Materializing the Eighteenth Century: Dress History, Literature, and Interdisciplinary Study

Abstract Drawing on an interview with Linda Baumgarten, curator of clothing and textiles at Colonial Williamsburg, and recent interdisciplinary studies, this article considers how eighteenth‐century scholars use the history of dress in literary history and cultural studies. It explores how the study of material culture can illuminate and complicate literary history, but also how dress history comprises its own language and ideas.