Humanities Teacher Award winner Dr. Judith Ridner (Mississippi State University) will present her public lecture, “Living in the Material Worlds of Early America.” This presentation will take place in the John Grisham room at the Mitchell Memorial Library on MSU’s campus. Reception to follow.
Today, we live our lives surrounded by material goods, and consumption drives much of our economy. Early America was much the same. Although early Americans’ daily lives were different than our own and the range of goods available to them was more limited, they, like us, routinely made choices about what items to purchase, display in their homes, or to wear. My lecture will focus how the consumer choices early Americans made reflected their ethnic, religious, or class backgrounds. It will also discuss how material goods—particularly clothing–were often used to measure one’s worth as a colonial subject or an American citizen.
