Linzy Brekke-Aloise: Researcher of American Fashion

By: Caty Scharnagle

A Stonehill College history professor teaches about the Founding Fathers, but does research on American fashion.

Professor Linzy Brekke-Aloise, 39, a history professor at Stonehill for the past nine years, has taught many courses about the early republic in America. But her research outside of class focuses on the development in capitalism and American consumer culture, or American fashion.

Raised in Westbrook, Maine, her fascination with history began at an early age. She attended undergraduate at Mt. Holyoke College and received her masters at Harvard College.

Her office reflects her focus on early America with posters and books on topics ranging from slavery to the Salem Witch trials. She also keeps pictures of her two daughters and their artwork on her desk.

She has studied the clothing and accessories of all parts of American society, from the rich to the poor.

For example,  Brekke-Aloise has researched what poor women in early America would wear, which was sometimes more extravagant than what they could realistically afford.

“Poor women would spend money on clothes instead of food to prove that they’re still ladies,” Brekke-Aloise said.

She has also studied the clothing of the Founding Fathers, a more elite group of American society.

She is not simply interested in what people wear, but what it means. For instance, fashion can reveal information about the times.

“The politics of fashion mirror politics of the Early Republic,” she said.

People wear clothes to make them seem equal to people of different status, according to Brekke-Aloise.

“Fashion is a great test about equality,” Brekke-Aloise said.

Brekke-Aloise is a leading historian in the field of American fashion because most historians do not take fashion seriously as a research area.

“Fashion is a field that shapes everyone, every single person, every day,” Linzy Brekke-Aloise said. “People use dress to make arguments about themselves.”

She has been studying this field since she was a graduate student at Harvard College.

“It was totally by accident,” Linzy Brekke-Aloise said.

She wanted to write her graduate project on Thomas Jefferson, but her graduate advisor did not like the topic. To find a new subject to write about, she sat in the library and read newspapers from the 18^th century every day. She discovered that there were a lot of articles about fashion at the time and wanted to learn more.

“I asked myself, ‘Why are there all these articles about fashion?’” she said.

Since then, Linzy Brekke-Aloise has become one of few historians in this area. Some colleagues do not take her research seriously, but that pushes her to write more and publish more on the subject, she said.

The subject of fashion is not widely accepted in the field because most do not make an effort to understand its significance.

“There are not many historians in this field- I feel great about that,” Brekke-Aloise said. “It pushes me to write more, publish more.”

Linzy Brekke-Aloise has written a book, “Fashioning America,” and several essays on the subject.