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The Fabric of Society: Textiles as an Indicator of Social Class in Domestic Novels
- Author(s):
- Carol DeGrasse (see profile)
- Date:
- 2014
- Group(s):
- LLC 19th-Century American, LLC Early American, TC Digital Humanities, TM Literary Criticism, TM The Teaching of Literature
- Subject(s):
- American literature, Feminist theory, Literature and society, Textile fabrics, Women's studies
- Item Type:
- Article
- Tag(s):
- 19th Cent. American Literature, american literature, Literary criticism, sentimental fiction, women writers, Feminist sociology, Sociology of literature, Textiles
- Permanent URL:
- http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/M6G06R
- Abstract:
- This paper examines textiles as an indicator of social class in the sentimental novels of the American long 1850s. Publications such as Godey’s Lady’s Book (1830) and Lady’s World of Fashion (1842) are credited with creating the ties between social status and textile quality. Yet, domestic novels of the long 1850s such as The Discarded Daughter; or the Children of the Isle: A Tale of the Chesapeake (1852), by E.D.E.N. Southworth; Fashion and Famine (1854), by Ann Sophia Stephens; and The Wide, Wide World (1850), by Susan Warner perpetuated the elevated status of fabric through their literary depictions. This author contends that it is not the fashionability of the garment--but rather the quality of the fabric itself that operates as the predominant guage of social status for women of this time period.
- Metadata:
- xml
- Status:
- Published
- Last Updated:
- 6 years ago
- License:
- Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
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carol-degrasse-fabric-of-society-.docx