Portrait of a woman in silk : hidden histories of the British Atlantic world / Zara Anishanslin
- Author
- Anishanslin, Zara
- Published
- New Haven ; London : Yale University Press, [2017]
- Copyright Date
- ©2016
- Physical Description
- viii, 421 pages : illustrations, portraits ; 24 cm
- Contents
- Introduction: the Atlantic world in a portrait -- "Our incomparable countrywoman": Anna Maria Garthwaite, silk designer -- "An inventive and pushing genius": Simon Julins, master weaver -- "Mrs. Mayoress": Anne Shippen Willing, wearer -- "Tolerably well by the force of genius": Robert Feke, painter -- Death and rebirth.
- Summary
- Through the story of a portrait of a woman in a silk dress, historian Zara Anishanslin embarks on a fascinating journey, exploring and refining debates about the cultural history of the eighteenth-century British Atlantic world. While most scholarship on commodities focuses either on labor and production or on consumption and use, Anishanslin unifies both, examining the worlds of four identifiable people who produced, wore, and represented this object: a London weaver, one of early modern Britain's few women silk designers, a Philadelphia merchant's wife, and a New England painter. Blending macro and micro history with nuanced gender analysis, Anishanslin shows how making, buying, and using goods in the British Atlantic created an object-based community that tied its inhabitants together, while also allowing for different views of the Empire. Investigating a range of subjects including self-fashioning, identity, natural history, politics, and trade, Anishanslin makes major contributions both to the study of material culture and to our ongoing conversation about how to write history.
- Subject(s)
- Garthwaite, Anna Maria, 1688-1763
- Julins, Simon, approximately 1688-1778
- Willing, Anne Shippen, 1710-1791
- Feke, Robert, approximately 1705-1750
- Weaving—England—History—18th century
- Silk—England—History—18th century
- Painting, American—New England—18th century
- Clothing and dress—United States—History—18th century
- British—Material culture—Atlantic Ocean Region—History
- Material culture—Atlantic Ocean Region—History
- Great Britain—Commerce—America—History—18th century
- Great Britain—Economic conditions—18th century
- America—Commerce—Great Britain—History—18th century
- United States—Economic conditions—18th century
- Atlantic Ocean Region—History
- ISBN
- 0300234236 (paperback)
9780300234237 (paperback) - Note
- Date of publication from publisher's web site.
- Bibliography Note
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 319-401) and index.
View MARC record | catkey: 22341374