Participant Info
- First Name
- Elizabeth
- Last Name
- Block
- Country
- United States
- State
- blockeliz@gmail.com
- Affiliation
- Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Website URL
- ElizabethLBlock.com
- Keywords
- art history, 19th century, women's fashion, women's hairstyles, material culture, U.S. painting
- Availability
- Media Contact
- Additional Contact Information
- PhD
- PhD
Personal Info
- Photo
- About Me
Elizabeth L. Block, an art and culture historian, is a Senior Editor in the Publications and Editorial Department at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
She writes the popular Gilded Age Fashion newsletter and Instagram account @elizabethlblock and invites you all to join her there.
Dr. Block earned her PhD in art history at The Graduate Center, City University of New York, with a focus on 19th-century American painting. She also holds an MA in American Studies from Columbia University, and a BA in English from The George Washington University.
Gilded Age Fashion: 50 Iconic Looks and the Stories Behind Them (Hardie Grant, 2026) is available now.
Beyond Vanity: The History and Power of Hairdressing (MIT Press, 2024) is the winner of the Costume Society of America’s 2025 Millia Davenport Publication Award. The book has been featured in Forbes, Hyperallergic, Daily Art Magazine, Town & Country, The New York Post, and more.
Her book Dressing Up: The Women Who Influenced French Fashion (MIT Press, 2021), won the Victorian Society in America book award 2022, and was shortlisted for the Association of Dress Historians 2022 Book of the Year. The book was reviewed widely in academic journals in the fields of fashion history, American history, art history, and business history.
She provides interviews to BBC, WWD, The Guardian, and multiple podcasts, including Dressed: The History of Fashion and The Gilded Gentleman. She speaks widely at venues such as the National Arts Club and The New York Historical.
Her articles appear in Town & Country digital, Slate, The Magazine Antiques, American Art, and Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide.
She has received a research grant from the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University and fellowships at the American Antiquarian Society, Winterthur Museum and Gardens, and for the Attingham Summer School.
- Recent Publications
Book
Dressing Up: The Women Who Influenced French Fashion (MIT Press; release date: October 19, 2021)
Articles
“Gowns and Mansions: French Fashion in New York Homes During the Late Nineteenth Century,” The Journal of Dress History (vol. 5, no. 1) (spring 2021).
“Maison Félix and the Body Types of its Clients, 1875–1900,” West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture (vol. 26, no. 1) (spring/summer 2019), 80–103.
“Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau: Living Statue,” Nineteenth Century Art Worldwide 17 (2) (autumn 2018).
“Winslow Homer and Women’s Bathing Practices in Eagle Head, Manchester, Massachusetts (High Tide),” American Art 32 (2) (summer 2018), 100–15.
- Media Coverage
- Social Media
- ElizabethLBlock
- Country Focus
- USA
- Expertise by Geography
- United States
- Expertise by Chronology
- 19th century
- Expertise by Topic
- Art & Architectural History, Material Culture, Women
