Book review: Only the Clothes on her Back
. Only the Clothes on Her Back: Clothing & the Hidden History of Power in the 19th-Century United States by Laura F. Edwards is an engrossing book, definitely not for everyone, but certainly right up my alley. The author addresses the special legal designation for textiles and clothing in terms of property ownership with respect to people lacking legal standing in not just the 19th century, but the early days of the United States establishment as a nation. This includes women/children of all races, Black men both free and enslaved, indigenous men, immigrants, etc. I am not a legal scholar, and sometimes the legalese gets pretty dense here, but the book held my attention because the subject matter is so fascinatI ng and engrossing. I listened to the audiobook, which was good in terms of breezing through legal jargon, but the voice artist who narrated it employed some unusual pronunciations. Some of them were place names, which wouldn’t register with a listener unfamiliar ...
