We asked TOWN columnist and Furman historian Dr. Courtney Tollison to interview her colleague Dr. Kathleen Casey about Casey’s new book, The Things She Carried, an eye-opening history of women’s purses. It turns out that purses and bags are more than a style statement, with a history that includes privacy, activism, and political change.
Interview with Dr. Kathleen Casey
Dr. Courtney Tollison: What gave you the idea to write a history of purses?
Dr. Kathleen Casey: I was finishing writing a book about Vaudeville and was interested in how the artists’ costumes shaped their performances, so I started doing more research on the history of apparel. At the same time, I was carrying around a tattered hemp sack that was so ugly that my sister kept offering to throw it away or set it on fire. It was embarrassing to her because it had lots of snags and stains, and she didn’t want to be seen with me while I was carrying it. It made me wonder how such a mundane object became a must-have item for women but not men. Once I started doing the research, I realized there was a lot of untold history.
Do you prefer the research or the writing phase?
I think the research phase is more exciting for me. Entering each archive, requesting items, and getting to ‘meet’ each item for the first time can be so much fun and sometimes includes utterly unexpected surprises.
What is your elevator speech version of what this book is about?
This book is about the politics and power of a ubiquitous but underexamined object. While Americans have long used items of apparel to express aspirations, amplify differences, and alleviate anxieties, only the purse—with its cavernous, pocketed interior—has also provided carriers with space and privacy at a time when they had so little of it. Ultimately, this book reveals the surprising ways in which purses became toolkits that women and others cleverly used to construct their identities and execute their agendas across nearly 200 years.
What do handbags represent? What messages do they convey?
Beyond our aesthetic and utilitarian preferences, handbags convey all kinds of messages about our class aspirations, our gender identity, our age, our sense of security, even our sexuality. They often serve as metaphors for something deeper, and I found that over time they began to represent the female body. They are sacred spaces, never to be touched without explicit permission. And then there’s all the things we carry in them!
Relatively new research has even shown that purses are helpful anchoring objects for aging women with dementia who are living in memory units of nursing homes. The familiar heft and feel of their favorite purse on their lap help remind them of who they are and that they’re safe, at a time when they are otherwise experiencing displacement and uncertainty. Their bags are their home and provide a sense of self.
Congratulations on the book. I imagine your readers will never look at a handbag the same way again!
Tollison is the Distinguished University Public Historian and Scholar at Furman. Casey is a professor of history at Furman and director of the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program. The Things She Carried: A Cultural History of the Purse in America, was released in August 2025.
