Victorian women were not merely the symbols of nation nineteenth-century
imagery would suggest in an era marked by the images of Queen Victoria and the
symbolic representation of Britannia. They also were producers, maintainers, and even
protectors of England at a time when imperial anxiety and xenophobic fears called the
definition of Englishness into question. Dress, particularly fashionable dress, often was
viewed as a feminine weakness in Victorian England. At the same time women were
chastised for their attentions to the details of their clothing, they also were instructed to
offer a pretty and neat presentation publicly and privately. Novels by George Eliot,
Elizabeth Gaskell, William Thackeray, and H. G. Wells and manners and conduct texts
by such authors as Sarah Stickney Ellis, Eliza Lynn Linton, and Margaret Oliphant
demonstrate how Victorian women used fashion and dress to redefine and manipulate
the socially accepted understanding of traditional English womanhood and to
communicate national ideologies and concerns without violating or transgressing
completely the more passive construction of Victorian femininity. By declaring their nationality through the public display that is fashion—dress
designated by its appeal to a sophisticated, cultured, and perhaps continental society—
these fictional and non-fictional women legitimized the demand for female access to
social and cultural spheres as well as to the political sphere. Through an examination of
the material culture of Victorian England—personal letters about the role of specific
dress in Suffragette demonstrations, or the Indian shawl, for example—alongside an
examination of the literary texts of the period, “Dressing for England” argues that the
novels of the nineteenth century and that century’s ephemera reveal its social concerns,
its political crises, and the fabric of its everyday domesticity at the same time they reveal
the active and intimate participation of Victorian women in the establishment and
maintenance of nation.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2954 |
| Date | 15 May 2009 |
| Creators | Montz, Amy Louise |
| Contributors | O'Farrell, Mary Ann |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text |
| Format | electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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