Early American Dress: The Colonial and Revolutionary Periods

Early American Dress: The Colonial and Revolutionary Periods by Alexander Wyckoff. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780517204238.

This beautifully illustrated volume describes fully and accurately the dress of our early American forefathers. It goes further than most books on costume, however, for it describes also the houses, the furniture, and the social, economic and religious background against which these costumes were worn. EARLY AMERICAN COSTUME reveals an entire epoch in terms of the clothes it wore. It considers first the European background, and then takes up in turn the early Virginians, the early New Englanders and the early Dutch. Then come chapters on the later New Englanders, the later Virginians, the Quakers and the Germans of Pennsylvania, the frontiersmen, the colonies from 1750 to 1800, and the new republic to 1820. Each chapter first tells something about the life and people before taking up the costumes in detail. Contemporary paintings and engravings illustrate many of the costumes described, in addition there are numerous line drawings of various articles of attire. This book will furnish artists, illustrators, and stage, pageant or motion-picture directors with easily accessible material for the working out of entire pictures or sets representing early American days.