Elizabeth Pangburn

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Elizabeth works at the intersection of dress, performance, and the historical record. She is pursuing a Ph.D. in History with a certificate in Public History to study women's labor and resistance, the history of dress and creative production, and material culture, with an eye on museum studies. Her dissertation will examine the material culture of 19th- and 20th-century workwear in the U.S. to include paid, unpaid, and stolen labor. 

In collaboration with Alice Nash, Associate Professor at UMass, Elizabeth is currently working to document and interpret the personal archive of Le Gip, an African American fashion designer, dancer and “voodoo drummer” active in New York City from 1949-1985. Using Elizabeth’s ongoing efforts over the last two years to catalog the collection, they launched LeGip.org, Omeka.LeGip, and @LeGipFashion in 2022 to share and crowdsource new information. They co-presented “Unpacking Le Gip: The Making of the Le Gip Archive” at the Costume Society of America 2022 National Conference. 

Prior to entering the doctoral program in History at UMass, Elizabeth worked as the Director of the Docent Program at the Las Vegas Art Museum and taught costume design and history at liberal arts colleges in Western Massachusetts.  In 2013, she co-founded TheatreTruck, an arts collective and organizing tool that makes site-specific and mobile performances from the historical record. Elizabeth's professional styling, costume design and technology credits include Nike, Bard Summerscape Opera, NetWorks Broadway national tours, Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, and Barbara Matera.