Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T18:02:55.188Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“A Church-going People are a Dress-loving People”: Clothes, Communication, and Religious Culture in Early America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Leigh Eric Schmidt
Leigh Eric Schmidt
Affiliation:
assistant professor of religious studies in the University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

When the early nineteenth-century pastor William Henry Foote reflected upon the eighteenth-century Christians who were his forebears in North Carolina and Virginia, he paused at one point to make an observation about the clothes they wore. “A church-going people are a dress-loving people”, he said; “The sanctity and decorum of the house of God are inseparably associated with a decent exterior; and the spiritual, heavenly exercises of the inner man are incompatible with a defiled and tattered, or slovenly mein. All regular Christian assemblies cultivate a taste for dress, and none more so than the hardy pioneer settlers of Upper Carolina, and the valley and mountains of Virginia” As they readied themselves for worship, Foote elaborated, the faithful “put on their best and carefully preserved dress” in preparation for “their approach to the King of Kings”.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 58 , Issue 1 , March 1989 , pp. 36 - 51
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1989

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Foote, William Henry, Sketches of North Carolina, Historical and Biographical, Illustrative of the Principles of a Portion of her Early Settlers (New York, 1846), p. 203.Google Scholar

2. Miles, Margaret R., Image as Insight: Visual Understanding in Western Christianity and Secular Culture (Boston, 1985), p. 95.Google Scholar

3. Stout, Harry S., The New England Soul: Preaching and Religious Culture in Colonial New England (New York, 1986), pp. 3, 7;Google ScholarBonomi, Patricia U., Under the Cope of Heaven: Religion, Society, and Politics in Colonial America (New York, 1986), pp. 3–4.Google Scholar See also Stout, Harry S., “Religion, Communications, and the Ideological Origins of the American Revolution,” William and Mary Quarterly 34 (1977): 519–541.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. Isaac, Rhys, The Transformation of Virginia, 1740–1790 (Chapel Hill, 1982), esp. pp. 43–44, 323–3571Google ScholarUpton, Dell, Holy Things and Profane: Anglican Parish Churches in Colonial Virginia (Cambridge, Mass., 1986).Google Scholar For another seminal work on nonverbal elements in the religious culture of early America, see Ludwig, Allan I., Graven Images: New England Stonecaruing and its Symbols, 1650–181 (Middletown, Conn., 1966).Google Scholar For some comments on dress in American religious history, see Greven, Philip, The Protestant Temperament: Patterns of Child-rearing, Religious Experience, and the Self in Early Americ (New York, 1977), pp. 45–46, 60, 284–286, 296;Google ScholarYoder, Don, “Sectarian CostumeResearch in the United States,” in Forms upon the Frontier: Folklife and Folk Arts in the United States, ed. Fife, Austin, Fife, Alta, and Glassie, Henry H. (Logan, Utah, 1969), pp. 41–75.Google Scholar On the general dearth of interpretive studies of dress in American history, see Schlereth, Thomas J., ed., Material Culture: A Research Guide (Lawrence, Kans., 1985), pp. 167, 188.Google Scholar

5. On cultural history, see, for example, Isaac, , Transformation of Virginia; Peter Burke, The Historical Anthropology of Early Modern Italy: Essays on Perception and Communication (Cambridge, 1987);Google ScholarDarnton, Robert, The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History (New York, 1984).Google Scholar For standard reference works on the history of early American costume, see Earle, Alice Morse, Two Centuries of Costume in America, 1620–1820, 2 vols. (New York, 1910);Google ScholarMcClellan, Elisabeth, History of American Costume, 1607–1870 (New York, 1942);Google ScholarWarwick, Edward, Pitz, Henry C., and Wyckoff, Alexander, Early American Dress: The Colonial and Revolutionary Periods (New York, 1965);Google ScholarCopeland, Peter F., Working Dress in Colonial and Revolutionary America (Westport, Conn., 1977).Google Scholar These works, while useful in their illustrations and documentation, include little material on religious matters. For a rare history of religious costume, see Gummere, Amelia Mott, The Quaker: A Study in Costume (New York, 1901).Google Scholar

6. The Origin of the Whalebone-petticoat. A Satyr (Boston, 1714), p. 3.Google Scholar This question of the meanings contained in dress is obviously not exhaustive. A number of other questions could and should be asked, especially questions of change and development: How and why did plain dress decline in importance for a number of groups (for example, the Methodists) and yet gain in significance for others (for example, the Amish)? Did dress become less explicitly hierarchical, more expressly egalitarian in function in postrevolutionary America? Did evangelical ideals of plainness in apparel merge with Whig contempt for luxury and ostentation in the development of American revolutionary ideology? This article attempts to lay the groundwork for moving on to such specific historical questions.

7. Mather, Cotton, Ornaments for the Daughters of Zion (Cambridge, Mass., 1692), p. 55;Google ScholarShurtleff, Nathaniel B., ed., Records of the Govenor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, 5 vols. (Boston, 1853–1854), 3:243–244.Google Scholar On sumptuary laws, see, for example, North, Gary, “The Puritan Experiment with Sumptuary Legislation,” Freeman 24 (1974): 341–355.Google Scholar

8. Jarratt, Devereux, The Life of the Reverend Devereux Jarralt, Rector of Bath Parish, Dinwiddie County, Virginia (Baltimore, 1806), pp. 14, 26–27, 41–42, 78.Google Scholar

9. Conyngham, Redmond, “History of the Mennotists and Aymenists or Amish,” The Register of Pennsylvania 7 (1831): 129–132, 150–153.Google Scholar On this point, see also Isaac, , Transformatzon of Virginia, p. 164.Google Scholar

10. Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, quoted in Gummere, , The Quaker, pp. 32–33;Google ScholarHume, Sophia, An Exhortation to the Inhabitants of the Province of South-Carolina, to Bring their Deeds to the Light of Christ, in their own Consciences (London, 1752), p. 29.Google Scholar

11. James Hinton, “Journal,” unpaginated, in William Williamson Papers, Shane Collection, Presbyterian Historical Society manuscripts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

12. Miller, Samuel, Memoirs of the Rev. John Rodgers, D.D. (New York, 1813), pp. 340–342.Google Scholar For a study of clerical costume, mostly in Britain but still useful in places for the American side, see Mayo, Janet, A History of Ecclesiastical Dress (London, 1984).Google Scholar

13. On the dress of itinerants, see Schmidt, Leigh Eric, “‘A Second and Glorious Reformation’: The New Light Extremism of Andrew Croswell,” William and Mary Quarterly 43 (1986): 238;CrossRefGoogle ScholarCoalter, Milton J. Jr, Gilbert Tennent, Son of Thunder: A Case Study of Continental Pietism's Impact on the First Great Awakening in the Middle Colonies (New York, 1986), p. 167.Google Scholar

14. On the Quaker prophet, see Sewall, Samuel, The Diary of Samuel Sewall, 1674–1729, ed. Thomas, M. Halsey, 2 vols. (New York, 1973), 1:44.Google Scholar On the Quakers going naked for a sign, see Lovejoy, David S., Religious Enthusiasm in the New World: Heresy to Revolution (Cambridge, Mass., 1985), pp. 124–126, 130–131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar On the Philadelphia prophet, see Pennsylvania Gazette, 19–2509 1734.Google Scholar

15. Ritter, Abraham, History of the Moravian church in Philadelphia, from its Foundation in 1742 to Ihe Present Time (Philadelphia, 1857), pp. 85, 145.Google Scholar

16. The Vain Cottager: Or, the History of Lucy Franklin. To which Are Prefixed a Few Hints to Young Women in Humble Life, Respecting Decency and Propriety of Dress (New Haven, 1807), pp. 3–4, 11–13;Google ScholarHoop Petticoats Arraigned and Condemned, by the Light of Nature, and Law of God (Boston, 1722), pp. 4–6;Google ScholarA Just and Seasonable Reprehension of Naked Breast and Shoulders. With a Preface by Richard Baxter (London, 1678),Google Scholar preface (unpaginated); Hume, , An Exortation, p. 77.Google Scholar

17. Origin of the Whalebone-petticoat, pp. 6–8; Hoop Petticoats Arraigned. For another attack on “new fashioned Amazons,” see Englands Vanity: Or the Voice of God against the Monstrous Sin of Pride in Dress and Apparel (London, 1683), pp. 62–65.Google Scholar For further discussion of gender and dress, see Greven, , Protestant Temperament, pp. 284–286;Google ScholarLauer, Jeanette C. and Lauer, Robert H., “The Language of Dress: A Sociohistorical Study of the Meaning of Clothing in America,” Canadian Review of American Studies 10 (1979): 305–323;CrossRefGoogle ScholarPaoletti, Jo B., “Clothing and Gender in America: Children's Fashions, 1890–1920,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 13 (1987): 136–143;CrossRefGoogle ScholarLurie, Alison, The Language of Clothes (New York, 1981), pp. 212–229.Google Scholar

18. Foote, , Sketches, p. 203;Google ScholarRitter, , History, pp. 84–85, 145.Google Scholar See also Demos, John, A Little Commonwealth: Family Life in Plymouth Colony (New York, 1970), pp. 53–54.Google Scholar

19. See the accounts in Smith, Joseph, Old Redstone; Or, Historical Sketches of Western Presbyterian ism, its Early Ministers, its Perilous Times, and its First Records (Philadelphia, 1854), pp. 44, 154, 164–165;Google ScholarEaton, Cyrus, Annals of the Town of Warren, in Knox County, Maine, 2d ed. (Hallowell, Maine, 1877), p. 134;Google Scholar see Hooker, Richard J., ed., The Carolina Backcoun try on the Eve of the Revolution: The Journal and Other Writings of Charles Woodmason, Anglican Ihnerant (Chapel Hill, 1953), pp. 31–32.Google Scholar

20. Manuscript of missionary Blythe, J.W., quoted in Rudolph, L. C., Hoosier Zion: The Presbyterians in Early Indiana (New Haven, 1963), pp. 87–88.Google Scholar

21. On the Moravians, see Ritter, , History, p. 147.Google Scholar On Puritan shamings, see Hawthorne, Nathaniel, The Scarlet Letter, ed. Charvat, William and Bowers, Fredson (Columbus, Ohio, 1962).Google Scholar The critical introduction to this edition discusses seventeenth-century examples upon which Hawthorne based his tale (pp. xxvi-xxvii). On mourning dress, see Ludwig, , Graven Images, pp. 59–60;Google ScholarGeddes, Gordon E., Welcome Joy: Death in Puritan New England (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1981), pp. 119–123;Google ScholarHillerman, Barbara Dodd, “Chrysalis of Gloom: Nineteenth Century American Mourning Costume,” in A Time to Mourn: Expressions of Grief in Nineteenth Century America, ed. Pike, Martha V. and Armstrong, Janice Gray (Stony Brook, N.Y., 1980), pp. 91–106.Google Scholar

22. Hume, , An Exhortation, pp. 30, 38, 61.Google Scholar

23. Mather, , Ornaments, p. 53;Google ScholarHoop Petticoats Arraigned, p. 2; Willison, John, A Treatise Concerning the Sanctification of the Lord's Day, (Philadelphia, 1788), pp. 273–274.Google Scholar Willison, perhaps the leading Presbyterian devotional writer of the eighteenth century, was a Scot whose works were often reprinted in America.

24. Mather, , Ornaments, pp. 52–53, 57;Google ScholarJust and Seasonable Reprehension, p. 16.

25. Wesley, John, The Works of John Wesley, AM., 14 vols. (London, 1872), 7: 20–21, 11:474.Google Scholar See also The Nature, Design, and General Rules of the Methodist Societies (New York, 1809), pp 7–16;Google Scholar[Wesley, John], Advice to the People Called Methodists with Regard to Dress (Baltimore, 1808);Google ScholarWesley, John, On Dress (Boston, 1811);Google ScholarCartwright, Peter, Autobiography of Peter Cartwright, ed. Wallis, Charles L. (New York, 1956), pp. 61–63, 73, 334.Google Scholar

26. For a good, if unsympathetic, description of the spectacle of baptism, see Hooker, , ed., Carolina Backcountry, p. 103.Google Scholar On dress at Ephrata, see Erb, Peter C., ed., Johann Conrad Beissel and the Ephrata Community: Mystical and Historical Texts (Lewiston, N.Y., 1985), p. 96;Google ScholarReichmann, Felix and Doll, Eugene E., eds., Ephrata as Seen by Contemporaries (Allentown, Pa., 1953), pp. 44, 481, 53, 61, 77, 98, 115, 136, 147, 156, 159.Google Scholar The latter collection, produced by the Pennsylvania German Folklore Society, includes an early nineteenth-century description of the drawing of heaven (p. 168).

27. Hume, , An Exhortation, p. 30;Google ScholarFinney, Charles G., Memoirs (New York, 1876), pp. 173–174;Google ScholarCartwright, , Autobiography, p. 63.Google Scholar

28. Edwards, Jonathan, Images or Shadows of Divine Things, ed. Miller, Perry (New Haven, 1948), pp. 43–44, 50–51, 56–57, 101.Google Scholar