Women and Clothing in Western Civilization

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Angiolina Galluccio August 20th, 2011 “WOMEN AND CLOTHING IN WESTERN CIVILIZATION” The purpose of this research paper is a study of the origin of clothing in Western Civilization, process of fabrication, how women got involved in this industry in ancient times, who managed those women into long hours of labor, how those women had babies and worked at home and confectioned clothing at the same time. I will also talk about abuse and deprivation of rights for working women, and advances to the present time. Writing about the origin of clothing is not an easy task. Nobody knows with precision when exactly people started wearing clothes. But historians have found certain evidence that may lead to the time when the first people on earth started making some kind of fabrics and wearing clothes. In a study written by Ralf Kittler, Manfred Kayser, and Mark Stoneking, from Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, “Molecular Evolution of Pediculus humanus and the Origin of Clothing” from the Current Biology encyclopedia, it shows that people wore clothing since they can prove that lice were living in clothing, after a molecular clock analysis shows that body lice appeared 72,000 to 42,000 years ago. (Current Biology, 2003 p.1414 -1417) The first “dresses” that are known by historians are animal skins. The oldest fiber known by ancient civilizations is linen (flax), which was also used as burial shrouds for the Egyptian pharaohs; this fabric was used around 5,000 B.C. Then we have found that cotton, another natural fiber, was also used between 3,000 – 5,000 B.C. according to scholars’ research, as well as wool used by people of the Late Stone Age. Then we have the most precious fiber ever, which is silk, discovered by a Chinese princess around 2,600 B.C. Some scholars researched about Hemp as one of the oldest fibers on earth. The hemp plant is also
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