Joan L. Severa (1925–2015)

Anyone who has experienced the frustration of having 19th-century ancestral portraits without ancestral dates attached will find help here. Severa's immense depth of knowledge of American clothing styles in the 1800s is generously laid out before the reader, and soon you are amazed at the details she points out that you hadn't known were there. She does not limit herself to women's clothing, but covers men's and children's clothes with equal care. And the photos she has selected feature show more people from a wide range of economic levels as well. Even clothing that is largely in rags can have a story to tell, and Severa helps it to speak. Lengthy text chapters introduce each decade and give readers an overall view of major fashion trends. Spend enough time with this book, and you should be able to make at least an educated guess at the decade of the next 100+ year-old photograph you stumble across. show less

This is a big book with many illustrations and must have been a tremendous amount of work requiring enormous expertise. Nevertheless, I was somewhat disappointed because it was recommended to me as a book that could be used to date photographs and it is not. The author may be familiar with 19th century fashion but would almost certainly fail a test in logic because photographs have been re-dated based entirely on the clothing worn by the subjects. Yes, the book is about "Ordinary Americans show more and Fashion, 1840-1900" but only the clothing can be dated that way, not the photographs because everyone in the photographs is not wearing new clothing. The author of the book dates photos without consulting other resources and that is a problem. Photos with identified subjects are better dated by the age of the subject. Bottom line, a 5 year old child in hand-me-down clothes is still a 5 year old.

For example, the photo on page 334 of Miss "M. McDaunt" by Mathew Brady has been dated by the National Archives as having been taken in the early 1860's. In this book it is dated 10 years later based on her clothing. Unfortunately, the bottom 1/5 or so of the photograph is not shown in the book so that the portion of her skirt on which part of the dating was based is not visible. show less

An excellent overview of the clothing and culture of middle-class America during the Victorian era. Severa analyzes fashion through contemporary photographic images and dissects what we're viewing in new ways. This is a topic not often explored.

wonderful dated photos and descriptions of costumes in different decades.
copy given to linda trotter- seamstress Provo pioneer village