Common Threads
ISBN: 9781469615493
Platform/Publisher: Project MUSE / The University of North Carolina Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Chapters; Download: Chapters
Subjects: Clothing and dress; Catholics; Catholics;

The history of clothing in a Catholic context is fascinating-or at least it is from the hands of Dwyer-McNulty. In this fairly dense overview of Catholic attire during the 1800s through to the mid-1900s, divided into sections about priests, nuns, and schoolchildren, historian Dwyer-McNulty shows how clothing, both clerical and lay, has been so many things to American Catholics-a form of rebellion, a manner of disguise, a way of asserting one's identity or reminding oneself of it to ward off temptation. She writes playfully of priests who go on "vacation" by dressing like the laity at a bar; battles over gender and sex and what women put on their bodies; nuns' sometimes humorous failure at secular dress to avoid harassment in the 1800s; and the advent of "ready-to-wear" clothing that changes the look of Catholic schoolchildren, especially girls, during the 20th century. More than a few former Catholic schoolgirls will surely nod their heads when reading Dwyer-McNulty's assessment that "[j]ust like the religious habits and clericals, uniforms would be material aids to control the students." Unfortunately, Dwyer-McNulty devotes only a short epilogue to the post 1970s, and readers may wish she gave more time to the contemporary era and less to the 1800s. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.


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