Casey’s book about purses featured in TOWN magazine

TOWN magazine features an interview with Furman University’s Kathleen B. Casey, author of “The Things She Carried: A Cultural History of the Purse in America.” The magazine taps Furman Distinguished University Public Historian and Scholar Courtney Tollison to conduct the interview with Casey, professor of history and director of the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program at the university.

Tollison asks Casey about what inspired her work, whether she prefers research or writing, the message the purse conveys, and what Casey’s elevator speech for the book might be. “Ultimately, Casey says, “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.”