Hello! It’s been a little while since I updated on anything that wasn’t related to my Digital History course this semester, but I promise there’s good reason for that. You see, I have been researching. “Researching what?” you may ask, well, let me tell you a little about the work I’ve been doing.

This semester, one of the classes that I am taking is HIST 444, American Slavery, and all of this research has been for that class. It took me a really long time to land on a topic, I knew I wanted to research dress history, I knew I wanted to research power dynamics (although i do believe that’s kind of inherent to the study of slavery). Eventually, I stumbled across a post by American Duchess, entitled Episode 6 – Enslaved People’s Dress in the 18th & 19th Century with Cheyney McKnight. In this post, they (American Duchess and Cheyney McKnight of Not Your Mamma’s History) discuss the clothing of enslaved people, and the use of clothing as a tool of control, but also as one of resistance.

It’s suffice to say that this post led me down one hell of a rabbit hole, and will become the basis of my research for the final paper of this course.

One of the first articles I came across was from Encyclopedia Virginia, entitled Clothing and Adornment of Enslaved People in Virginia. This article gave me some good background information and led me to a number of primary sources, but it was not quite enough yet.

It was kind of difficult at first to find primary sources for this topic, mostly because it meant carding through hundreds of laws, essays, and interviews/narratives from formerly enslaved people to find pieces of relevant information.

One of the first pieces I found were the essays contained in Duties of Masters to Servants: Three Premium Essays (1851), compiled by H. N. McTyeire. In particular, the first two essays, Master and Servant by H. N. McTyeire, and Melville Letters, by C. F. Sturgis.

Another source I am looking at is “An act concerning Servants and Slaves”, passed by the Virginia General Assembly in 1705. While in most articles of this act, the assembly was not specific to enslaved people, this may have served as a precedent for the treatment of enslaved people. In most articles, the assembly describes the proper treatment of servants, but omits discussion of the enslaved, providing enslavers an out, and an excuse for their mistreatment of enslaved people. The fact that the law does not outright mention enslaved people in some places and does in others implies intention there.

Another primary source (collection?) I am using is actually a compilation of narratives. Weevils in the Wheat: Interviews with Virginia Ex-Slaves is a treasury of over 150 interviews with formerly enslaved individuals. There are a wide range of topics discussed, but a good number specifically mention clothing and fabric and their role on plantations. The vast majority of these are from later dates, with the narrators being well into their old age by the 1930s, when these interviews were recorded. Despite their age, the narrators featured in Weevils in the Wheat describe their memories in great detail, and recount stories from family members and others around them.

On that note, I’ve got my work cut out for me, and a lot of time to spend at the library in the next week. (This is not a complaint, I am excited, I LOVE the library.)