The heterogeneous mixing of cultures in America produced a rich tapestry of clothing styles. An individual's garments expressed cultural and religious affiliation, status, and personal style. But fashion aroused heated debate, for it could be manipulated to challenge social hierarchies and contest the boundaries of identity, provoking political protest and social unrest.
Before European contact, the clothing of Indian groups in North America varied widely, but all had in common the use of animal skins, furs, body paint, and jewelry made of metal, beads, or bone. Hides rendered soft and wearable by laborious rubbing and smoking were the preferred material for clothing. The basic wardrobe of Indian men included buckskin breechcloths, fringed shirts, and leggings; women wore wraparound skirts and embroidered shirts. Northeast Indians, like the Abenakis, dressed in deerskin or moose hide, often elaborately dyed and quill embroidered, whereas Plains Indians, like the Sioux, relied heavily on buffalo for their clothing needs. Both sexes wore moccasins, hair jewelry, and headdresses, as well as furs and brightly colored woolen blankets as outerwear.
From the beginning of European settlement, Indians traded furs for European-and, later, American-manufactured cloth. The introduction of these new products into Indian society resulted in intertribal economic competition that often led to war. Improved transportation networks like the Santa Fe Trail (1821) and the Erie Canal (1825) made factory-produced cotton and woolen cloth readily available to Indians, further affecting their style of dress. Indians adapted European garments to their own use, decorating shirts, shifts, hats, and coats with bead-work, embroidery, and other elements of Indian design. Native dress in turn influenced Hispanics and Anglos, who took to wearing moccasins, snowshoes, deerskin hunting shirts, and leggings on the frontier.
Dress became an important political issue for Indians struggling for autonomy against encroaching white settlers. Reform movements advocating resistance to Anglo-American influence emerged among groups like the Creeks and Cherokees in the first decades of the nineteenth century. Responding to the loss of their land, the rise of excessive alcohol consumption among the tribes, and missionaries bent on "civilizing" native society, some Indians rejected the white man's clothing and other articles. Most Indian groups, however, continued to blend Indian aesthetics and needs with Anglo-American materials.
Forced migration and enslaved labor left African Americans few opportunities to develop a sartorial identity. The clothing of slaves differed regionally and individually according to situation and occupation, but for the most part it was meager, coarse, and dull in color. Rough linen from Osnabruck, Germany, and coarsely woven woolens from Britain, known as "Negro cloth," were the distinctive fabrics worn by slaves. Garments were allocated seasonally and included loose, untailored goods such as wool jackets for winter, linen jackets for summer, and breeches for men, and short gowns, petticoats, shirts, and shifts for women. Palmetto straw hats and calico head-wraps were distributed along with crude brogan shoes produced in New England. Cheap cotton cloth became increasingly important by the turn of the century, and many slaves preferred this cool, breathable material over uncomfortable, rough wool. Sunday provided an exception to drab, daily wear, and slaves went to great lengths to acquire special "go-to-meeting" clothes such as calico dresses, ribbons, and soft leather shoes.
Slaves enlivened their appearance by using dyes made from bark and herbs, altering and patching their clothes, and supplementing their attire using money earned from labor, agriculture, or trade. This was far easier for skilled slaves and free blacks than for field hands and led to dramatic differentiation between these groups. Skilled or free blacks, especially in urban areas, were able to acquire fine cloth, felt hats, metal shoe buckles, shawls, lace caps, and other high-style items from purchase or owners. The clothing of field slaves became increasingly restricted over time; in places like South Carolina, slaves went nearly naked in summer. Masters manipulated African Americans' desire for individuation by using clothing as a reward for hard work or good behavior. Others, like George Washington, dressed their personal slaves in elaborate livery.
Cloth provision for slaves varied by circumstance and location. Many large plantations simply imported or purchased cloth for slaves, whereas on others the white women supervised slave weavers and seamstresses. Some owners preferred to let slaves sew their own garments, providing them with cloth, needles, and thread. Slave women bore the brunt of responsibility for maintaining the family wardrobe.
Like other oppressed ethnic groups, African Americans imbued their garments with individual and cultural meaning that challenged white control. They invented unique ways to wear standard-issue garments and produced contrasting colors and offbeat patterns that reflected an African American aesthetic. Through the artful tying of a head kerchief or a cloth wrapper, blacks used European textiles to fashion African American styles.
Whether living on a farm or in a city, Anglo-American women's daily wear reflected their domestic and social roles as well as their economic status. Their standard garments included a linen shift, boned stays, petticoats, an apron, and a jacket-type garment called a shortgown. Some of these items might be homespun, especially during the boycotts of the American Revolution, or they might be imported from Europe. In public or among guests, women wore a gown of wool, cotton, or silk; hoops; a kerchief; and some sort of head covering, such as a cap. As the eighteenth century wore on, East Indian calicoes, chintz, and muslin became the preferred fabric for women's garments.
Women's dress in America changed dramatically after the French Revolution. Inspired by the fashions of ancient Greek and Roman republics, high-waisted, short-sleeved gowns made of white muslin, a lightweight cotton, became the vogue. Wide hoops and bold prints went out of style. Hairstyles, powdered and voluminous in the colonial period, became short and frizzed. Women's fashion came under conservative fire, for the popular fabrics immodestly exposed both women's bodies and America's dependence on foreign countries for cloth.
By the second decade of the nineteenth century women's dress returned to formality and structure. Corsets became tighter, skirts widened, and sleeves inflated to balloonlike proportions. Although fashion now idealized a restricted, ornamental female body, many women challenged such constructions, becoming increasingly involved in reform movements, religious revivals, education, and wage labor during the 1820s and 1830s.
In a world where the cut and cloth of a suit differentiated gentlemen from laborers, men paid careful attention to how they dressed. Powdered hair, breeches buckled at the knee, vests, tailored coats, and bleached white linen at the throat and wrists marked middling and elite men. Suits were cut to enforce an erect torso and made in a variety of bright colors. After the French Revolution romanticized the sansculottes (radical republicans so named because they were "without breeches"), men began wearing tight-fitting trousers, previously the domain of sailors and the working class. Coats fit more closely to the body and emphasized fine tailoring over fabric, hair was worn without powder, and middle-class business standards led men to renounce color in favor of sober black.
Advertisements seeking runaway indentured servants in early national newspapers depicted the distinctive garb of male laborers—loose trousers, short jackets, and felt hats. Their clothing tended to be old and made of durable material like leather. Absence signified, too, for workingmen left off the tight coats, cravats, and soft shoes of the upper classes. Sunday church clothes broke the monotony of working wardrobes; suits and hats made of finer materials were prized and bequeathed to subsequent generations.
The nineteenth century placed increasing emphasis on uniformity in dress as a response to urbanization and social disorder. Just as middle-class men began to adopt the dark three-piece suit en masse, prisons, almshouses, and houses of refuge broke with the colonial precedent of allowing inmates to wear their own clothes. Beginning in the 1790s, residents were issued uniforms and had their hair cropped short. The imposition of monochromatic or striped suits allowed authorities to regulate behavior and identify escapees from public institutions.
Immigrants to North America enlivened the fashion landscape with unique styles and color patterns. Rural German and Dutch women wore black aprons, short petticoats, round-eared caps, and conical hats. Scottish immigrants sported Highland tartans with checked patterns and Scots bonnets. Religious sects like the Quakers were known by their wide-brimmed hats and toned-down versions of dominant styles. On Shaker settlements, members gave up their worldly clothes and adopted a uniform dress as a way to express spiritual unity and social equality. Although most immigrants eventually adopted the dress of the region in which they lived, they preserved their ethnic traditions in quilts and embroidery.