Clothing children in English Canada, 1870 to 1930.
This thesis examines the changing representations of children and clothing by drawing upon textual, visual and material sources. Clothing is an important part of our identities and it may be argued that clothing helps to define who we are. Clothing is our second skin. On a social, economic and material level, it shields us from the natural environment. On a cultural level, it mediates relationships between the individual and the larger society by delving into constructions of gender, ritual and dress. This study explores the ways in which clothing illustrates social change in late nineteenth-and early twentieth-century Canada. This thesis provides an opportunity to examine changing representations of children and clothing by drawing upon a wide variety of sources and building upon previous studies. In examining constructions of gender and childhood, it focuses on the emergence of the 'new boy', using clothing as a point of entry into the history of masculinity and femininity. What also emerges is the importance of the mother/son relationship, as portrayed by the process of dressing children. Overtime, rituals associated with clothing children altered. This daily process required more clothing that clearly differentiated between boys' and girls' garments. An adapted material history study of clothing allows the unique opportunity to peel back the layers of meanings of clothing, photographs, images and representations, advertisements, advice columns, and mail-order catalogue descriptions. This research strategy also permits a re-appraisal of nineteenth and early twentieth-century images that have dominated our perception of children and gender. This study, exploring a diversity of textual and pictorial sources, such as newspapers and advertisements, trade literature, and department store catalogues, informed by material history questions and viewed from a Canadian perspective, helps to unravel the mysterious connections between 'new women' and 'new boys'.
Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 63-01, Section: A, page: 0322.
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