Fashion in The Period of the US Civil War and its

Aftermath: Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women and its

Adaptations

Noelia Bouzas Silva

Traballo de Fin de Grado

USC Facultad de Filoloxía

Curso 2020-2021

Tutora: Susana María Jiménez Placer

Background:
● Fashions is a visual tool
● Fashion is a victim of change
● Birth of fashion as a business
● Industrial and Social Changes in
North America

Intention:

● To understand how fashion changed

through the years the Civil War
lasted, and why, and how this
changes affected women
● Analysis of the clothes and
garments women wore
● Analysis of those garments in the

Statement and
context of Little Women
● Special emphasis in:
○ Economic and social position
○ Gender limitations or norms
○ Personal mindset/prejudices
Methodology

● Socio-cultural approach
○ Emphasis on economical and
social differences between
women
Corpus:
1. Papers related to the Civil War,
the textile industry and social
changes in the 1860s
2. Fashion manuals:
● Stamper and Condra: Fashion
through American History
(2010)
3. Archive Pictures (Metropolitan
Museum of Art: The MET)
4. Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women
(1869) and its adaptations
 Parts, Division and Findings
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3

● Overview of the ● Analysis of all the ● Analysis of the most

country’s situation clothes women could important garments in
during the war wear at that time Little Women
● Industry and business ○ How the Civil War ● Interest in the family
changes affected them socio-economical
○ Sewing Machine ○ How the economic position because of the
○ Trade and position of women war
Transportation affected them ● Focus on each girl and
○ New tools ○ How they changed their individual
through the 1860s behaviour towards
clothing
● The Civil War affected not only
how clothes were worn, but also
the business and industry
● Little Women:
○ How these changes were
integrated into women’s
everyday life
Conclusions
○ Negative perspective
towards luxury
● The difference between an
objective analysis vs the analysis
in the context of the novel
 ● Very limited field of study to only:
○ White Women

Further investigation ○ Free

○ Middle/high class
○ Unionists
● Interest in POC voices
Questions