Figure 1.-- Stereo view cards provide rare glimpses of what life was like outside of photographic studios. Here we see a scene of Bedford in the Bedford, dating to the late medieval era. It is believed to be where King Offa of Mercia, one of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, is buried. He is notable for building Offa's Dyke marking the Welsh border. The statue is of John Bunyan (1626-88). After the English Civil War and restoration of the monarchy, Bunyan was imprisoned for his non-conformist preaching. He spent 12 years in jail during which he wrote 'Pilgrim's Progress'. Stereo view company: Fortescue Mann.

Social class is an imprtant topic to consider when discuissing clothing and fashion. America and Britain are similar in many ways. Thee are, however, differemces and one of those are social class. America inherited its culture and legal system from Nritain, but a huge factor was the friontier. It meant that for the first time in history, the average Joe who woked the land could own the land they worked. And than immediately after the Revolution the Continental Congress opassed the Northweest Ordinance (1787) which guaranted that Western land would be divided into family farms and not huge landed estates. America wold be the country to do this follwed closely by Revolutuinary Francv (1790s) Britain would not do this meaning that Btitain would enter the 19th and 20th centuries with a still hardened class structure. A rare source of 19th century photography outside the studio were stereo-view cards. When taklking about fashion, especially using stufio portraits. We had no choice because the great bulk of photograohic images wee studio portraiys in the 19th century. We are, of course, talking about children from well to do, or at least confortably well off families. The more elaborate fahions discussed here have nothing to do with the common folk that labored in factories. Fashion was a private performance of the well-to-do until well into the 20th Century. The children discussed here are the sons of the bourgeoisie, the new middle class that was neither noble nor poor but who were to dominate the European countries and who became the trend-setters of that era. Their wealth came, for the most part, from the new industries they financed and the factories they ran and owned, or from high education jobs that let them take part in the new industrial boom. In that they were different from the nobility, whose wealth was inherited, at least in the 19th Century. So the bourgeoisie on one hand imitated the nobility by showing off, and stressed their being different in that they had - more or less - earned their wealth. In this context, fashion played a role in the establishment of the identity of this new class which, by way of being new, had no tradition and no fixed identity. The lack of identity is probably why the bougeoisie envied (thus, imitated) the nobility while at the same time looking down their noses at them. The need to show their new status filtered down to how they dressed their children. For some the elaborate fashions such as the lace trimmed Fauntleroy suits were an attmpt to flaunt their wealth and an attempt to emulate the pomp and extravegance of the nobilit

Created: 12:45 PM 7/22/2024
Last updated: 12:45 PM 7/22/2024