Book description
Jo B. Paoletti's journey through the history of children's clothing
began when she posed the question, "When did we start dressing
girls in pink and boys in blue?" To uncover the answer, she looks
at advertising, catalogs, dolls, baby books, mommy blogs and
discussion forums, and other popular media to examine the surprising
shifts in attitudes toward color as a mark of gender in American
children's clothing. She chronicles the decline of the white dress for
both boys and girls, the introduction of rompers in the early 20th
century, the gendering of pink and blue, the resurgence of unisex
fashions, and the origins of today's highly gender-specific baby and
toddler clothing.
"In Pink and Blue, Jo Paoletti delivers an insightful
analysis of the origins, transformations and consequences of gender
distinctions in children's dress over the last 125 years.... A
must-read." -Daniel Thomas Cook, The Commodification of
Childhood: The Children's Clothing Industry and the Rise of the Child Consumer
Jo B. Paoletti is Associate Professor of American Studies at the
University of Maryland.
