on the relationship of dress to the struggle of indigenous and immigrant Americans to fill expected and unexpected needs and express political ideologies and ethnic identity. In doing so we hope to prompt readers to reconsider the place of dress in the interpretation of American culture. The casual reader of this book of essays may be surprised to learn that it has little to do with different styles of clothing or the vagaries of fashion. We consider how Americans historically have been challenged by the human landscape, physical environment and social institutions to alter their clothing behavior. We are not trying to determine what is distinctively American about our dress. Rather we demonstrate that the clothing behavior of Americans, in adapting to these new situations, was part of their unique experience and that it was linked to their cultural values, attitudes and ideals. Clothing is viewed as a mediating factor in the American experience. The authors of these essays reveal the politics, or power of dress, especially in its function as a symbol of American ideals, and examine changes in clothing behavior which occurred as Americans faced a variety of new experiences.