Rebecca Jumper Matheson, Fashion and Textile Studies: History, Theory, Museum Practice, published an article titled “‘Ways of Comfort’: Women’s Dress for Long-Distance Train Travel in America, 1870–1915” in the current issue of Dress, The Journal of the Costume Society of America (vol. 43, no. 1).
From the article abstract:
On May 10, 1869, the Golden Spike was driven, ushering in an innovative era of transcontinental railroad travel in the United States. Long-distance train journeys brought new challenges for women who needed to communicate an image of attractiveness, respectability, and modesty within the liminal space of the Pullman car. Women—particularly solo travelers—used dress as a means of negotiating these spaces where the public sphere collided with notions of modesty. This study uses a newspaper article titled “Ways of Comfort: Valuable Hints for Ladies Traveling by Rail. Suggestions for Night and Day—Eating and Sleeping, Dressing and Undressing” as a framework for analyzing American women’s actual experiences of dressing for train travel, as embodied by extant garments, as recorded in women’s journals and letters, and as revealed in photographs and engravings, supporting the conclusion that they used dress to communicate the fashionable and moral imperative of respectability.
For more information, contact Matheson, 212, 217.4308.