Laura Ping discusses the historical link between fashion and liberation. She explains that clothes have different meanings to different people based on race, gender, and social class. For some women living in the 1800s, rejecting long dresses in favor of pants was liberating. In addition, women of color and female husbands have embraced fashion that symbolized liberation and social class. During the 20th century, fashion changes linked to feminism and social activism as the flapper dress, the zoot suit, denim clothes, and natural hair symbolized liberation for both men and women. Laura explains that considering fashion as a lens to understand changing power structures in American history can help show us ways in which our own clothing choices reflect the power systems in our lives. Laura Ping is an assistant professor of U.S. History with a PhD from The Graduate Center, City University of New York where she specialized in U.S. cultural history, material culture, visual culture, fashion, and gender. Laura teaches courses on U.S. immigration, the Long Civil Rights Movement, public health, gender and sexuality, and the U.S. Civil War. Having researched women and society, Laura coauthored Catharine Beecher: The Paradoxes of Gender in the Nineteenth Century (2022), examining social and technological changes during the nineteenth-century through the life of education reformer Catharine Beecher. In her current book project, Beyond the Bloomer: Fashioning Change in Nineteenth-Century Dress, Laura analyzes how American women used fashion as a political symbol prior to gaining the right to vote. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx