
Caroline’s Clothes: The Life and Loss of an Antebellum Woman

The Fabric of Our Nation: A Nineteenth-Century Night Shirt Reveals the Complex Value of Material Objects

The Story the Torn Gown Told: Forensic Evidence and Lanah Sawyer’s Prosecution of Henry Bedlow for Rape, New York, 1793

How Bicycles Liberated Women in Victorian America

In Her Own Voice: Poems of Anandibai Joshee

Frenchified Fashions and Republican Simplicity

Dr. Warren’s Ciceronian Toga

A Fashion for Abolition

A Short History of the High Roll

Franklin’s Gown: Portraying the Politics of Homespun Silk

Vulgar Things: James Fenimore Cooper’s “clairvoyant” Pocket Handkerchief

Impressions of Tar and Feathers: The “New American Suit” in Mezzotint, 1774-84

Dressing for History: Teaching in Eighteenth-Century Clothing

Redressing Early America

Unraveling the Silk Society’s Directions for the Breeding and Management of Silk-Worms

Oil and Bone: Whale Consumption in the Lives of Plymouth Colonists

George Washington’s Disappearing Ribbon

For the Want of a Good Hat

Poems

On the Edge of the Atlantic World in the Interior of North America

A Bed Sheet in Beinecke

Miniature Worlds

9/11 and Acoma Pueblo: Homeland security in Indian Country

Refashioning the Republic

Rocking the Colonial Period

Playing Dress Up
Creative Writing
Reviews
ABOUT
Welcome to Commonplace, a destination for exploring and exchanging ideas about early American history and culture. A bit less formal than a scholarly journal, a bit more scholarly than a popular magazine, Commonplace speaks—and listens—to scholars, museum curators, teachers, hobbyists, and just about anyone interested in American history before 1900. It is for all sorts of people to read about all sorts of things relating to early American life—from architecture to literature, from politics to parlor manners. It’s a place to find insightful analysis of early American history as it is discussed in scholarly literature, as it manifests on the evening news, as it is curated in museums, big and small; as it is performed in documentary and dramatic films and as it shows up in everyday life.
In addition to critical evaluations of books and websites (Reviews) and poetic research and fiction (Creative Writing), our articles explore material and visual culture (Objects); pedagogy, the writing of literary scholarship, and the historian’s craft (Teach); and diverse aspects of America’s past and its many peoples (Learn). For more great content, check out our other projects, (Just Teach One) and (Just Teach One African American Print).
How to cite Commonplace articles:
Author, “Title of Article,” Commonplace: the journal of early American life, date accessed, URL.
Sophie White, “Trading Looks Race, Religion and Dress in French America,” Commonplace: the journal of early American life, accessed September 30, 2019, https://commonplace.online/article/trading-looks-race-religion-dress-french-america/
Joshua R. Greenberg, editor
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