European women's dresses in nineteenth-century New Zealand

Dress encodes complex cultural information and operates as an aesthetic sign system, indicating ideas about status, wealth, and taste. Fashionable women's day dresses of the mid to late nineteenth century in Western culture were a potent symbol of women's place in society. One hundred and sixty two nineteenth-century dresses from museum collections in New Zealand were investigated, using a material history research method. Estimated dates of the dresses ranged from 1828 to 1914. Major fibre types and fabric structures used in their construction were identified, and design and assembly techniques described. A total of 115 factors was recorded for each dress. The data were analysed in two ways. Dated groups were formed, then each factor was tested Chi-square tests. To determine if the differences observed among various groups were statistically significant, Tukey's test was used on transformed group proportions. Grouping the data according to factors common among dresses was also carried out using block clustering. Aspects of colour, fibre and fabric content, bodice, sleeve and skirt construction, and garment dimensions differed over time. Prevailing European fashions of fabric, design and construction were exhibited in these dresses. Despite their perceived impracticality for the physical conditions in a developing colony, the dresses followed fashionable styles. Analysis using clustering techniques showed dresses of similar estimated dates to have common characteristics. It indicated some revivals of earlier fashions amongst later-dated dresses, and produced a cluster of dresses whose designs were based on a nineteenth century nostalgia for eighteenth century fashions. Overall, the analysis indicates that conformity to fashion was more important than adaptation to one's surroundings. These dresses reflect the aspirations of New Zealand settlers in their expression of genteel or middle-class values. Effects of biases in the survival of these dresses are acknowledged. Evidence from written sources was used in the interpretation of statistical results. Using both material and written records it was possible to suggest that the dress reform movement in New Zealand had little immediate impact. Waistlines were small in the 1890s dresses and skirts continued to hamper the legs. It was also suggested that many of the dresses in this sample were probably made by dressmakers, although this could not be be proven, since most dressmakers did not label their work. Dressmakers actively advertised for customers from the earliest days of settlements. They operated in a variety of ways, setting up shops themselves, working in the shops of others, or the homes of their clients, and later in the expanding workrooms of department stores. New Zealand women were quick to adopt new technology in their dressmaking. Sewing machines were used to stitch most dresses from the 1870s, but the earliest machine stitching occurs in a dress of estimated date of 1850s. Sewing machines became readily available from the 1860s, and more affordable in the 1870s. Adoption of changing sewing techniques indicates that education about sewing practices could be readily disseminated. The effectiveness of methods of using material artifacts as an historical resource combined with documentary evidence, and of using statistical techniques not commonly used in historical research, to analyse the data was demonstrated. Such a dual investigation has proved that in this sample of fashionable dresses, analysed in a depth not achieved before, there is no indication of adaptation to the colonial environment

Policing mining: In outer-space greed and domination vs. peace and equity a governance for humanity!

Staking claim and ownership has remained an antagonistic issue for nations, resulting in many international conflicts. This is particularly so in disputed territories or areas which are deemed the heritage of mankind. In the next 50-years mining in space is set to become a reality and rather than being used to become an asset to man/society and create an equitable world, it is likely to be a battleground for greed and sovereign dominance – an overspill from Earth. This paper researches the conflict between greed and dominance vs. peace and equity in respect to space - mineral resources, providing historical contextualization, opinion, thoughts and interpretation. Hence, consideration is given to international approaches and who should ‘police,’ plus the governance of, space riches. The research largely considers the stance of the USA in this respect. The relevance of travel and travel modes (particularly air) and ownership of the sky is reviewed, so as to provide comparison and (historical) contextualization – identifying issues previously encountered when man looks to both travel and acquire assets by these means. The latest position of asteroid mining is also explored and ‘lessons from Earth’ are revisited as part of this research – which is largely considered and undertaken from a legal (discipline) perspective

European women's dresses in nineteenth-century New Zealand

Dress encodes complex cultural information and operates as an aesthetic sign system, indicating ideas about status, wealth, and taste. Fashionable women's day dresses of the mid to late nineteenth century in Western culture were a potent symbol of women's place in society. One hundred and sixty two nineteenth-century dresses from museum collections in New Zealand were investigated, using a material history research method. Estimated dates of the dresses ranged from 1828 to 1914. Major fibre types and fabric structures used in their construction were identified, and design and assembly techniques described. A total of 115 factors was recorded for each dress. The data were analysed in two ways. Dated groups were formed, then each factor was tested Chi-square tests. To determine if the differences observed among various groups were statistically significant, Tukey's test was used on transformed group proportions. Grouping the data according to factors common among dresses was also carried out using block clustering. Aspects of colour, fibre and fabric content, bodice, sleeve and skirt construction, and garment dimensions differed over time. Prevailing European fashions of fabric, design and construction were exhibited in these dresses. Despite their perceived impracticality for the physical conditions in a developing colony, the dresses followed fashionable styles. Analysis using clustering techniques showed dresses of similar estimated dates to have common characteristics. It indicated some revivals of earlier fashions amongst later-dated dresses, and produced a cluster of dresses whose designs were based on a nineteenth century nostalgia for eighteenth century fashions. Overall, the analysis indicates that conformity to fashion was more important than adaptation to one's surroundings. These dresses reflect the aspirations of New Zealand settlers in their expression of genteel or middle-class values. Effects of biases in the survival of these dresses are acknowledged. Evidence from written sources was used in the interpretation of statistical results. Using both material and written records it was possible to suggest that the dress reform movement in New Zealand had little immediate impact. Waistlines were small in the 1890s dresses and skirts continued to hamper the legs. It was also suggested that many of the dresses in this sample were probably made by dressmakers, although this could not be be proven, since most dressmakers did not label their work. Dressmakers actively advertised for customers from the earliest days of settlements. They operated in a variety of ways, setting up shops themselves, working in the shops of others, or the homes of their clients, and later in the expanding workrooms of department stores. New Zealand women were quick to adopt new technology in their dressmaking. Sewing machines were used to stitch most dresses from the 1870s, but the earliest machine stitching occurs in a dress of estimated date of 1850s. Sewing machines became readily available from the 1860s, and more affordable in the 1870s. Adoption of changing sewing techniques indicates that education about sewing practices could be readily disseminated. The effectiveness of methods of using material artifacts as an historical resource combined with documentary evidence, and of using statistical techniques not commonly used in historical research, to analyse the data was demonstrated. Such a dual investigation has proved that in this sample of fashionable dresses, analysed in a depth not achieved before, there is no indication of adaptation to the colonial environment

Rooms of Their Own: Public toilets and gendered citizens in a New Zealand city, 1860‐1940

Differences in the provision of public toilets for men and women point to the gendering of citizens. In the later nineteenth century, provision of public toilets in the city of Dunedin centered on the management of male bodies as the meaning of 'public decency' was transformed, while women were catered for as consumers. By the beginning of the twentieth century, when provision for women became a public issue, it was debated in terms of women's special character as citizens. The bodily and spatial characteristics of public and private were renegotiated around this issue: as women became more public, toilets became more private. This article draws on debates about the sexed and gendered body in public space, maternal citizenship, the civilising and modernising of landscapes and bodies, and shifting conceptions of privacy and public.Peer Reviewe

Assessing the effects of site heterogeneity and soil properties when unmixing photosynthetic vegetation, non-photosynthetic vegetation and bare soil fractions from Landsat and MODIS data

Vegetation fractional cover is a key metric for monitoring land management, both in pastoral and agricultural settings. Monitoring vegetation fractional cover continuously across large areas needs good remote sensing techniques underpinned by high quality field data to calibrate and validate algorithms. Here Landsat and MODIS surface reflectance data together with 1171 field observations across Australia were used to estimate vegetation fractional cover using a linear unmixing technique. The aim was to estimate the fractions of photosynthetic and non-photosynthetic vegetation (PV and NPV, respectively) and the remaining fraction of bare soil (BS). Landsat surface reflectance was averaged over a 3×3 pixel window representing the field area measured and also "degraded" using a 17×17 pixel window (~0.26km) to approximate the coarser MODIS sensor's response. These two Landsat surface reflectances were used to calculate a site heterogeneity metric. Data from two MODIS-derived surface reflectance products with a pixel size of ~0.25km were used: (i) the 16-day nadir BRDF-Adjusted Reflectance product (MCD43A4); and (ii) the MODIS 8-day surface reflectance (MOD09A1). Log transforms and band interaction terms were added to account for non-linearities in the spectral mixing. A cross-validation step was also included to select the optimal number of singular values to avoid over-fitting. For each surface reflectance source we investigated the residuals' correlation with site heterogeneity, soil colour and soil moisture. The best model was obtained when Landsat data for a small region around each observation were used. Root mean square error (RMSE) values of 0.112, 0.162 and 0.130 for PV, NPV and BS, respectively, were obtained. As expected, degrading the Landsat data to ~0.26km around each site decreased model goodness of fit to RMSE of 0.119, 0.174 and 0.150, respectively, for the three fractions. Using MODIS surface reflectance data gave worse results than the "degraded" Landsat surface reflectance, with MOD09A1 performing slightly better than MCD43A4. No strong evidence of soil colour or soil moisture influence on model performance was found, suggesting that the unmixing models are insensitive to soil colour and/or that the soil moisture in the top few millimetres of soil, which influence surface reflectance in optical sensors, is decoupled from the soil moisture in the top layer (i.e., a few centimetres) as measured by passive microwave sensors or estimated by models. This study outlines an operational combined Landsat/MODIS product to benefit users with varying requirements of spatial resolution and temporal frequency and latency that could be applied to other regions in the world