quaker bonnets and the erotic feminine in american popular culture.

In this article, I trace widespread popular representations of Quaker women's bonnets from the 1850s through the 1930s in fiction, image, film, and music. Although American Quaker women began to abandon their plain clothing as early as the 1860s, the public remained fascinated with the bonnet for decades after. Wherever Quaker women were imagined, descriptions of their sensual, fetching, outsized bonnets usually were privileged over any notice of their person. Observers saw in the bonnet a host of alluring traits, which muted the potential spiritual and political virtuosity of the Quaker woman beneath it. The bonnet itself became a convenient and erotic shorthand for Quaker women in general, and today provides a helpful lens for understanding the ways in which public memory shapes the religious feminine in American culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]