Consumptive Chic - by Carolyn A Day (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, there was a tubercular 'moment' in which perceptions of the consumptive disease became inextricably tied to contemporary concepts of beauty, playing out in the clothing fashions of the day. With the ravages of the illness widely regarded as conferring beauty on the sufferer, it became commonplace to regard tuberculosis as a positive affliction, one to be emulated in both beauty practices and dress. While medical writers of the time believed that the fashionable way of life of many women actually rendered them susceptible to the disease, Carolyn A. Day investigates the deliberate and widespread flouting of admonitions against these fashion practices in the pursuit of beauty.

Through an exploration of contemporary social trends and medical advice revealed in medical writing, literature and personal papers, Consumptive Chic uncovers the intimate relationship between fashionable women's clothing, and medical understandings of the illness. Illustrated with over 40 full color fashion plates, caricatures, medical images, and photographs of original garments, this is a compelling story of the intimate relationship between the body, beauty, and disease - and the rise of 'tubercular chic'.

Review Quotes

"A well-researched and diligently compiled cultural history of tuberculosis." --Book of the Week, Times Higher Education

"Drawing on medical treatises, beauty manuals, fashion periodicals, and other literature of the period, this thoroughly researched and erudite work will satisfy those interested in social and -cultural -history." --Library Journal

"I enjoyed learning more about the historical development of the disease ... very well written, with substantial attention to detail." --Fashion, Style and Popular Culture

"[Carolyn] Day's monograph is a valuable addition to our understanding of just how a disease as overdetermined as consumption plays out across different discourses that constitute a particular social world: in this case, the period roughly covering 1780-1850." --Social History of Medicine

"At its best, the book is an innovative and well-researched effort to explore how the apparently meaningless ebb and flow of aesthetic tastes is linked to a larger epidemiological and discursive contexts." --Victorian Studies

"Consumptive Chic fuses medical, social, appearance and fashion histories into a fascinating, challenging story about the disease-ridden shadows behind idealized feminine beauty between 1785 and 1850." --Lou Taylor, University of Brighton, UK.

"Impeccably researched and beautifully executed, Consumptive Chic tells the surprising, wholly engrossing story of how a wretched disease became both fashionable and aesthetically pleasing. This is a relentlessly intelligent study, one that will find a wide and admiring audience." --Mark Smith, Carolina Distinguished Professor of History, University of South Carolina, USA

"Consumptive Chic strips the beauty myths of tuberculosis down to the corset. She takes us on an emotional journey, using the slim, pale, and pathetic lives of women sufferers in the early 19th century to explain why many found the look so appealing. It is an illuminating and chastening read." --Helen Bynum, author of Spitting Blood: The History of Tuberculosis, University College London, UK

"Beautifully illustrated, Consumptive Chic weaves together the histories of fashion and medicine to chart the symbolic import of the female tubercular body. Day mobilizes an impressive range of primary materials to illuminate the rise of consumption as a fashionable malady, in spite of - or perhaps owing to - its devastating effects." --Jessica Clark, Assistant Professor of History, Brock University, USA

About the Author