Portrait of a Woman in Silk: Hidden Histories of the British Atlantic World

by Zara Anishanslin

Through the story of a portrait of a woman in a silk dress, historian Zara Anishanslin embarks on a fascinating journey, exploring and refining debates about the cultural history of the eighteenth-century British Atlantic world. While most scholarship on commodities focuses either on labor and production or on consumption and use, Anishanslin unifies both, examining the worlds of four identifiable people who produced, wore, and represented this a London weaver, one of early modern Britain’s few women silk designers, a Philadelphia merchant’s wife, and a New England painter.
 
Blending macro and micro history with nuanced gender analysis, Anishanslin shows how making, buying, and using goods in the British Atlantic created an object-based community that tied its inhabitants together, while also allowing for different views of the Empire. Investigating a range of subjects including self-fashioning, identity, natural history, politics, and trade, Anishanslin makes major contributions both to the study of material culture and to our ongoing conversation about how to write history.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Fashion, 18th Century, Fashion History, American History, Art

432 pages, Hardcover

First published September 20, 2016

Reviews

[Andrew Fischer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting microhistory but like everything else in my Thursday class it’s not going to relate to anything in class at all

[Julia Hendon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Anishanslin starts with an 18th century American portrait of Anne Shippen Willing, wife of a wealthy Colonial merchant. Thanks to some lucky chances of preservation and dedicated historical research ( mostly by other historians), Anishanslin is able to discuss not only Anne Willing but also the painter (Robert Feke), the weaver (Simon Julins) who wove the silk material used for Mrs. Shippen's dress, and, most unusually, the silk designer (Anna Marie Garthwaite) who created the floral design which Julins used for his weaving draft. Unfortunately not enough is known about any of these four people to sustain a biographical approach. Instead, Anishanslin quickly moves to an effort to develop a broader picture of the connections between trade, politics, art, and social status. Her efforts to write social history from the perspective of the material world that her subjects lived in is sometimes insightful. For example, she notes that portrait painters of this era often used stock images of clothing or backgrounds, making the head of the sitter an actual representation of the sitter's likeness but not necessarily the rest of the image. Thus, she argues, the unusual depiction of an actual flowered silk dress in Anne Willing's portrait gives insight into the character or decisions of the sitter. Despite the potential of such an approach, I found this book far less engaging than I had expected due mainly to the author's poor writing and repetitious discussions.

[Janie Panagopoulos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a smooth read as it was not what I was expecting.
This book turned out to be an education on how lives were brought together through the product of clothing and its importance to society. It flowed with information concerning the silk designer, clothing designer, seamstress, and wearer, very interesting and I thought a new way to look at history and its integration into the lives of people from the simple skilled laborer to a grand woman across the Atlantic. (And in completion, a portrait that was painted with the grand woman in the dress. Coming to us, today, through the ages.)

I would recommend this book to those interested in history, historical clothing, social history, historical art.

[Lindz · Rating 4 out of 5]

The British Empire during the 18th century was expansive with networks of trade and information floating throughout the Atlantic World. In the book, Portrait of a Women in Silk: Hidden Histories of the British Atlantic World, Historian Zara Anishanslin explores the interconnectedness of this Empire across the Atlantic World. Instead of relying on conventional sources, Anishanslin flips the script and explores the many stories lingering in a silk dress that is worn by a woman in a portrait. Within the pages, stories of four people who came into contact with the silk dress are uncovered, bringing to life a before unseen nexus of the Empire connected through their contemporary products. It is an alluring thesis but overall the execution of it is faulty as the chapters are repetitive.

[Alex Milton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zara Anishanslin’s Portrait of a Woman of Silk: Hidden Histories of the British Atlantic World is a material history that tells an eighteenth century trans-Atlantic story of silk production and consumption. Building off of Benetict Anderson’s concept of ‘imagined communities’, Anishanslin asserts that material consumption produced a common identity. Her narrative discusses class distinctions and gender as the story creates biographies of wealthy female consumers of silk from Pennsylvania to the designers and textile producers in London. While other scholarship has discussed the dynamics of gender and class in colonial North America, Portrait of a Woman in Silk stands out for its focus on how imperial production and trade fostered a consumer culture focused on the consumption of goods.

[Kelsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brilliantly researched, but disjointed writing-the result of trying to cram too much in... It felt very circular at times and frequently repeated the same arguments. I am a material culturist, so I more than appreciate what the author is trying to do, but it could use some serious reorganization.

[Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably my favorite book I read this semester in my 18thC British history class. I loved learning about Anna Marie Garthwaite, Anne Shippen Willings, Simon Julins, Robert Feke, and the grand tapestry of life that brought them all together.

The only comment I have is of Anishanslin’s repetitive nature, especially when hypothesizing about their life (due to scant evidence or otherwise). Overall, a fascinating and remarkably detailed book.

[Lindsay Chervinsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reads like a mystery novel, but actually a beautifully written, fantastically researched work of history. Anishanslin weaves together 4 lives of seemingly unrelated people to show economic, cultural, and personal connections across the Atlantic World. Unlike any other history book I've ever read, but worth your time.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly recommend for anyone interested in material culture and how such sources can illuminate historical actors and activities that have long been overlooked and/or disconnected.