Brooklyn College Library LibGuides Home: Theater: Costume History

OneSearch Tips for Costume History

To identify books, ebook chapters, articles and video in OneSearch, useful key terms include: costume; costume design; clothing and dress; fashion. (note that "fashion" will bring up both materials related to clothing styles as well as the fashion industry)
It is often useful include geographic locations (country, region or even city) and time frames (often by century or historic era i.e. middle ages or ming dynasty), for example: clothing AND great britain AND 18th century or even the term term history, for example: costume and history.
Try a more specific searc, for example: shoes AND china AND clothing or carnival AND costume,
For context try searches for geographic area term plus social life or the specific element of social life you are considering, for example: caribbean AND social life AND 19th century or weddings AND middle ages.

Encyclopedias & Dictionaries

Clothing and Fashion: American Fashion from Head to Toe by José F. Blanco, Mary D. Doering, Patricia Hunt-Hurst, Heather Vaughan Lee
Publication Date: 2016
This encyclopedia examines the historical significance of fashion trends, revealing the social and cultural connections of clothing from the precolonial times to the present day. This overview of fashion and apparel covers several centuries of American history as seen through the lens of the clothes we wear.
Encyclopedia of National Dress: Traditional Clothing Around the World by Jill Condra
Publication Date: 2013
Examines clothing that is symbolic of the people who live in regions all over the world, providing a historical and geographic perspective that illustrates how people dress and explains the reasons behind the material, design, and style.
Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion by Valerie Steele
Publication Date: 2004
A three-volume survey of clothing, costume and fashion, presented through 640 essays, arranged alphabetically. Coverage includes the origins of clothing and body adornment, the development of fabrics and technologies, and the social meanings of dress, as well as representative costumes from a wide range of historical eras.
The Complete Costume Dictionary by Elizabeth J. Lewandowski
Publication Date: 2011
A dictionary of over 20,000 terms. Includes 300 illustrations.
Clothing and Personal Adornment by Jean-Claude Corbet and Ariane Archambault
Publication Date: 2009
Visual dictionary of clothing and personal adornment.
Ethnic Dress in the United States: A Cultural Encyclopedia by Annette Lynch et al.
Publication Date: 2014
A concise and systematic exploration of 150 distinct items of ethnic dress, their history, and their cultural significance within the United States.
In An Influential Fashion: An Encyclopedia of 19th and 20th Century Fashion Designers and Retailers Who Transformed Dress by Ann Kellogg
Publication Date: 2002
Fashion, Costume, and Culture: Clothing, Headwear, Body Decorations, and Footwear Through the Ages by Sara Pendergast, Tom Pendergast, Drew D. Johnson, and Julie L. Carnagie
Publication Date: 2013
Provides facts and information about the cultural, religious, and social implications of human decoration and adornment throughout history, with a particular emphasis on the decades of the 20th century. In 500 entries, detailed information about clothing, hairstyles, tattoos, jewelry, body piercing, feet binding, and other types of fashion or style is examined. Entries explain the fashion or style within the context of the traditions, customs, rituals, and practices.
American Decades by Judith S. Baughmann et al.
Publication Date: 1996-2001
American Decades is a cross-disciplinary source that documents and analyzes periods of contemporary American social history, including entries on fashion.
Clothing Through American History: The Civil War Through the Gilded Age, 1861-1899 by Kimberly C. Campbell; Jill Condra; Joan Severa; Anita Stamper
Publication Date: 2010-12-17
Learn what men, women, and children have worn_and why_in American history, from the deprivations of the Civil War through the prosperous 1890s. In Clothing through American History: The Civil War through the Gilded Age, 1861_1899, authors Anita Stamper and Jill Condra provide information on fabrics, materials, and manufacturing; a discussion of daily life and dress; and the types of clothes worn by men, women, and children of all levels of society. The volume features numerous illustrations, helpful timelines, resource guides recommending Web sites, videos, and print publications, and extensive glossaries. Among the many topics discussed include: _ The hours that middle class women of the nineteenth century spent making clothes for themselves and their families _ The plain, rough clothes assigned to slaves to ensure that they did not enhance their appearance and their later trouble in buying clothes after emancipation _ The Bloomer dress reform movement in the mid to late 19th century, where women who adopted loose, baggy trousers for practicality were called evil and unnatural _ The beginnings of clothing and department stores

Image Databases & Collections

ARTstor This link opens in a new window
ARTstor contains over one million images in art, architecture, religion, anthropology, literature, and world history. Users can search and browse categories, view full-color and black-and-white images with zoom, and find details on date, repository, and materials. The database also offers subject guides and folders for saving search results.

Motley Collection of Theatre & Costume Design
A rare collection of original materials on the theatre comprising over 5000 items from more than 150 productions in England and the United States, including costume and set designs, sketches, notes, photographs, prop lists, storyboards, and swatches of fabric.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Search the digital collections of the Museum of Metropolitan Art including the Costume Institute
Costume Institute - Metropolitan Museum of Art
This collections represents seven centuries of fashionable dress and accessories for men, women, and children, from the fifteenth century to the present. It includes the Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection
Brooklyn Museum
Search the collections for "costume or costumes" and other key terms.
Library of Congress
Search the Library of Congress collections, particularly Photos, Prints and Drawings.
Fashion History Timeline
Founded and hosted by FIT, this is an open-access source for fashion history knowledge, featuring objects and artworks from over a hundred museums and libraries that span the globe. The Timeline website offers well-researched, accessibly written entries on specific artworks, garments and films for those interested in fashion and dress history.
Europeana Fashion
Provides free access to digital fashion and costume collections across Europe. Features 700,000-plus objects, including clothing, accessories, photographs, posters, illustrations and videos.
Museum of the City of New York
Images documenting NYC theater productions, including over 30,000 photographs from over 5,000 Broadway productions.
New York Public Library Digital Collections
Contains over 600,000 digitized items from the collections of the New York Public Library. This site is a living database with new materials added every day, featuring prints, photographs, maps, manuscripts, streaming video, and more.
Heilbrunn Timeline of Art HIstory
Discover the story of art and global culture through The Met collection.

Reference Databases

Gale eBooks This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Includes multi-volume encyclopedias, biographical collections, business plan handbooks, company history compilations, consumer health references, and specialized reference sources on a variety of subjects.
Oxford Art Online This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Oxford Art Online provides access to leading, easily searchable art resources. It includes the Grove Dictionary of Art, a comprehensive scholarly encyclopedia of global visual culture, and the Benezit Dictionary of Artists, renowned for its detailed biographies and art market information. Users can also explore titles like the Encyclopedia of Aesthetics (2nd edition), The Oxford Companion to Western Art, and The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms through a single gateway.

Additional Databases

International Bibliography of Theatre and Dance with Full Text (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
The International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance is a comprehensive research tool for theater students, educators, and professionals. Founded at Brooklyn College, it includes over 60,000 indexed, cross-referenced, and annotated entries on all aspects of theater and performance in 126 countries, featuring abstracts and full-text articles.
Theatre in Video This link opens in a new window
Contains more than 250 definitive performances of the world's leading plays, together with more than 100 film documentaries. Users can search or browse by subjects such as actors, directors, genres, and playwrights, and can create individual playlists for further viewing. Each entry contains important bibliographic information.
University of Fashion This link opens in a new window
The University of Fashion offers fashion professionals and consumers the first ever online fashion design video library, comprised of professionally produced online fashion how-to videos covering the five fashion design disciplines of draping, pattern making, fashion art, sewing and product development.

Library & Academic IT

Library &

Academic IT

Theater: Costume History

OneSearch Tips for Costume History

Encyclopedias & Dictionaries

Image Databases & Collections

Reference Databases

Additional Databases

Costume Research (Video)