Exploring fashion and modernity in the invoices of Edward Livingston, 1891–1917

On January 5th, 1903, Mrs. A.M. Dunstan, a designer and dressmaker with an eponymous store on 34th Street, sold a $370 green velvet coat with matching bodice to Clarisse Livingston, a New York socialite. This information, captured from a household invoice within the Edward Livingston papers at the New York Public Library, reveals more than pecuniary data about the sale of clothing at the turn of the century; rather, the invoice contains complex metadata about the relationships between modernity, fashion, and group identity. This paper describes the processes and results of a preliminary study of fashion-related invoices from the Livingston papers and seeks to demonstrate that invoices are a rich, yet often overlooked source of cultural data.