You Are What Your Wear: Navigating New England Fashion and Politics in the 1760s and 1770s
April 2 @ 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm
FreeJoin us on our YouTube channel (youtube.com/user/CustomHouseMuseum) at 6:30pm on Friday, April 2, 2021 as we welcome historian Dr. Kimberly Alexander to the Custom House’s monthly Virtual First Friday event.
Dr. Alexander will explore the social values placed on luxury and thrift in New England in the period leading up to the American Revolution. What messages were telegraphed by a person’s clothing and how were these understood? Did everyone in society read these messages the same way or were there multiple interpretations?
About the Presenter:
Dr. Kimberly Alexander is on the faculty of the History Department at the University of New Hampshire, where she is Director of Museum Studies and Lecturer. She has held curatorial positions at several New England Museums, including the MIT Museum, the Peabody Essex Museum and Strawbery Banke. Her most recent book, entitled Treasures Afoot: Shoe Stories from the Georgian Era, traces the history of early Anglo-American footwear from the 1740s through the 1790s [Johns Hopkins University Press 2018]. Dr. Alexander’s forthcoming book, Fashioning the New England Family, will be available in 2021. She was Guest Curator of “Fashioning the New England Family,” at the Massachusetts Historical Society.
Published Works:
Treasures Afoot: Shoe Stories from the Georgian Era
https://pwb02mw.press.jhu.edu/title/treasures-afoot
Fashioning the New England Family
https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/5368