American Costume, 1840-1920
Stackpole Books | 1979 | ISBN: 0811701069 | English | 224 pages | PDF | 29.2 MB

Most books on historic costume focus on clothing worn by trendsetters--royals, the wealthy--or designed by famous "names" and portrayed in "fashion plates" and engravings in magazines such as Godey's, Peterson's, and Harper's. These, of course, offer a good idea of the general "shape of things," but not exactly how ordinary folks adapted what their betters wore. Worrell portrays men, women, and children, militias and Regulars, working people and the leisure class, virtually side by side, with a clear, nicely detailed pen sketch and extensive descriptive paragraph for each costume. This book and its companion, Early American Costume, must absolutely be on the shelf of everyone who has occasion to research historic American clothing.