Updated with nearly 30 high-quality vintage images, the second edition of this lavishly illustrated book provides irrefutable documentation of ladies fashions worn in Victorian America from 1860 to 1900. Extensively researched using nineteenth-century fashion, beauty, etiquette, household, and medical literature, the book explores the fluctuations in clothing styles including undergarments, casual wear, sports clothes, common dress, evening attire, hairstyles, and jewelry, while tracing the fascinating impact fashion had on the mental, physical, and social lives of our Victorian ancestors....

Revealed here are children's and women's clothing, including undergarments, leisurewear, and street apparel from 1860 to 1900. Over 270 photographs combine with text to enable accurate dating of clothing to within a three- to seven-year time frame. Nineteenth century photographs are supplemented by surviving examples of period clothing, many picturing both the outside and inner construction. The text is based on Victorian fashion, medical, etiquette, and advice literature and reveals the often-surprising reasons females were willing to become such devoted slaves to dress, as well as the...