Emily Dickinson and the Labor of Clothing

by Daneen Wardrop

Overview

Daneen Wardrop's Emily Dickinson and the Labor of Clothing begins by identifying and using the dating tools of fashion to place the references to clothing in Dickinson's letters and poems, and to locate her social standing through examining her fashion choices in the iconic daguerreotype. In addition to detailing the poetics of fashion in Dickinson's work, the author argues that close examination of Dickinson and fashion cannot be separated from the changing ways that garments were produced during the nineteenth century, embracing issues of domestic labor, the Lowell textile mills, and the Amherst industry of the Hills Hat Factory located almost next door to Dickinson's Homestead. The recent retrieval of clothing from approximately thirty trunks found in the attic of the Evergreens house, which formerly belonged to Dickinson's brother and sister-in-law, further enhances this remarkable and original interdisciplinary work.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781584657804
Publisher:	University of New Hampshire Press
Publication date:	11/10/2009
Series:	Becoming Modern/Reading Dress
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	268
Product dimensions:	7.20(w) x 10.10(h) x 1.20(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

DANEEN WARDROP is a professor of English at Western Michigan University. She is the author of Word, Birth, and Culture in the Poetry of Poe, Whitman, and Dickinson and Emily Dickinson's Gothic: Goblin with a Gauge. Publication supported by the Coby Foundation, Ltd.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: “... time would fail me to enumerate my appearance...”
Dickinson’s Fashion: “Won’t you tell ‘the public’ that at present I wear a brown dress...”
Dress the Maker: “... I finish mama’s sacque, all but the overcastting...”
“Kelley Square” and “The Crossing”: “But the whistle calls me—”
The Body’s Body:Tippet, Basque, Gaiters, Pantalettes: “I asked him how you looked, and what you wore...”
The Bonnet of Dickinson’s Family: “Mother wants me to say that if you like Aunt L’s Bonnet...”
Lace Theory: “As laces just reveal the surge—”
Conclusion: “Pierce me with a fashion”
Notes
Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

Linda Wagner-Martin

"This is an impressive work, with sharp, informative, and useful writing. When Wardrop states that her manuscript presents a very different Emily Dickinson, she does not overstate. Rather than critique existing secondary material on Dickinson, however, she creates the "new" persona through providing information very few of us have known. This reading of Emily Dickinson in her time and her contexts--biographical as well as cultural--is truly valuable."
— Linda Wagner-Martin, Frank Borden Hanes Professor of English and Comparative Literature, The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

Susan Belasco

“Emily Dickinson and the Labor of Clothing is an innovative, rigorously researched study which investigates the poet's artistic practices in her poems and correspondence through the lens of the domestic and industrial economy of clothing and fashion in the nineteenth century. Drawing on biography, social history, material culture, literary criticism, and aesthetics, Daneen Wardrop makes a significant—and lively—contribution to our understanding of one of our most important American poets.”

Editorial Reviews

"A dazzling, delightful study of the impact of textiles and fashion on the US's most enigmatic poet. . . . Wardrop offers context by exploring the market economy of the mid-to-late-19th century, the textile manufacturing industry in Amherst during Dickinson's lifetime, and the depiction of garments in Dickinson's poetry and letters. Beautifully illustrated and featuring helpful notes and a well-constructed index, this book is by turns fascinating, illuminating, and undeniably original. . . . Highly recommended."—CHOICE

"This is an impressive work, with sharp, informative, and useful writing. When Wardrop states that her manuscript presents a very different Emily Dickinson, she does not overstate. Rather than critique existing secondary material on Dickinson, however, she creates the new persona through providing information very few of us have known. This reading of Emily Dickinson in her time and her contexts—biographical as well as cultural—is truly valuable."—Linda Wagner-Martin, Frank Borden Hanes Professor of English and Comparative Literature, The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

From the Publisher