good evening, everyone and

welcome to the charles river museum of industry and innovation. my name is steve guerrero. i'm the director of education here. and it's my honor to introduce this evening's mill talk and want to say thank you for braving a new england snowstorm to come out here and see tonight's. we're gathered here in our main gallery, which was once the power plant of the boston manufacturing company here, francis cabot, lowell, the world's first modern factory in 1814. a cotton textile. it kicked off the industrial revolution at scale and its success was replicated mill towns across new england. we also know that the explosion cotton manufacturing led to increased demand on and for enslaved labor that is an inextricable part of this story. tonight's talk gives us more context, fully understanding the economy and social impact of commercial cotton in the early and mid 19th century before

begin. i'd like to thank our lowell institute partners for generously supporting our mill talk series. if you enjoy this presentation, please check out our upcoming talks on topics like tariffs and trade. and now on february first, you can find all of our listings on our website at charles river museum talk events. i'd also encourage everyone to make a return visit to explore our museum learn more about industrial history and about becoming a member. a membership supports our work to preserve and bring our programing to a wider audience. our mission is to preserve and celebrate america's industrial heritage while inspiring future innovators to carry us forward one last no out of respect for, our speakers and the audience and i was a sixth grade teacher, so i can say, let's sure our devices are on silent mode. we don't want any and expected interruptions. thank you we are joined tonight by dr. jonathan michael square,

assistant of black visual culture at school of design. he a ph.d. from new york university, m.a. from the university of texas at austin and a b.a. from cornell. previously he taught in committee on degree. he taught in the committee on degree in history, in literature. sorry, he was a fellow at the costume institute, metropolitan of art, a proponent of the use of social media as a form of radical pedagogy. dr. square also leads the digital project fashioning the self in slavery and freedom and is my honor to invite dr. jonathan michael square to tonight's talk. thank you. hello super honored to be here. thank you, bob. steve, for inviting me. thank you all. braving this treacherous new england weather, we're sort of wedged between two snowstorms, so i really appreciate coming out and sharing this moment with me. i'm super excited to share this

research with all because i get a lot out of it every time i share research with the new audience, there's always interesting question source that i haven't considered a way of thinking about the material. so this is i'm getting as much out of it as i you are getting out of it so super excited to be here and i'm just going to jump right into the talk. all right. so i titled talk people, we black folks had to wear laws. it's a direct quote from the wpa narratives, and i'll exactly what you mean if you know what those are. but i will explain what those are later in the talk. so so i want to start off the talk with this mariah snyder the title of this talk is a quote from the oral testimony of mariah snyder, a formerly woman who was interviewed at the age of 89, in the 1930s. she vividly the relentless toil in cotton and coolie work at the cotton gin wearing lo cloth was

also integral to her experience as an enslaved person. this talk with delve into historical background of this textile and explain how its how it influenced the experiences of enslaved individuals. the american south highlighting connection to broader histories of, american textile production and global capitalism. so one thing i always tell my students is the word texas. the word textile have the same latin root in the same way you can do a closely reading of a text, you can do a close reading of a textile. in this talk i read enslaved people's experience with textiles. this text using oral testimonies and slave narratives, i examine how the lives of enslaved people are intimately, intricately entwined with the textiles they wore and crafted without regular access to the or governmental authorities, individuals conveyed the realities of their enslavement by sharing their tangible experiences with little

despite their circumscribed agency textiles and so fashioning more broadly became a potential instrument of empowerment and the next item to talk about sumptuary laws though enslaved people were able use textiles to challenge the hierarchies of enslavement and express their identities enslaved occasionally found themselves subsub attic to sumptuary laws designed to maintain the subjugation. so starting in the 18th century, sumptuary laws in north america were to define acceptable attire. enslaved people, a practice has origins in medieval europe and earlier sumptuary laws and. the regulation of dress for enslaved people during the 18th and 19th centuries reflect the intricate relationship between race, power, resistance, clothing was to control and enforce social hierarchies, emphasizing the opposite inferiority of enslaved people.

so on this slide, you see a screenshot of a piece of legislation from the early 19th century. and if you show what, you can see that. but you will see that it says has a list of the textiles that are appropriate for enslaved people. so it reads -- cloth, the course courses, arsenic, the blue linen check linen chris garlic's to cotton scratch plaids, etc., etc. so many of these laws gave exact definitions of the kind of textiles that were appropriate for enslaved people. what's interesting about this sumptuary laws that they often had clauses or caveats for livery, which is like fancy clothing for domestics. so could be made out of a finer textile. and that's interesting to think about because in another of my research, i think about the company brooks and brooks brothers is over 200 years old.

earlier in its history, in the 19th century in manufacture, clothing, enslaved people. so of manufacture by brooks brothers would have been outside of this legislation because that was livery for domestics basically livery was often meant to sort of reflect power and privilege of the enslaver. so that i'm not talking about that in this talk yet. legislative dress codes were an awesomely ineffective attempt to maintain white authority and potential displays of agency and rebellion. so that's really interesting point that i would like to just dwell on a little bit like sumptuary laws are interesting because you get a snapshot or idea of enslavers anxieties and worries but they don't necessarily reflect people were actually dressing because it's really hard to control someone else's body and what they do with their own bodies. but i still think sumptuary laws an interesting source to

consider just because you get to understanding what authorities were worried about. so in this talk i'm going to talk a particular textile. it's -- cloth. -- cloth is sort of an umbrella term. i'm going to focus more so on little in the second half of the talk. but in this slide, i do want to just talk about -- cloth writ large. -- cloth was a distinctive marker of a slave status, also known as homespun slave cloth or guinea cloth and a variety of terms beyond that, these terms broadly describe cheaply textiles that ended up on the backs of enslaved people. it was sometime sometimes produced in europe such, as in arsenal, germany or the lake district of wales, and sometimes in scotland to round them 20, but also in new england, specifically connecticut, rhode island and massachusetts. most enslaved people received either allotments of -- cloth to so their clothing already --

cloth garments once or twice a year. so like i said earlier, -- cloth was sort of an umbrella term. it doesn't the composition or even though we've of a textile it's more of a description of marker and sort of the marketing of this textile and other question. i often get from folks is like well, you know, people who weren't enslaved were -- cloth. and the answer is yes, so-called -- cloth or some. so i gave talk yesterday at the concord museum and it wasn't about this topic, but mentioned this talk in their talk. and what one of the people did some talked about irish cloth in irish cloth was of the same quality -- cloth. it's just a messaging thing. so -- cloth is like an umbrella. but in this middle of this, i want to focus on slave narratives which enslaved individuals or formerly enslaved individuals make to -- cloth.

booker t washington shared the harrowing experience of wearing an uncomfortable flex shirt. emphasize in the enduring physical discomfort of two of these textiles. harriet jacobs emphasized role of clothing in marking her identity as an enslaved person. confederate tubman its specific yearly allowances, highlighting the coarse hand of the clothing. so these are the three individuals that i dismissed and of course, that's booker t washington on the left, harriet in the middle, and frederick douglass the right. all right, -- cloth was durable at the cost of it was made to be long given that enslaved people were allowed at these textiles once or at twice a year. booker t washington included in especially long, harrowing description of wearing an unfinished linen shirt in this

autobiography from slavery. and i just want to read this quote in its entirety, because i think it's really interesting the most train audio that was forced to endure as a slave boy, however, was the wearing of a flex in the portion of virginia i lived. it was it was common to use flex as part of the clothing for the slaves. that part of the flex of the flex was for our clothing was made was largely to which of course, was the cheapest and roughest part. i can scarcely imagine any torture except perhaps the pulling of a tooth that is equal to that caused by putting a new flex shirt for the first time. that's quite a statement. one one wouldn't necessarily assume that an enslaved boys most train ordeal would revolve around the comfort of his clothing. yet this passage reveals daily sartorial indignities enslaved people were subjected to the uncomfortable flex shirt for.

ms. childhood was a grisly reminder of his former status as an enslaved person. in the next individual. i want to talk about is harriet jacobs, orphaned at harriet jacobs learned to read and so from her enslaver margaret hana blow after her deaf jacobs was given to her three year old niece's father dr. james newcomb effectively became her enslaver her time with the north was marked by neglect and mistreatment, illustrated by the lindsey woolsey dress she despised, considering it a symbol of her enslavement. so she writes, i have a vivid recollection of the lindsey woolsey dress given me every winter by ms. flint. how i hated it. it was one of the badges of slavery. lindsey woolsey is another textile that have to see in reference to enslaved people. textile nomenclature is really tricky in the 18th and 19th centuries.

sometimes you think it's a thing, then it's not really a thing. i'm looking at the name. you would assume that it's a linen wool blend and sometimes it was, but sometimes it wasn't so complicated but anyhow it's a textile cheap made textile kind of rough often associated with enslaved people. this passage from her book in the life of a slave on this course, a realization of clothing. its role in working her as an enslaved, particularly the discomfort with ruffled fabrics like nancy will see the suitcases, how enslaved individuals asserted their humanity against oppressive social and legal codes. the use of materials like -- cloth emphasize their plight symbolizing their efforts, confine and define them through sartorial norms. so the last individual that i want to talk about tonight is frederick. skipping ahead.

so most enslaved people receive either allotments of -- cloth from which they were responsible for hand sewing their own clothing or -- cloth readymade garments, typically once or twice a year. frederick douglass reported that a field hand received a yearly allowance of two course linen shirts, one pair fleeting trousers, one jacket, one pair of trousers for winter made, of course, of one pair of stockings and one pair of shoes. children too young to work. receive two course linen shirts per year according to douglass, when their clothes were out, they went naked until the next year. so either they receive sort of shapeless -- cloth garments and he sort of tailored them to bodies are often they receive bolts of fabric that they would cancel into garments and also i'm not going to talk about shoes and top, but i think shoes for enslaved people was a really interesting topic. often shoes for enslaved people

didn't have a left or right, which is a sort of simple, often grogan's. you see a lot of reference of romans in the documents, but that's another project to someone else to do. it's interesting. i'm not going to do, but someone else should do a project on shoes for enslaved people and also self recommend might do a talk here later this year actually does talk about shoes in this book plantation, a material history of slavery. in any case, frederick douglass highlighted the limited clothing provisions for enslaved individuals underscoring the connection between the history of textile production and the experiences of enslaved and formerly enslaved people. so the second half of this talk is going to focus on a specific type of -- cloth that was manufactured not far from here in lomax uses. and you see references to law throughout documents testimonies by formerly enslaved people some out the rest of the stock is

going to sort of uncover history often when i give this talk, people are like, where is little massachusetts? but you are because we're in the greater boston area. so, you know, you don't need this line, but often when i give this talk, people are confused exactly where low massachusetts is, but we're sort of in the general area of low some. these are my own research images from a research trip has been the low, by the way. oh, okay. just i can skip this slide to well, the remainder of this talk will focus on formerly enslaved people's recollections about more cloth enslaved and formerly enslaved individual referred to this textile as laws are low cloth named after city in massachusetts. these fabrics were predominantly produced even when the textiles were manufactured elsewhere. they retained the name laws

showcasing the prominence of this model of american industrialization. the city of law was named francis cabot law, an industrialist and scion of the prominent law family who founded a successful textile in waltham, massachusetts, were all right. now. though, francis capitol hill passed soon after this, his model was replicated by stay in the city, named after him giving rise to law in massachusetts, the affordable textiles associate with textiles made in his namesake namesake came to be known as laws or little cloth. and just a point that i make in this first paragraph that i think is really interesting even when textiles were manufactured on plantations, they were still whole laws. so that name really stuck. it sort of a proprietary eponym like kleenex or or xerox.

again. preaching to the choir here. but, you know, the laws were known for diverse members, including eminent, such as poets amy lowell james, russell lowell, clergyman. charles russell lowell, senior. robert robert spence. lowell civil war hero. charles russell, the third federal judge. john and the controversial harvard university president lawrence law, whose great uncle was forensic francis cabot law. how many times going to see lowell in one. i just think this is really interesting, you know, in this part of the world, the boston area, when you hear name lowell, you're associated with this prominent england family of philanthropists. you know, scholars and politicians. but in the case of textiles in the american south, it's associated this textile that was

manufactured in massachusetts, even even it wasn't even manufactured in massachusetts manufacturing in another new england town or manufactured on the plantation. it was still called laws hollow cloth, which i think is really fascinating. so this research is from a book manuscript them in the process, editing, not sure when it's coming out. stay tuned on the front, but it. the majority of the chapter is sourced the wpa narratives which are interviews of formerly enslaved. that happened in 1930s. so the wpa narratives while exploring the historical significance of laws and local of woman one illuminating source to address this inquiry is the wpa narratives. despite their pitfalls, the wpa narratives are a collection of interviews of formerly enslaved people compiled by brooks progressive ministration through the 1930s. however, it's important to

acknowledge and navigate the challenges associated with these narratives so they are rife problems, including concerns the accuracy of recollections from 60 years earlier, the use of white interviewers who are sometimes the sons and daughters of enslavers, grotesque transcriptions of black speech patterns. any illusion that the interviews were transcribed verbatim. we know when they were heavily mediated. nonetheless delving into these narratives provides valuable insights into the perceptions, experiences of those who refer to the textiles as laws and sets life under broader historical context surrounding this unique aspect of american industrialization. and just to repeat the point that i made in that paragraph i think it's a really rich and important like this chapter is shaped around the wpa narratives, but we do have to read them critically. i think when you read them, you get impression that you're getting a transcription, an interview that's, not exactly

what they are. they were sort of shortened and clarified and made more authentic. one experience i had when i was reading one of the interviews is i grew up in louisiana and looking at the speech patterns, i was like, something is kind of off here. this doesn't sound like how my great grandmother, who was alive in the 1930s, might have spoken. and i did a deep dive like a v and like african-american syntax, like things were added, things are changed and altered. so i think it's an important source. it's great, it's free online. you can access it you don't it's not behind a paywall but read critically that's it let's delve into one of them. i'm sure starting to hear some

of the narratives because some of them recorded. absolutely. yes. so they're recordings, which is great because you can hear voices of enslaved people in. these recordings, there's a transcriptions in this screenshot right here is a screenshot of the actual transcription. they scan the actual pages, which is important because sometimes there's like marginal or like details at the very top of page that's important to us. they've been what's the word, ocr scan. so like key keyword, searchable, scanned and also there's photographs too. the photographs at the beginning of this slide sorry, this one and this one are sometimes that the subject's photographed. so they're photographs too. yeah. good point. yeah. so it's not just the interviews it's photographs. recordings as well, which are also available online to the library of congress.

so the first person that i want to talk about is charlie davenport. charlie davenport and others on the plantation where he was enslaved war, rough local off shirts and don't know where they were. lindsey, was he pants in heavy cowhide shoes which were made in three sizes without, a specific right or left shape so they can be worn on either foot. so this is the, quote, a small little shirts. it was a rough toe sticking in the winter, said lindsey. we'll see parents. and here be cowhide shoes. they was made three sizes big little and medium what no right or left they were sort of club suits so you could wear them on either foot a lot of interesting things in that passage that's important again you see a reference to lindsey we'll see it's another textile that's associated with enslaved people.

i talked a little bit about shoes it's not my focus, but in my research it comes up over and over again. shoes for enslaved people were always uncomfortable so. they're always described as being rough and in many cases particularly like in the deep south bikini side of the us in the caribbean or a place like brazil enslaved didn't wear shoes, but in places like new england the we see the kind of weather we're having today like you have to wear shoes but enslaved people weren't even the best shoes but also there's of course a reference to low cloth and often when there's references to low cloth. there's always a description of its quality in this case is described as is a synonym of it. and this passage is still section, which is a linen textile that's made from the refuse, like the good strands of linen are used and in the refuses minutes it's sacking and actually in that booker t washington quote earlier in the presentation he doesn't use the

word tulsa but it was probably tulsa that he's describing. he describes it as being flecks. so here again, low cloth is associated with discomfort and shoes are described as awkward. so the second figured that i want to talk about is james lucas. james lucas recalled when i was a little chap, i used to wear horse water, coarse little cloth shirts on the weekdays, and they was long had big collars when the seams with the sides would show through. when when you got big enough to around the big house and go to town clean rough clothes. the parents were white. lindsay wilsey and the shirts rough cotton that was woven on the plantations in the winter the sewing women's made the heavy clothes and knit wool stacks for us again so we see another reference to little cloth in this passage. we also see a reference to matthew woolsey.

that's another project someone else to do, looking looking at all the references to lindsey woolsey. i don't do it in this chapter, but i think it's it's worth noting but also a what's also interesting is that he describes winter clothing so so he says in the winter the song winds made heavy clothes and it will sass for us the women's work when lindsay was in dresses and long leggings like the soldiers wear this was long narrow wool cloth and it wrapped around and around the legs and at the top with a string. so he's describing sort of winter attire in a passage. and so the last figure that i want to talk about tonight is, ebenezer brown. ebenezer brown was a man who was who had been enslaved as a child. and amy amy county, mississippi, in the last of slavery. in his interview record memories, its enslaver william

mcdowell in brown following emancipation, brown and his family and others stayed on the same plantation as sharecropper. though lacking formal education, he and others taught themselves to read and write. so let me just read the passage. when it rained, the women had to go in the loom house and work they made all the jeans in those in cloth right there in diatom that would copperas and work. then women could sell pretty cloth that cloth never wore out in them days. so women were whoops and what was called poor morals the way folks done it. and so the slave women again. so i think this passage is really important because he makes a reference to laws and in the same passage he describes the textiles being produced on the plantation. so even when textiles were produced on the plantation, they were still referred to as laws. another really interesting

detail in this passage is that these textiles were tied with natural like copper were compresses in the dye and that's what it's a modern but they use maple bark and other things to bang these -- cloths. also i think that last sentence really interesting. well, the second to last sentence is interesting in the last sentence is interesting. so these -- class are often described as being uncomfortable but they're also durable. they had to be durable because they had to last for at six months, sometimes even longer. but that last sentence is really interesting to how how he describes enslaved women wearing, hoop skirts, what was referred to as bar models, which is really interesting and we think about you know ebony so brown was a child during the last days of slavery, probably the late 1850s, 1860s. this is the of the sort of hoop

skirt silhouette, the cage crinoline look, and the slave women replicated look, which is described in that last sentence, so much so that there was a particular type of cage, crumlin crinoline, that was popular in the british isles in amongst british royal family who vacation to bar model so these this type shortened crinoline cage crinoline cowboy morals. so i think it's interesting that this formerly enslaved man remembered this fashion trend from the sixties and was able to recall it in 1930s and just shows circulation of ideas about fashion amongst the slave people in the mid-19th century. you know just we did lessons in inclement weather the women worked the loom house producing a variety of textiles on the plantation and transforming textiles into more vibrant fabrics using natural dyes and wharton's.

so in conclusion these narratives highlight the profound connection between clothing and the identity of enslaved people, underscoring how textiles not only served as practical garments, but also markers of and status discomfort of these textiles like the garments described by booker t washington harriet jacobs and frederick douglass became symbolic of the daily challenges and sartorial indignities faced enslaved people. some -- clothes or better low clothes produced in lower massachusetts. massachusetts time the experiences of enslaved to a broader history of american textile production and capitalism. so i'm going to get in there. feel free to give me a follow. i'm a big proponent of social media. i share a lot of my research on instagram and facebook, less so on twitter. these days, but yeah, thank you so much.

so we have time for some questions for and i just ask you wait till i come to you at the because even though i can hear you in person we want to make sure we capture all the questions that are asked and make sense with you. hey, i was just wondering how long these kinds of textiles persist after the end of slavery. yeah, i mean, that's a great question. i mean, a lot of these companies sort of shifted their production from -- cloth to other things, like they produced rough tiles on carpets. so textiles immediately these companies didn't immediately crumble after the civil war. they just sort of reconfigured their markets and it wasn't so like the 1920s, then it started to really sort nosedive but yeah that's a great question. they they continue making other

things, other forms of textiles they weren't necessarily servicing enslavers any south, but they're producing other forms of rough textiles. i think somewhat. you were mentioning that of these cloths were made here massachusetts in the mills, the similar cloths were made on the plantations. and places. how are they making them with hand looms, industrial looms. what did they have? they were hand, you know, of course, were producing cotton. and so they were producing their own homespun textiles right there on, the plantation. they did they were of lesser quality than sort of industrial textile production. but they were producing non textiles on panels, on plantations, know typically at night or the weekends or days off. they were producing textiles. and if there was some plantations that have a loom,

houses that still were standing. this is so fascinating did was local north esk especially the end of slavery was it exclusively for slaves or did the market even before that the marketing go poor whites to like farmers and such or was it exclusively marketed as slave cloth? good question. yeah, let me think out loud before a response. i've gone through the records. some of the local companies and you rarely see anywhere to slavery or, enslaved people. i haven't looked through sort of the records of like traveling agents, which i think you might be able to find were references to the enslaved people. so think it was just a marketing thing. so i think you're absolutely

right that sometimes -- cloth ended up on the of poor white people or, native people, etc. because i'm using the wpa narratives is solely the testimony of formerly enslaved people. that's why i am focusing enslaved people. but i think easily someone could sort of do a different project. i mentioned someone that i talked to last night who mentioned irish cloth. that was of a similar quality. yeah. so yeah. like the the little folks rarely talked about slavery in the records. occasionally in a city directory when they have the listing of all firms in massachusetts ids and all the things that they make, you'll see -- cloth and that's been the only reference i've been able to find in the law records to slavery. you know that answer your question actually.

so lindsey woolsey was the fabric that was made by the colonia era people and this area and they made it their handlers did the product itself change when it went to the mills. so i can't tell you much about lindsey woolsey. it's something that comes up over and over again in the documents. so it's a textile that's associated with enslaved people. and i think the assumption is based on the name is that it's a linen wool berlin. but that's not always true like that. the names given to textiles often don't reflect the composition and the weave. it's really it's really tricky, i'm sure. sometimes it was, but it often wasn't. so yeah, it's not a textile that i spent a lot of time research on. i just it's something that comes up over and over again in my research and when see it i always highlighted. so maybe in the second version

or a different book article i'll delve into like the history of lindsey mills or someone else, someone or one of my students like this study, the history of lindsey woolsey. but your question is really important. it's something that needs to continue of thinking about. if i ask a question real quick. sure. as a questioner, you talked about a dearth of the records here or in lowell, speaking about enslaved people. but do you have a sense if enslaved people had an idea of what was whether a city, a family, a company, what was their kind of visualization, along with the word aside from just clothing that i don't know, because i'm working with these documents, none of the documents ever say are one and none of the interviewer interviewees ever say we often wore low clove. my enslavers said low cloth came from a city in massachusetts.

i think it was just a name that was associated. the text that they wrote, textiles that they were given. like i don't necessarily think, oh what's the history of the band, the company like, you know, when did xerox form and i just know like when i need to get something copy and i need to go to xerox machine and you know what i mean? i think it was the same enslaved people was just the name that was given the textiles that they use. i, i would love to find a document where an enslaved person says like, i know a little something about lowell, massachusetts and the person i mean, person to answer that question would be the scholar at amherst whose name i forgetting. yes. because he's interested in the african-american population in lower massachusetts, where elizabeth been trained. she's a professor at amherst college. so she's interested in the experience. african-americans in lowell, massachusetts this research is more so on. formerly enslaved people, the american south, who make reference little in testimonies.

so thank it was really interesting i mentioned sumptuary laws and the sort of how they were actually ineffective oftentimes in exerting that control they were built to do and. i'm wondering if you have an example of how or like how was it ineffective or like did enslaved people not wear the the way they were supposed to or sort how how is that manifest? oh, absolutely. i mean, i'm thinking sometimes it was unspoken rules were broken, unspoken, sartorial rules, like someone dressing outside of their station. and sometimes in the case it was legislation, people were breaking the law by wearing these textiles. and so the two examples that i'm thinking is related to george

washington. george washington, of course, and slave many enslaved people. and there's a document she said, sorry. it might be thomas jefferson. i'm not sure. i'm going to give you the example because i don't want to get into that's really important. don't want to mess that up. i want to give you another example because i don't want to mess up the reference. i'm thinking about another aspect. my research, which is on head wraps and there was legislation in louisiana that legislated that women of color had to wear head wraps. and of course, that was ineffective like some women of color warhead reps because. it's a long afro diasporic tradition that predates, you know, the transatlantic slave trade. so in the case of new orleans, the late 18th century, early 19th century, you see examples of, women of color wearing head

wraps. and you also examples of women of color not wearing head ribs. despite this legislation, which is often referred to as the ten year law, you may have heard to refer to it before. so that's an example of sort of sumptuary lobbying flaunted by free and enslaved women of color. related question, which is, i think outside the scope of your particular research, but this conversation's making me wonder whether you know or the narratives reflected after the civil war and during reconstruction and thereafter, like in formerly enslaved people, you know, would have seen the clothing they were had been forced to wear as sign of their enslavement as you describe whether they reflect your you know anything how their clothing changed during reconstruction and after that. absolutely yeah. i mean, it's a moment where americans were able had full control over the self-presentation of most

enslaved people and some control over the self-presentation. it's rare that, you know, every single thing that person was wearing at every single moment of their life was dictated by their enslaver. so it was always a negotiation during it over slavery. but of course in the reconstruct asian area, enslaved people had formerly enslaved people sorry, have full control over their. so you see more examples of expressing their individuality, taking pleasure in their own bodies by buying fine clothing. you know, it's a marker of their transition from being enslaved to a free person so absolutely. and you see it in photography if you if you at photography in the late 19th century or formerly enslaved people they sort of sort of express their freedom sartorially through their self-presentation. i have sort of two questions. so one is about the kind of rhetorical history of of long cloth. i was wondering if you could

shed any light about when cloth sort of started to stick as a term for this particular kind of cloth, how quickly happened sort of after establishment of law? and was it just a sort of like volume? the volume of textiles that were being produced at this particular place? and then the other question i have is just a curiosity about what other archives you looked at to do your research. yeah, i mean, that's a great question about the term law and like the history of that term. when did it come about in? how long did it stick? you know, law was founded in a i think 1820s. and i mean, i'm using the wpa narratives, and those folks were typically, during the era, slavery, and they were elderly by the 1930s. so i imagine by the 1850s,

1860s, like the name had stuck just these cheaply made textiles were associated with little even buying them in 19th century. and you know. of course prior to that there were different terms that were used for textiles, for enslaved people like guinea claw for slave claw for planes or a whole can give you a whole list of different terms that were used for. textiles for enslaved people. so it's kind of a mid 19th century term because of course by 1865 and there's a and things changing, etc., it's like a mid-19th century term. also it's geographically specific because when i talk to historians sometimes like, oh yeah, like i see references to old newspapers. like there were, there were ads out for in travel agents selling little cloth and jeans, and all these other textiles of so-called plantation goods. but then in other places, you

don't see any references cloth. so the agents from law were to the very specific places in the american south, but they weren't going so. oh and it was just like a question sorry. oh yeah. for the specific research or just in general. well, this was specifically for this related to law. yeah. yes, i went to law. and i went to the center for law history also, consulted with the american textile museum, which is defunct, but its records went to cornell university, the wpa narrative, which is essentially the library of congress. and something that's happened to any other archives for this research. probably forgetting one or two archives, but that's sort of the main archive. so that's happened to have. i thank you for your talk very

were there exceptions for holidays or for the sabbath where folks were able to dress more individualistic? we or in more colorful clothing? that's my question. the idea just mentioned as an aside that i recently read the new biography of frederick douglass by david blight and douglass was born in rural maryland. during the time that you would have been in 1830s, 1840s, but eventually his way to new bedford and then to lynn before resettling in new york. so you would think that in his writings he would have been familiar with lowell's quite possibly of rural maryland at least was one place where the term was used. but he was up here in massachusetts would certainly have been aware of lowell as a city very close. lynn, where he lived for a number years.

and just to add on to the comment, he also spent time scotland in in particularly dundee in that part of scotland also produce textiles for enslaved people. so that's another sort slavery textile connection associated with frederick douglass. yeah, but the first part of your question is really important to mr. so on days off nights on sundays which is the day often people didn't work. they did have more freedom over the self presentation. and if you're interested in that specific aspect of experience of enslaved people, i would suggest the work of stephanie, who has a chapter in the book called something, is in the title of the book. i'm the exact title, but she has a chapter in that book about parties that enslaved people with thoreau on the margins of plantation grounds on days off. and you describe sometimes during slave clothing are like

putting outfits aside to wear to these so absolutely. thank you this has been really interesting. i have two questions. the first is, did technically own this fabric and clothing that they were wearing. and secondly, i guess i'm thinking the book by laura edwards edwards. i'm forgetting the title but basically the that basically all that all that she owned. you know, the clothing that she the other question is i'm curious what to the rags once the clothing was worn out, what did how did they recycle this fabric? so thank you. yeah.

and i think in first part of your question, referring to thomas, the book about all the security and for edwards, i would have said that also owning just the ownership of fabric, how interesting. yeah, i'd like to find that reference. yeah. but the second part of your question was about i'm sorry, recycling. recycling. thank you. yes, absolutely. i mean, this is the century. textiles are really expensive so you know, there was no zara or h&m when when the clothing was unavailable or it was recycled and turned into something. so some made cotton paper. it was they weren't using it? they weren't using wood pulp. oh, they papermaking very depended on rags that they cleaned pulp to turn turn into a

quality paper which was acid free. absolutely. that's one way the trade so used for paper sometimes it was recycled into quilting but yeah clothing just simply thrown away. it was valuable and know. one of my goals in life is at some point not now because i'm too. but to create an exhibition of clothing worn by enslaved people. i mean the aunt in norval exemplars, but, you know, there's examples that are here and they're across collections across country. but i mean, this clothing was worn out and when it was worn out, was used for turn into a rag or turn. it's a paper or made into a quilt or. i think about the the scene from beloved where. she's getting married and she has to sort of make a wedding dress so she grabs a rare from this and then turns at this wagons and.

a wedding dress like textiles were very valuable and they were recycled and were used and sort of worn and that's one of the reasons why there aren't many examples of clothing worn by enslaved people in museum collections because they were used. and then once they were used, were considered valuable in museums when collecting them. so it's only either it was forgotten about. like i'm thinking of a pair of jeans found in a farm or sharecropper's cabin in north carolina with. someone forgot them and someone discovered them. in the 20th century or there was some of effort between or some perceived effect between an enslaver and an enslaved person and held on to something because they felt some sentimentality towards this formerly enslaved person. those are the two reasons why things the worn by enslaved people are preserved in museum collections. thank you for the wonderful

discussion. you mentioned several examples in the wpa statements, people saying i used walls. they were very uncomfortable. i didn't see any examples of i was able to modify it. i was able to kind of work it in so it was less uncomfortable. did you have any did you find any examples of that kind of modification or do you think that was suppressed either in the recordings that are i think the example that i would point out is the booker t washington references, but he doesn't just say specifically low class. he's talking about flex art like toe, but he's just to go back think he describes it as being very uncomfortable and that he gave it to his brother and his brother broke in shirt and made it more comfortable. so whenever i see references to low cloth is always described as being coarse, even uncomfortable. it was durable, which is a good thing but it was always

uncomfortable. so i think the way that people made it more comfortable just breaking in and where it, you know, i'm going back to your question now that i thought about that my response to that, i got flustered and forgot it. it's an enslaved woman named charlotte who was enslaved. george washington at mount vernon and somehow she acquired a gown and a neighbor saw her this gown and thought that she stole this gown from her and wrote a letter to. george washington complaining that when you're enslaved people named charlotte, who was a seamstress, by the way, stole dress. and that's an example of an enslaved person sort of stepping outside of and in sartorial know she was wearing a gown that was considered too fine for her station and in fact she modified the gown to by adding embellishments so on top of that she stole the gown and she added to it and so that's another example and you can find a document online because

everything related to george washington is scanned and available. hi. i'm sort of an in kind of the circular nature here of as these mills became more profitable and they're more of them here, there was more need for cotton, which, of course, made the plantation system get bigger. and then i was there at some point where the people all say, hey, we just created a market for ourselves. now that gotten more plantations, we are more enslaved people. now we can make the for them. is there any history of them. so making a corporate decision like where did the whole cloth come from? how do make the decision to send this down to the south? yeah, i mean, those relationships develop between sales agents who are employed by firms and enslavers in the south so that there was a degree circularity what i would love to find is someone actually articulated explicitly. so i can quote it.

it might happen you can you connect those dots by looking at like where loe club ended up and like so many enslaved people make references to law, like obviously there was large amounts of it being shipped to the american south. so that's true. what you just described. but what i want is someone actually stated, instead of us connecting the dots, i would love to find that exact are higher up at a law firm say like oh big market for us is that the american south we sell like cloth to enslavers they never quite say it. like i said, the only reference i see is in city directories where occasionally there's a passing reference -- cloth, you know, again, sephora.com is a historian who has teased out the connection a little bit more, looking at the records of piecemeal manufacturing in many of those financial are in baker library at harvard and you also looked at the private correspondence of the owners of that mill and they do talk about

going to charleston going to savannah, going to atlanta and making sales there. hi, my friend. thank you for this. thank you for the and for this discussion. i was wondering how how you view films about slavery and if see them as being like sorry sartorially factual or and i'm sure it depends on where it takes place and whatnot. but i was looking at 12 years a slave and their clothes your discussion made me look at the image and the clothes like very billowy and they actually very soft and quite comfortable in a way. but i don't know. but it just made me wonder how you view films and if you look at the clothing and if you find it to be accurate, i am obsessed with costuming in period films from the era of slavery. i could teach a class on it. i would love to at some point see a a slave as a really great example. the cast customer for the film

is patricia davis. she did a lot of important research. i thinking about like with lupita nyong'o is wearing what like all characters are wearing. so she did a great job sort of. so let me back up a little bit. the role of a customer is different. the role of a fashion historian. historian, because as a historian, i think we're very much interested in like accuracy are, at least being in dialog with accuracy there's a conversation with empiricism that happens with a customer. the same is true, but also they have creative license and. also with a customer there's no room subtlety because you have a few seconds to look at a character and you have to make a snap decision about this person's slave. this person is free person. this is an enslaver, you know what i mean? so i don't judge a customer. the way i judge a historian. and so they're not always

accurate, but i think that's okay because they're telling the story and you have like an hour and a half to tell it. so there can't be any nuance you know, we have a novel you have pages and pages that like develop a character or you know a historical figure. then you have all these documents and all these details about life. they sort of come up with the idea about them. but with a customer it has to be sort of an immediate sort of visual story that's being told that said, like, i'm still obsessed with customers. like, i just think it's a really interesting profession and favorite pastime was partnership. the late patricia davis was no longer around parties to isabel, who did wicked, and hamilton and west side story like him ruthy carter, who's amazing customer and black customer, won the academy award. seren davis, who did. sorry to bother you. that's not a film about slavery, but still interesting costuming

wise. so i think costume is a really interesting there were important films would say beloved. i think the costuming in beloved is really interesting i forget who did the costuming for beloved the root the roots reboot. i think it's really interesting thinking about costuming, what. 12 years a slave? you know. it's going more. will you say, uncomfortable? there's definitely a tactile piece of it. should we think something like stiff, like canvas. it's rough, like burlap, something like cloth. how would that kind of feel in your hand when you first got a little. yeah, i think that's the right analogy, i think burlap is probably the closest thing, you know, i reached out to customer

who had some of -- cloth and when i got it, it felt a little too soft. i think now we're used to places like restoration and like these places that sort of play around with this, like agricultural. and so there's these, these textiles, but they don't quite get at it because they're sort of broken in and stuff like when people describe them, it's going to be scratchy and uncomfortable needing to be broken in. so these are really rough and uncomfortable textiles and there is that sort of a uncomfortable, tactile experience wearing them. you it's just a think, which is what you're sort of referring, which comes from denim. so it also comes like local with the with a geographic reference with it. the specific thing that makes me comes up is prison wear now.

and idea of how we dress prisoners. and we have a certain vision, for example, of the black and white stripes, but we don't have a name for that cloth, to my knowledge. and yet what you're describing is basically functional cloth that marks for their station, their status is so sorry i lost my thought. you know, it's funny that you bring up denim, i think that's another interesting textile thinking about textiles manufactured, i won't say only enslaved people, of course enslaved people did wear, but other laborers, other working class individuals, whether they were white native or black or other. so yeah, totally. in fact, i think another speaker in this series, emma mclendon, is going to talk about denim. right? so come back for the denim talk talk. and also me and emma, we're in documentary, a pbs documentary

on called riveted. so yeah, it's interesting to think about. we'll be screening the riveted here too. but before that yeah. oh, absolutely. well, you get to see again. but yes, these days people wore off the jeans like in this if you there's a reference to jeans somewhere this talk in any there's a there is a reference to jean here is in the second line they made all the jeans and lolz so denim was worn by enslaved people. i think you're right to make that sort of connection between local off and denim. and also the second part of your question was about prison. yeah, it's funny you brought that up because i gave a talk at yoga and. the person who invited me was like, oh, like we have something in our collection that is relevant to your research. and when she pulled it out, i looked at it, and i was like this. i think this actually might be a prisoner's uniform in a garment

worn by an enslaved person, because that's the way it was. like it had a number on it. it didn't have the stripes like you're describing. i think you're also right to make a connection between clothing worn by prisoners particularly in a place like georgia, because i mean those prisoners would have been formerly enslaved or at least people african descent. so you know too important to important reference did you meet there. you know you started off with an association between a place low mass and the cloth. but are you also suggesting that the word morphed so that that law might have simply become a synonym for course? and anything that was of course, was called a law without any reference to where it was made. in short, yes, but i think that law had such a lock on market that even when textiles weren't made in lowell, massachusetts,

people associated the name with the textile. so i think just to go back to an earlier question about like were enslaved people actually thinking about the city of lowell in outside of boston when they were when they said lawlor law cluff i suspect they weren't, but i do think it's important the name that so something about the thing that was something that happening in law got attached to this type of textile and the name stuck to the point that when people were interviewed in the 1930s over and over again, they say we were low flow, we were locals. the name stuck not only that, it's like i mean, these folks were in the eighties and nineties when they were being interviewed and the that they remember the name of a textile is really i think is noteworthy noteworthy. it's i'm reminded in collinsville connecticut is a manufacturing plant that some of the first machetes sold all over

south america, which was a pretty essential tool for traversing the jungles. but in a visit to that facility which they said all over south america, the machete just got be called a collagen for collinsville men in fact, shoot machete. it was just became like the kleenex or xerox. but my other question are you familiar with the term muslin and has is interchangeable with the -- cloth type and does that word go back that far. i visited the loom room the park service has in lowell and i think i heard the term muslin being used as a course.

of cotton fabric that was sold to the south, manufactured for cotton, that grown there and shipped north and would the market bring people in? hello, mills just renamed -- cloth muslin and marketed that way. so the term low flow for -- cloth was rarely used by the local manufacturers themselves. it was a name that was attached to the textiles coming out of law, but to go specifically to your question about muslin which i think is really interesting, i think the term muslin is older little cloth. i think it goes back as as a has a older history. and i think just thinking about etymology, it might be associated with muslim, maybe cottons from the levant or orient, but i imagine that muslims were similar to the whole cloth of thin sort of cottons and linens or cotton

linen. so the fact that they use the word muslin is strange because could have been something akin to a muslin from different places. use different terms. it could be -- cloth, low cloth, muslins, slave cloth, kente cloth. there are a lot of different that were used. to presentation of so is it is it accurate to say that the rise of local would have would have. well let me cast the you mentioned like low cost low cloth was made from a different grade of so i'm assuming that this was like a result of the industrialization that was going on and little would it not the case that there was like such a degree of quality in cloth when the cloth was made a plantation like. so so in other words on a

plantation, would there have been more of a chance that everyone's cloth more the same versus? the cloth that came from a factory let me see if i understand correctly. you're saying that there wasn't there wouldn't be a difference in quality on a on plantation made textiles as opposed to textiles made in low. i guess i'm assumption that because they were separating out the different you know the different grades of cotton and that was kind of where i was going begin with like did that separation come about because of the industrialized of textile or? was this just kind of happenstance, you know, so if it if it came about because of industrialization, assuming that little cloth would have been thing, because now we use this grade of cotton for this cloth and we use the better grades of cotton for the other cloth or you know, was that just not even really kind of the logic was going on so so you're saying they weren't necessarily thinking about manufacturing

textiles for enslaved people. they were just thinking quality, right? yeah. i mean, i think they were responding a market. yeah. and so enslavers needed to clothe enslaved people and so in certain places in the american south, not everywhere but in certain places, places they had to build relationships with low agents. they, for a number of decades got their cloth from from lowell, massachusetts. and answer the part of your question about. plantation made textiles and like difference in quality in. the wpa narratives it's often described as being somewhat of high quality. it never wearing out. and i think, you know, these textiles were still rough. you know, they didn't have access to all the equipment and dyes and like things to soften the textiles, they were still rough. but i think what people are to is that they were meet with care and so they're describing sort of the labor and care that when it's manufacturing these textiles though in some ways they might have been rough.

and in the examples of plantation made textiles that i've seen in terms of quality, they are there is a roughness to them. so yeah, i think that's the sort of difference between made and an industrial made textiles and we would do very professor square, thanks everybody for coming