The Veil in American History

When American Women Wore Veils

 

In Within the Plantation Household, Black and White Women of the Old South (Chapel Hill, 1988),  Elizabeth Fox-Genovese writes on pp. 219-222.

After emancipation, to the despair of many whites, the freedwomen enthusiastically took to carrying parasols and wearing veils. An officer of the Freedmen's bureau reported to Sidney Andrews that "the wearing of black veils by young negro women had given great offense to the young white women and that there was a time earlier in the season when the latter would not wear them at all." The matter, Andrews noted, was of no small significance. As early as 1740, in the wake of the Stono Rebellion, South Carolina had passed legislation to restrict slaves to cheap clothing. The legislation proved unenforceable and, in the opinion  of the great nineteenth century jurist, John Belton O'Neall, should have been repealed. Charleston boasted an unusually large free black population, the independence of which made some whites uneasy. South Carolinians, like early modern Europeans before them understandably viewed dress as a leading sign of class affiliation and saw in its regulation a privileged vehicle for reminding a lower class of its proper station.

 

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