Fashioning Quaker identity: nineteenth-century women's clothing in the Friends' Historical Association collection
Date
2005
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Scholars have debated the distinctiveness of Quaker dress since the 1901 publication of Amelia Mott Gummere's The Quaker: A Study in Costume. Gummere's involvement in the Friends' Historical Association (FHA) in Philadelphia resulted in a collection of Quaker artifacts, including a large number of garments, which now reside at the Atwater Kent Museum of Philadelphia. This thesis first examines the definitions of Quaker dress established in clothing scholarship looking to Amelia Gummere's work. It then explores the development of the FHA collection as a Colonial Revival institution which used ancestral clothing to fashion Quaker identity in pageants and tableaux during the early twentieth century. Finally, this thesis interprets the construction and use of selected nineteenth-century women's garments as primary evidence in support of continuing discussions about degrees of “Quakerness” in Friends' clothing.