Bodies of Work: Clothing as Resistance and Persistence

This panel focuses on the ways in which clothing has historically played a crucial role in dynamics of power, labor, and survival in marginalized communities—and how it continues to this day. This will include three presentations by undergraduate scholars: "Clothed Citizens: Black Americans use of clothing as rebellion against social and legal inequality during the Antebellum and Postbellum periods," "Did Women Wear Pants Back Then? Gender Nonconformity in Early 19th Century New England and What it Means to Interpret Trans History", and "A Labor of Grief: The Dying Mourning Shawls of Tenancingo, Mexico."

This event is part of the SUITS in Costume Studies conference hosted by the BMC Historical Costume Society (Symposium for Undergraduate, Independent and Technical Scholarship).You can learn more about this event at www.suitsincostumestudies.com.