Genealogy Resources
Fashion and Clothing
What was the fashion during your ancestor's time? You may even get some tips for dating old family photos with clothing clues.
- Blayney, Molly Dolan. Wedded Bliss: A Victorian Bride's
Handbook. Abbeville Press, 1992.
-
The Collections of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Online. Colonial Williamsburg's collections encompass
more than 60,000 examples of fine, decorative, mechanical, and
folk art. Included are American, British, and Continental
ceramics, glass, furniture, textiles, costumes, tools, firearms,
numismatics, metals, prints, maps and drawings from the
seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, as well
as outstanding examples of eighteenth-, nineteenth-, and
twentieth-century American folk art.
- Dalrymple, Priscilla Harris. American Victorian Costume
in Early Photographs. New York : Dover, 1991.
- Fashion-era
Contains 580 content rich, illustrated pages of Fashion History,
Costume History, Clothing, Fashions and Social History
- Lipsett, Linda Otto. To Love and to Cherish: Bride's
Remembered. Quilt Digest, 1989.
- Mordecai, Carolyn. You Are Cordially Invited to
Weddings: Dating & Love Customs of Cultures Worldwide, Including
Royalty. Nittany Publishing, 1999.
- Olian, JoAnne. Wedding Fashions, 1862-1912: 380 Costume
Designs from "La Mode Illustree." Dover, 1994.
- Severa, Joan L. Dressed for the Photographer: Ordinary
Americans and Fashion, 1840-1900. Kent, Ohio : Kent State
University Press, ©1995.
- Steward, Arlene Hamilton. A Bride's Book of Wedding
Traditions. Hearst Books, 1995.
- Taylor, Maureen Alice. Fashionable Folks: Hairstyles, 1840-1900. [United States]: Picture Perfect Press, 2009. Genealogist and photo identification/preservation expert reveals information you can learn from family photographs about a person's fashion sense and character. Taylor writes for those interested in using "this handy guide to study the tresses and trims in your ancestral portraits and learn when different hairstyles and facial hair were in vogue." Her analysis of sample photographs from each decade illustrates how people can use "clues of clothing and hairstyles ... [to] discover when those pictures were taken, how old the subjects were at the time, and how wealthy they were." Includes "fast facts" and "fun facts" about hair styles through the 19th century.