Shoes reveal the hopes, dreams, and disappointments of the early Americans who wore them.

Honorable Mention of the Historic New England Book Prize by Historic New England

In Treasures Afoot, Kimberly S. Alexander introduces readers to the history of the Georgian shoe. Presenting a series of stories that reveal how shoes were made, sold, and worn during the long eighteenth century, Alexander traces the fortunes and misfortunes of wearers as their footwear was altered to accommodate poor health, flagging finances, and changing styles. She explores the lives and letters of clever apprentices, skilled cordwainers, wealthy merchants, and elegant brides, taking readers on a colorful journey from bustling London streets into ship cargo holds, New England shops, and, ultimately, to the homes of eager consumers.

We trek to the rugged Maine frontier in the 1740s, where an aspiring lady promenades in her London-made silk brocade pumps; sail to London in 1765 to listen in as Benjamin Franklin and John Hose caution Parliament on the catastrophic effects of British taxes on the shoe trade; move to Philadelphia in 1775 as John Hancock presides over the Second Continental Congress while still finding time to order shoes and stockings for his fiancee's trousseau; and travel to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1789 to peer in on Sally Brewster Gerrish as she accompanies President George Washington to a dance wearing a brocaded silk buckle shoe featuring a cream ground and metallic threads.

Interweaving biography and material culture with full-color photographs, this fascinating book raises a number of fresh questions about everyday life in early America: What did eighteenth-century British Americans value? How did they present themselves? And how did these fashionable shoes reveal their hopes and dreams? Examining shoes that have been preserved in local, regional, and national collections, Treasures Afoot demonstrates how footwear captures an important moment in American history while revealing a burgeoning American identity.

Shoes reveal the hopes, dreams, and disappointments of the early Americans who wore them.

About the Author

Historian Kimberly S. Alexander, a former curator at the MIT Museum, the Peabody Essex Museum, and Strawbery Banke, teaches material culture and museum studies at the University of New Hampshire.

Reviews
Alexander spent eight years researching [Treasures Afoot], which examines eighteenth-century shoes from thirty different collections, plus thousands of original letters, inventories and other manuscripts. Each shoe or pair of shoes is the catalyst for a story of how it was made, sold and worn, told in astonishing depth and detail.
-Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell, Ornament Magazine
Very engagingly written . . . Shoe history is a very popular field, and [Treasures Afoot] deserves to be widely read, as it is an excellent contribution to the histories of material culture and transatlantic consumerism.
-Matthew McCormack, University of Northampton, Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies
This impeccably researched, written and illustrated book is enough on its own as a study of surviving luxury objects from almost a century of American history.
-Stella Tillyard, Times Literary Supplement
[Treasures Afoot] is well written and easy to read . . . an interesting addition to the very limited number of works specifically about eighteenth century shoes.
-Alison Fairhurst, The Journal of Dress History
This is a book that will intrigue students and scholars of American and Material Culture Studies, as well as anyone interested in fashion, history, or-what else?-shoes! It is well researched, accessible, and it interweaves history, biography, and engaging shoe stories in a brilliant manner, doing justice to all the strands in draws to it. It would be a delight to see more endeavors like this one undertaken by and circulating among Americanists.
-Katerina Delikonstantinidou, European Journal of American Studies
In this richly illustrated volume, Kimberly S. Alexander focuses on footwear as a way to nuance and enrich our understanding of key themes in eighteenth-century British American history and culture. By tracing the production, sale, and (re)use of shoes, she revisits the development and maturation of gentility, consumer culture, and production networks across the latter decades of empire and the early years of the republic. In doing so, her study illuminates new facets of familiar dynamics, such as colonial American utilization of consumer items to craft social identities. The work also brings fresh attention to less familiar areas, such as how early American habits of recycling certain consumer items helped define class identities, familial relationships, and economic habits. As a result, much in this study will interest a broad range of scholars of early American society and culture.
-Sarah Fatherly, Queens University of Charlotte, Journal of American History
Treasures Afoot illuminates the production and consumption of shoes in eighteenth-century colonial America, by examining the complexities of individual and national concerns, challenging longstanding assumptions and unearthing intriguing characters. Alexander's fascinating book is highly recommended.
-Hillary Davidson, Costume


Awards
Commended for Historic New England Book Prize 2019 (United States).



Book Information
ISBN 9781421425849
Author Kimberly S. Alexander
Format Hardback
Page Count 248
Imprint Johns Hopkins University Press
Publisher Johns Hopkins University Press
Weight(grams) 567g
Dimensions(mm) 235mm * 156mm * 21mm