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Presentation
The Politics of Textiles Used in African American Slave Clothing
Textile Society of America 13th Biennial Symposium (2012)
  • Eulanda A. Sanders, University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Abstract
Osnaburg, homespun, and linsey-woolsey (Warner and Parker 1990, 82-92), broadcloth and Negro cloth (Hunt and Sibley 1994; Warner and Parker 1990; Williams and Centrallo 1990) and kersey (Hunt, 1996) are textiles that have been identified by scholars used in clothing worn by slaves and are often described in narratives written by African American slaves. The stories of African American slaves are a wealth of information on the lives of all individuals living in chattel environments, but particularly slaves who were usually not photographed. Since textiles are used to create inherently personal items, they are often described in narratives to help the readers understand the complexity of the narrator’s life. The guiding question for this research is whether there is an historical and/or political link between the production of these textiles for slave uniforms and the production of natural fiber crops in the United States through the use of slaves as labor? A secondary goal of this research is to test a hybrid method of using narrative inquiry and archival data analysis to gain a better understanding of textile production in the United States and its relation to the textiles slaves wore as a foundation a larger program of research. 
Publication Date
September 19, 2012
Location
Washington, D.C.
Comments
2012 University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Posted with permission.
Citation Information
Eulanda A. Sanders. "The Politics of Textiles Used in African American Slave Clothing" Textile Society of America 13th Biennial Symposium (2012)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/eulanda_sanders/244/