Fashion and Technology of the

19th Century

Daniel Barstow

The 19th century was a time of the people. Ruffles, silk and vibrant

colors gave way to plain leather and cloth. People didn’t want anything to do with aristocracy because of the French Revolution, and wanted to dress more appropriately for everyday work.

For men plain coats and trousers with boots or laced shoes were popular, with top hats and canes as accessories.

For women, the tight corsets and hooped skirts of the 18th century faded out, only to come back and bite harder in the middle of the 19th century. Then towards the end of the 1800’s jerseys and kilted skirts became popular and were worn by almost every woman.

Fashion Overview

Popular fashion for men during the 19th

century were tail coats, trench coats, and cloaks. These were all worn because they were easy to ride horses in while keeping a formal look.

Men’s Outerwear

Popular pants during the 19th century were full

length trousers, replacing knee length breeches. Breeches were still worn by children, and wearing trousers was a sign of maturity and adulthood.

Men’s Pants

During the 19th century, plain military boots

were the style for most men, alongside lace up shoes later in the century. Black was essentially the only shoe color worn by men at the time.

Men’s Shoes

In the beginning of the 1800’s, the high class,

fancy look of England was still in for women. This fell out for more simple clothing for a short time, then came back to bite hard around 1850 where tight corsets and hooped dresses came back into favor. Then again around 1880, kilted dresses and jerseys became popular, and almost every woman wore them.

Women’s Fashion

In the 1800’s tight shoes with big heels fell

out of favor. Three main shoe styles were worn by women in the 19th century, the styles being clogs, boots, and dress slippers.

Women's Shoes

Dress SlippersClogs

Women's Boots

At the time, the wealthy aristocrats of France were just overthrown, and people everywhere didn’t want anything to do with looking like an aristocrat. This spawned the popularity for plain black overcoats, shoes and trousers as shown in “Men's Outerwear”. So overall, people valued simplicity, but also wanted to look confident and attractive.

Values that affected Fashion

In the beginning of the 19th century, the most common form of transportation was the horse and carriage, but was later on replaced by the massive railways constructed around America.

Transportation

Horse and open carriage

A steam locomotive pulling passenger carts.

The 19th Century was a great time of inventing, and made the overall quality of life much better. The modern railroad, assembly line, steam ship, electricity, the light bulb, many other electrical inventions and the actual word “Scientist” were all invented in the 1800’s.

These all impacted both individuals and society as a whole by making life easier and more efficient. In turn, I think this might have made people more lazy and more reliable on others for their needs.

Inventions of the 19th Century

List of Inventions from the 19th Century

1809 – First electric light invented by Humphry Davy1810 – Tin can invented by Peter Durand1825 – First electromagnet invented by William Sturgeon1827 – Matches invented by John Walker1829 – Typewriter invented by W.A Burt1830 - Barthelemy Thimonnier invents the sewing machine.1836 – First revolver invented by Samuel Colt1849 – Safety pin invented by Walter Hunt1856 - Louis Pasteur invents pasteurisation.1866 - Dynamite invented by Alfred Noble1872 – First mail order catalog issued by A.M Ward1886 – Coca Cola invented by John Pemberton

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Bibliography