Alice Morse Earle's richly illustrated study turns clothing into a vivid historical record, tracing two centuries of American and English costume through portraits, garments, inventories, letters, laws, and sermons. From Puritan New England and colonial America to Royalist England and Continental Europe, the book pairs brief biographies of governors, ministers, statesmen, soldiers, merchants, gentlewomen, and their families with close attention to hats, hoods, cloaks, mittens, caps, shoes, buckles, and christening clothes. Early chapters challenge the familiar image of the dour Puritan, showing settlers in russets, browns, scarlets, and practical leathers rather than colorless black, and arguing that American dress closely followed English fashion. Rich in detail and wit, the study explores the shifting forms and meanings of doublets, jerkins, coats, waistcoats, sleeves, lace, and other accessories, revealing how style marked rank, piety, profession, taste, and cultural anxiety. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.

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Earle, Alice Morse

Alice Morse Earle was an American historian and writer born in 1851 in Worcester, Massachusetts, whose curiosity about the everyday lives of earlier Americans helped make the past feel vivid, intimate, and human. Living at a time when historical writing often focused on politics and famous men, she chose instead to explore domestic life, customs, dress, homes, and social habits, drawing readers into the texture of ordinary experience. Her work ranged across American colonial and early national life, and she became especially admired for her richly detailed studies of material culture and social history, written in a style that was both scholarly and warmly accessible. Earle’s writing often reveals a deep interest in how people lived, worked, dressed, celebrated, and organized their households, and beneath that interest lies a broader concern with the continuity between past and present. That perspective remains strikingly relevant today, when readers are increasingly drawn to history that includes women’s experiences, family life, and the social meanings of objects and traditions. Her legacy endures in the way she helped broaden historical inquiry beyond public events to the private sphere, showing that everyday life is a vital part of cultural memory. Readers who enjoy American history, material culture, social customs, and beautifully observed nonfiction will find her especially rewarding.