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Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness

What’s The History Of Pockets? with Dr. Hannah Carlson

Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness

Sony Music

Science, Self-improvement, Comedy, Education, Society & Culture

4.921.5K Ratings

🗓️ 6 September 2023

⏱️ 59 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

You know the feeling when you try on a dress and realize—it has pockets? Those pockets were more than 500 years in the making! Dr. Hannah Carlson joins us this week to discuss why pockets are still not a staple for womenswear, and how people throughout history—from Queen Elizabeth I to suffragettes to a first grader in Arkansas—have taken up pockets as a political cause. Hannah Carlson teaches dress history and material culture at the Rhode Island School of Design. After training as a conservator of costume and textiles at the Fashion Institute of Technology, she received a PhD in material culture from Boston University. She has contributed articles to Commonplace: the journal of early American life; Dress: the Journal of the Costume Society of America; and MacGuffin: The Life of Things. Still curious? Check out these resources from the episode: Abraham Lincoln’s pockets Jan Diehm and Amber Thomas on women’s pockets First assassination of a head of state by handgun Pocket tool kits of the eighteenth century The Macaroni Boys Reticules Women’s Army Corps uniforms One Year’s Dungaree Debris Follow us on Instagram @CuriousWithJVN to join the conversation. Jonathan is on Instagram @JVN. Transcripts for each episode are available at JonathanVanNess.com. Find books from Getting Curious guests at bookshop.org/shop/curiouswithjvn. Our executive producer is Erica Getto. Our producer is Chris McClure. Our associate producer is Allison Weiss. Our engineer is Nathanael McClure. Production support from Julie Carrillo and Anne Currie. Our theme music is “Freak” by QUIÑ; for more, head to TheQuinCat.com. Curious about bringing your brand to life on the show? Email [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

It's Dr. Karen from the referral podcast here just dropping into bus yet another myth,

0:04.6

but this time it's not medical. Now it's a common misconception that a TV licence is just for

0:10.1

watching stuff on a TV, rather than a laptop or a phone, and you only need it if you're watching

0:14.8

BBC content. This is false information. The licence gives you access to over 400 live TV channels too,

0:22.2

for around 44p a day. You can get your licence and find out more info at www.tvl.co.uk slash unipod.

0:32.8

This episode is brought to you by Tinder. Life is full of possibilities,

0:37.9

a cheeky reply to a message here could lead to a world of fun new experiences over there,

0:42.7

and with Tinder it all starts with a swipe. Strangers can become mates,

0:47.3

mates can become lovers with matching tattoos, or maybe it's not that serious. Whether a match

0:52.6

leads to something new and exciting or something personal, no matter what, all matches lead to

0:57.8

self-discovery. Download Tinder now. Welcome to Getting Curious, I'm Jonathan Van Ness,

1:08.1

where every week I sit down for a gorgeous conversation with a brilliant expert told

1:12.1

all about something that makes me curious. So you know that feeling when you try on address

1:16.2

and you love it and then you realize it has pockets. Those pockets have more than 500 years of

1:23.6

history in them, and honey I just never thought about that. And today we're turning that history

1:28.5

inside out. Welcome to the show Hana Carlson, who is an award-winning clothing historian,

1:34.8

researcher and author. She's a senior lecturer in the apparel design department at the

1:40.0

Rhode Island School of Design, and the author of the new book, Pockets, an intimate history of how

1:46.0

we keep things close. Hana, how are you? I'm great, thanks for having me. And that expression

1:53.7

is got pockets is something that you know motivated me to write this book. So it is officially like 108

2:00.8

degrees in Texas. If you're a centigrade person, I don't even know how hot that is, but suffice to

2:05.9

say it's very hot. I'm in that time of year where I'm wearing just Kim Kardashian skims,

...

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