Only the clothes on her back: clothing and the hidden history of power in the nineteenth-century United States

Introduction. Elizabeth's and Caty's failed escapes : the materials of legal meaning

Part I. Old clothes in a new country. Polly's yarn : legal principles ; Roger Taney's long underwear : federalism ; Mr. Robinson's fabrics : merchants ; Rebecca Coles's factory : manufacturers

Part II. Protective coverings in a hostile world. The Prison Society's problem : currency ; Jane Cooley's loom : capital ; Margaret Ten Eyck's accounts : credit ; Eliza Cauchois's shift : exchange

Part III. Rags. Sarah Allingham's sheet : enforcement ; Catherine Brennan's haul : criminality ; Charles Lohman's dresses : suppression ; Mrs. Harris's marriage : erasure

Conclusion. Mrs. Lincoln's old clothes : just material.