In response to the original question I believe the question is too broad for a reasonable quality of research results. For example -
* which country? In the US in the 19 century would have been seen differenences between East and West coasts. In Europe tremendous differences exist between countries. Do you include China? * As one reply stated "middle class" is a bit vague. For instance a 19 century farmer's wife might have very different clothing habits (no pun intended!) from a city dwelling bank employee's wife. * I think "clothing" is also too broad. Perhaps no of pairs of shoes? I don't want to discourage you, it sounds a very interesting research project. Please tell us how you get on. The comment on wills is very interesting - but remember that the laws for wills change by country and over time. In 15 cent England women often had no real possessions or money of their own. Everything, including the woman herself, was owned by the man! B 2014-10-09 4:27 GMT+02:00 Heather Rose Jones <heather.jo...@earthlink.net>: > Wills are often a great place to research this type of question. Unlike a > trousseau, they tend to reflect possessions at a random point in life > (rather than a planned-for life transition). There are a lot of > researchers studying clothing represented in wills in various times and > places, so you might be able to find a good selection across time. I sorry > not to have specific authors or publications to recommend, but that might > give you keywords to work from. > > Heather > > On Oct 8, 2014, at 4:16 PM, Cascio Michael wrote: > > > Hello, > > I'm trying to look into the size of the average middle-class woman's > wardrobe through the centuries. Finding advice on the trousseau is easier, > at least after the advent of ladies' magazines but I'm most interested in > how many dresses a middle class woman would own. How common was the one > dress for every day and one for Sunday with a multitude of aprons? Do > women start having more dresses after the advent of cheap cotton? Since > the list covers a large span of history I'm hoping for answers from many > centuries. > > > Cassandra > > -------------------------------------------- > > > > _______________________________________________ > > h-costume mailing list > > h-costume@mail.indra.com > > http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume > > > _______________________________________________ > h-costume mailing list > h-costume@mail.indra.com > http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume > _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
