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The-Esquire t1_jb3h1tj wrote

Why is there so little attention paid to historical working class and peasant fashion, especially for men?

It seems like when it comes to history (mainly before the 1920s), the only folks who are given any attention are the upper (and sometimes middle) classes, and upper class women in particular.
This strikes me as weird, since most folks were not upper class, and so the everyday clothing of the everyman is quite overlooked.
Even when it comes to peasants, the clothing given any attention is usually the stuff worn on special occasions, rather than their work or home clothes.

I am interested in the sort of clothing that would be worn by farmers and workers at the very end of the 1700s and the first half of the 1800s in the areas colonized by the British and United Statesians.

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Thibaudborny t1_jb54aw1 wrote

Pretty sure you could find this kind of stuff on academic journals/libraries. I would try those in your area to see if they could yield anything. If you're asking popular history (non-academic) it'll need more kabooms.

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The-Esquire t1_jb69d0l wrote

I guess. I am reading an article now that seems to confirm some of what I said:

"Unfortunately, dress history has traditionally concerned itself more with fashionable elites and the middle classes than with the working classes. Although there are some notable exceptions, this is particularly true of studies that address historical periods prior to the twentieth century"

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Thibaudborny t1_jb69q1y wrote

Those groups were the ones leaving all the written records, so yeah, not the easiest field of research regardless.

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