Suggested Reading List

PRIMARY SOURCES

Anonymous. A General Description of all Trades (1747)

Boswell, James ‘A Tour to the Hebrides’ (1785)

Burt, Edmund ‘Burt’s Letters from the North of Scotland’ (1738)

Campbell, R. ‘The London Tradesman: Being a Compendious View of all the Trades, Professions, Arts, both Liberal and Mechanic, Now Practised in the Cities of London and Westminster’ (1747)

Loch, David 'Letters concerning the trade and manufactures of Scotland; particularly the woollen and linen manufactures' (1774)

Loch, David 'Essays on the trade, commerce, manufactures and fishers of Scotland, Volume 2' (1778)

Loch, David 'A tour through most of the trading towns and villages of Scotland: containing notes and observations concerning the trade, manufactures, improvements, of these towns and villages... by order of the Honourable Board of Trustees for fisheries' (1778)

SECONDARY SOURCES

Dress, Textile and Fashion History (as a discipline and focus for historical enquiry)

Buck, Anne, Dress in Eighteenth-Century England (Batsford, 1979)

Burman, Barbara and Annie Fennetaux, The Pocket: A Hidden History of Women's Lives, 1690-1900 (Yale University Press, 2019)

Baumgarten, Linda, What Clothes Reveal: The Language of Clothing in Colonial and Federal America (The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation/Yale University Press, 2002)

Cumming, Valerie, C.W. Cunnington and P.E. Cunnington, The Dictionary of Fashion History (Berg, 2010)

Dunbar, John Telfer, History of Highland Dress (Batsford, 1962)

Dunbar, John Telfer, The Costume of Scotland (Batsford, 1981)

Lemire, Beverly, Dress, Culture and Commerce: The English Clothing Trade before the Factory, 1660-1800 (MacMillan Press, 1997)

Lemire, Beverly, Fashion’s Favourite: The Cotton Trade and the Consumer in Britain, 1660-1800 (Oxford University Press, 1991)

North, Susan, Sweet & Clean?: Dress and Hygiene in Early Modern England (Oxford University Press, 2020)

Ribeiro, Aileen, The Art of Dress: Fashion in England and France, 1750-1820 (Yale University Press, 1995)

Ribeiro, Aileen, Eighteenth Century (A visual history of costume) (Batsford, 1983)

Ribeiro, Aileen, Dress in Eighteenth-century Europe, 1715-1789, 2nd ed. (Yale University Press, 2002)

Ribeiro, Aileen ‘Fashion and Fiction: Dress in Art and Literature in Stuart England’ (Yale University Press, 2005)

Riello, Giorgio and Peter McNeil (eds.) ‘The Fashion History Reader: Global Perspectives’ Routledge, 2010)

Riello, Giorgio, ‘The object of fashion: methodological approaches to the history of fashion’, Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, 3:1 (2011), 8865

Styles, John, The Dress of the People (Yale University Press, 2007)

Taylor, Emily, 'Personality in Fashion: Case Studies of Localism in Eighteenth-century Scotland’, Fashion Practice, 10:2 (2018), 213-235

Taylor, Lou, The Study of Dress History (Manchester University Press, 2002)

Garment-Making and Textile Trades in the 18th Century

Barclay, Katie and Deborah Simonton (eds.), Women in Eighteenth-Century Scotland: Intimate, Intellectual and Public Lives (Routledge, 2016)

Birt, Sarah, ‘Women, Guilds and the Tailoring Trades: The Occupational Training of Merchant Taylors’ Company Apprentices in Early Modern London’, The London Journal, published online 2 September 2020

Crowston, Clare Haru, Fabricating Women: The Seamstresses of Old Regime France, 1675-1791 (Duke University Press, 2001)

Dolan, Alice,  ‘The Fabric of Life: Linen and Life Cycle in England, 1678-1810’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Hertfordshire, 2016)

Dowdell, Carolyn Anne , ‘The Fruits of Nimble Fingers: Garment Construction and the Working Lives of Eighteenth-Century English Needlewomen’ (unpublished master’s dissertation, University of Alberta, 2010)

Dowdell, Carolyn Anne, ‘The Multiple Lives of Clothes: Alteration and Reuse of Women’s Eighteenth-Century Apparel in England’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Queen’s University, 2015)

Ginsberg, Madeleine, ‘The Tailoring and Dressmaking Trades, 1700-1850’, Costume, 6:1 (1972), 64-71

Hart, Avril, ‘The Mantua: its Evolution and Fashionable Significance in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’ in Defining Dress: Dress as Object, Meaning, and Identity, ed. by Amy Le Haye (Manchester University Press, 1999), 93-103.

Lemire, Beverly, ‘In the hands of workwomen': English Markets, Cheap Clothing and Female labour, 1650-1800’, Costume, 33:1 (1999), 23-35

MacLeod, Catriona, ‘Women and Work in 18th Century Glasgow’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Glasgow, 2015)  

Phillips, Nicola, Women in Business: 1700-1850 (The Boydell Press, 2006)

Sanderson, Elizabeth, ‘The Edinburgh Milliners’, Costume, 20:1 (1986), 18-28

Sanderson, Elizabeth C., Women and Work in Eighteenth-Century Edinburgh (Palgrave Macmillan, 1996)

Sanderson, Elizabeth, ‘Nearly New: The Second-hand Clothing Trade in Eighteenth-Century Edinburgh’, Costume, 31:1 (1997), 38-48

Sanderson, Elizabeth, ‘The 'New Dresses': A Look at How Mantuamaking Became Established in Scotland’, Costume, 35:1 (2001), 14-23

Simonton, Deborah, ‘The education and training of eighteenth-century English girls, with special reference to the working class’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Essex 1988)

Simonton, Deborah, A History of European Women's Work (Routledge, 1998)

Simonton, Deborah, ‘Sister to the tailor: guilds, gender and the needle trades in eighteenth-century Europe’ in Early Professional Women in Northern Europe, c. 1650-1850, ed. by Johanna Ilmakunnas, Marjatta Rahikainen and Kirsi Vainio-Korhonen  (Routledge, 2018)

Styles, John, ‘Spinners and the Law: Regulating Yarn Standards in the English Worsted Industries, 1550–1800’, Textile History, 44:2 (2013), 145-170

Tuckett, Sally, ‘Weaving the Nation: Scottish Clothing and Textile Cultures in the Long Eighteenth Century’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2010)

Material Culture

Dyer, Serena and Chloe Wigston Smith, Material Literacy in Eighteenth-Century Britain: A Nation of Makers (Bloomsbury, 2020)

Dyer, Serena, Material Lives: Women Makers and Consumer Culture in the 18th Century (Bloomsbury, 2021)

Nenadic, Stana, ‘Experience and expectations in the transformation of the Highland gentlewoman, 1680-1820', Scottish Historical Review, 80 (2001), 201-220

Nenadic, Stana, Lairds and Luxury: The Highland Gentry in Eighteenth-century Scotland (John Donald Short Run Press, 2007)

Nenadic, Stana, 'Necessities: clothing and food', A History of Everyday Life in Scotland, 1600 to 1800, edited by C Whatley and E Foyster, (Edinburgh University Press, 2010), 137-63

Pittock, Murray, Material Culture and Sedition, 1688-1760: Treacherous Objects, Secret Places (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013)

Scott, Jenn, Better Is The Proud Plaid - the Clothing, Weapons and Accoutrements of the Jacobites in the ‘45’ (Helion & Company, 2018)

Taylor, Emily, ‘Women's fashionable dress in eighteenth century Scotland: a study of material culture and its meanings’ (Developments in Dress History Conference, Brighton, 2011)

Tuckett, Sally, 'National Dress, Gender and Scotland: 1745-1822', Textile History, 40:2 (2009), 140-151

Vickery, Amanda, Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England (Yale University Press, 2009)

Textiles

Category in progress (I have so much on my bookshelves!)

Social / Economic / Women’s Histories - Early Modern Period - ENGLAND

Category in progress (I have so much on my bookshelves!)

Hunt, Margaret R., The Middling Sort: Commerce, Gender, and the Family in England, 1680-1780 (California University Press, 1996)

Prior, Mary (ed.), Women in English Society, 1500-1800 (Routledge, 1985)

Sharp, Patricia, Adapting to Capitalism: Working Women in the English Economy, 1700-1850 (London, 1996)

Social / Economic / Women’s Histories - Early Modern Period - SCOTLAND

Carr, Rosalind, Gender and Enlightenment Culture in Eighteenth-century Scotland (Edinburgh University Press, 2014)

Houston, R. A., Scottish Society 1500-1800 (Cambridge University Press, 2008)

Extant / Object Studies

Arnold, Janet, ‘A Mantua c.1708-9 Clive House Museum, College Hill, Shrewsbury’, Costume, 4:1 26-29 (1970)

Arnold, Janet, ‘A Court Mantua of 1740’, Costume 6:1 48-52 (1972)

Davidson, Hilary, ‘Reconstructing Jane Austen’s Silk Pelisse, 1812–1814’, Costume, 49:2 198-223 (2015)

Davidson, Hilary ‘The Embodied Turn: Making and Remaking Dress as an Academic Practice’, Fashion Theory, 23:3 (2019), 329-362

Kim, Alexandra and Ingrid Mida, The Dress Detective: A Practical Guide to Object-Based Research in Fashion (Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2018)

Taylor, Emily Joan, ‘Women's dresses from eighteenth-century Scotland: fashion objects and identities’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Glasgow, 2013)

Women’s Dress Construction

Arnold, Janet, Patterns of Fashion 1 (Macmillan, 1968)

Arnold, Janet and others, Patterns of Fashion 5 (The School of Historical Dress, 2018)

Baumgarten, Linda and John Watson with Florine Carr, Costume Close Up (Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1999)

Bradfield, Nancy, Costume in Detail, (Costume & Fashion Press, 1981)

Stowell, Lauren and Abby Cox, The American Duchess Guide to 18th Century Dressmaking (Page Street Publishing, 2017)

Stowell, Lauren and Abby Cox, The American Duchess Guide to 18th Century (Page Street Publishing, 2019)

Waugh, Norah, The Cut of Women’s Clothes (Faber & Faber, 1968)

Coming soon...

Bendall, Sarah, Shaping Femininity (Bloomsbury, due to be published late 2020)
Monograph from Sarah’s doctoral thesis. The first large-scale study of the materiality, production, consumption, and meanings of foundation garments for women in sixteenth and seventeenth-century England, with particular focus on bodies (corsetry) and farthingales (skirt-shaping structures) as boned structures, due to be published by Bloomsbury

Birt, Sarah - PhD candidate Birkbeck College (Department of History, Classics and Archaeology). Thesis title: 'A Fashionable Business: Mantua-makers, Milliners and Seamstresses in London c. 1670-1770’. https://afashionablebusiness.wordpress.com/

Morrison, Rebecca Elizabeth - PhD candidate (V&A) Queen Mary University of London re Mantua-making in England in the long Eighteenth Century.
See https://www.instagram.com/rebeccae_m/