Elizabeth Ann Fretwell

Ph.D. in History, University of Chicago, (2018)

B.A. in International Affairs and Economics, The George Washington University, (2006)

Expertise

Articles

Fretwell, E. (2022). “Domesticating the Unfamiliar” Afropolitan Dress in the West African Kingdom of Dahomey. Radical History Review 144 , pp. 19-44.

Fretwell, E. (2021). The tools of tailoring as technologies-in-use in twentieth century Benin, West Africa. History and Technology 37 (2) , pp. 147-171.

Fretwell, E. Ann. (2016). “My Most Beautiful Ornament Is My House” National Womanhood and Urban Modernity in Late Colonial and Postcolonial Senegal, 1956-1968.. Journal of Urban History 42 (5) , pp. 881-899.

Books

Fretwell, E. (2026). Tailoring Identities: Craft, Technology, and Style in Benin, West Africa. Indiana University Press.

Presentations

Fretwell, E. ( 2024). "Airports and Aeriel Aspirations in Dakar, Senegal," Aspirational Infrastructure Research: Mobilities, Airports, Place (AIR-MAP) at Global Mobilities Humanities Conference (GMHC), Konkuk University, Seoul, South Korea.

Fretwell, E. ( 2023). "Beninois Artisans and the Material Culture of Expertise," Technology and Material Culture in Africa, University Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Fretwell, E. ( 2022). "West African Artisanal Tailoring as Clothes-Making and Identity-Making," Craft History Workshop, International Online Forum, Queen’s University, Ontario, Canada.

Fretwell, E. ( 2022). "Seamstress’s Workshops, Clothing, and Autonomous Space in Benin, West Africa," “Women’s Work, Clothing, and Contestations of Power in America and Africa,” at American Historical Association Annual Meeting, AHA22 Online.

Fretwell, E. ( 2021). "Seamstresses, Workshops, and Mobility in Central Benin," African Mobilities: The Means and Modalities of Movement(s) Within and Beyond Africa, SERSAS/SEAN 2021 Virtual Spring Conference, African Studies Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Fretwell, E. ( 2019). "Tailoring Technologies and their Transformative Powers in Benin, West Africa," Technologies in Use, Maison Française, Oxford, England.

Fretwell, E. ( 2018). "The Transformative Power of Sewing Machines, Measuring Tapes, and Diplomas in Benin, West Africa," Little Technologies/Big Histories, University of Wisconsin - Madison.

Fretwell, E. ( 2017). "Clothing, Workshops, and the Crafting of Culture and Space in Urban Benin," African Studies Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL.

Fretwell, E. ( 2017). "Workers into Artisans: French Colonial Education and the Informalization of West African Labor," Midwest Labor and Working Class History Colloquium, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN.

Fretwell, E. ( 2017). "Tailored Men: Technology, Mobility and 'Dressing Literate' in Dahomey, 1950s-1970s," Rethinking the Afropolitan: The Ethics of Black Atlantic Masculinities on Display, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA.

Fretwell, E. ( 2016). "Gender and Artisanal Clothing Production in Benin, 1930s-1980s," Dressing Global Bodies: Clothing Cultures, Politics and Economics in Globalizing Eras, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.

Fretwell, E. ( 2012). "Articulating Nationalist Desires: Representations of Modernity, Women, and Consumption in Senegal, 1950s-1960s," Symposium on Sexuality and the Colonial Black Atlantic, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL.