Buns, Beards, Bodices and Bustles: Understanding Ancestors Through Clothing

Clothing clues reveal details about our ancestors from their religious beliefs to their personality. The head to toe fashion choices can date a photo, but understanding their choices can be tricky. Fashion tends to repeat itself. In this lecture we’ll explore how our ancestors dressed and what it meant. Ancestral fashions and the industry that produced them left behind a fascinating legacy of images and information.

Maureen Taylor is the author of several books and hundreds of articles and her television appearances include The View and The Today Show. She’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, The Boston Globe, Martha Stewart Living, and The New York Times. Maureen was recently a spokesperson and photograph expert for MyHeritage.com, an internationally known family history website and also writes guidebooks, scholarly articles and online columns for such media as Smithsonian.com. She is a contributing editor of Family Tree Magazine.

This program is cohosted with the Historical Society of Plainfield / Drake House Museum.