The Fashion Fight That Exposes the Flaw in Trump’s Tariff Logic

Tariffs might be Donald Trump’s favorite political tool — one that he envisions as a catch-all solution to U.S. problems. Recently, Trump bragged about how his threat to impose a 25% tariff on Canada and Mexico if they won’t curb immigration prompted Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to scurry to Trump’s Mar-A-Lago club to meet with the President-elect.

Trump’s fondness for tariffs is connected to a skewed sense of American history. Trump sees a model in William McKinley, who, first as a Republican congressman from Ohio and later as President, pushed for tariffs and protectionist policies. On the campaign trail, Trump specifically touted the 1890 McKinley Tariffs as a model to emulate, crediting them with making the country the wealthiest in the world.

Yet, Trump’s boasts reveal a shallow understanding of the political fight over the McKinley tariffs. Instead of motivating an era of protectionist patriotism, the tariff wars of the 1890s pitted the federal state against the New York economic elite in a long struggle over power and influence. 

That was especially true of one provision in the 1890 Tariff Act that made the import of luxury dresses extremely expensive. Wealthy elite women saw this provision as an attack on their lifestyle. 

As a result, rather than acquiescing and acquiring their couture from U.S. merchants as McKinley and his supporters hoped, the wealthy women took a stand. The ensuing battle grabbed headlines for more than 10 months and entrenched the superiority of French fashion among American elites. Far from strengthening the government or the economy, it actually helped enshrine a new era of free trade. 

Much like today, tariffs were controversial in the late 19th century. Proponents saw them as a way to boost U.S. manufacturing. Yet—perhaps surprisingly—both the wealthiest Americans and the working poor opposed them. The majority of the working poor protested that tariffs raised prices without increasing wages. Meanwhile, wealthy retailers and manufacturers protested their reduced access to materials.

Read More: Tariffs Don’t Have to Make Economic Sense to Appeal to Trump Voters

The debates over tariffs were fierce. However, they weren’t partisan. Although McKinley and the Republican Party were associated with high tariffs, not all Republicans supported this policy. Many wealthy Republicans—like William Astor and William K. Vanderbilt, who made their fortune in commerce and shipping—favored free trade. 

In 1890, it was the protectionist side of the GOP that won the internecine battle. As Republicans sought to differentiate themselves politically from Democrats, they became increasingly dependent on financial contributions from industrialists who called for aggressive tariffs. 

McKinley spearheaded the effort to grant their wish, and after 450 amendments, the Republican majority in both houses of Congress passed a bill that increased the tax rate on a wide range of goods and materials, expanded significantly the graded valuation system, and imposed hefty penalties on fraud. 

Yet the provision that prompted a political uprising among wealthy New Yorkers wasn’t focused on manufacturing or common textiles like wool or cotton. While on average, the bill placed a 48% tax on items, schedule L applied a 60% tariff on silk and silk goods, velvets, laces, and embroideries. As these plush goods did not have a robust domestic industry in need of protection, elite women saw the measure as vindictive, and as a way for the government to keep making money from imports.

Shortly after President Benjamin Harrison signed the tariff bill on Oct. 1, 1890, schedule L transformed the debate from one about industry and politics to one about culture and consumption. 

At the heart of the saga were two dresses that Mrs. Caroline Astor — William Astor’s wife and the leader of “The Four Hundred,” a list of New York’s most important social influencers — ordered from the French couturier “Maison Félix” earlier that year. She intended to wear them for the Patriarch’s Ball, one of the most prestigious events on the social elite’s calendar. 

Yet, when the dresses arrived at the U.S. Custom House in New York in December 1890, federal officers, who suspected they were undervalued intentionally to avoid the tariff, seized them and sent them for appraisal. The assessment determined the gowns’ value at 3,500 francs or around $700 (about $24,000 today), which was 1.5 times more than the $400 Astor paid, and about 3.5 times the value that the designer’s agents had declared them to be worth.

Although Mrs. Astor could certainly afford to pay the few hundred dollars in fees and penalties to release her dresses, she refused to do so. She recognized that her prominence enabled her to take a powerful political stand against the tariffs — one that would capture headlines. Appealing to Secretary of the Treasury William Windom, Astor argued that the charges were wrong and that requiring her to pay was unlawful. Her protest implied that the government had no business intervening in the elite’s decisions.  

Astor’s plea to Windom fell on deaf ears. Since the government found no value in keeping the dresses, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Oliver Spaulding decided to auction them in the hopes of recuperating some of the lost fees. Customs agents also hoped that the auction would embarrass Astor and persuade her to pay the fees to avoid the scandal. 

But Astor wouldn’t blink and the auction proceeded as scheduled. 

The sale exceeded all of the government officials’ expectations, bringing the government $1,430, more than double the appraisal amount. The lucky buyers were the Bloomingdale Brothers who resold one dress in their department store, and Koster and Bial’s Music Hall, a notorious nightclub known for its lewd entertainment and cancan dancers, who gave the other dress to one of their performers—the actress Jennie Joyce.

Although Mrs. Astor was displeased that her couture gowns ended up in the hands of a low-brow entertainer, her stand inspired other women to use their financial muscle to challenge the tariffs on imported dresses. By 1891, the press reported that the New York Custom House had accumulated a large stock of Paris-made gowns seized from “rebellious” customers who refused to pay the tariffs. A cartoon in Puck magazine titled “McKinley and the Fashions” mocked the government as more interested in becoming a fashion retailer than a governing body. It depicted a sale of “Mrs. Van Astorbilt’s seized gowns”—conflating the names of Astor and Vanderbilt—as the best show in town.

Read More: Why Trump’s Tariffs Could Raise Grocery Prices

The cartoon also illustrated the futility of the government’s efforts to keep elite American women from acquiring their favorite French dresses without paying a tariff. It depicted a ball scene where only dresses with an “official Mckinley stamp” were allowed in, but it also depicted the many ways that elite women found to dodge the duty. Indeed, in 1892, the wedding dress of Cornelia Martin, the only daughter of socialite Bradley Martin, caused a scandal, when the family claimed it was a “used and soiled” dress to avoid paying the hefty taxes.

Despite hopes that that tariffs would cause the fashionable elite to turn to domestic dressmakers, wealthy American women maintained their loyalty to French designers who they believed set the standards with regards to style. 

When it came to taste, the power laid not in the corridors of government, but in the consumer decisions of women. The American fashion industry could not compete with French styles, no matter how many tariffs the government placed or how many dresses it confiscated.

By resisting the tariff, women like Mrs. Astor showed that their consumer practices were not frivolous indulgences in conspicuous consumption, but choices interwoven in the debates of the day with major implications for the economy and the political system.

In the midterm elections, which took place a month after Congress enacted the McKinley tariff, the GOP lost its House majority. Two years later—with the tariffs as the main issue—President Harrison lost to Democratic former president Grover Cleveland, and the Democrats also captured full control of Congress.

McKinley had hoped his tariffs would invigorate the economy and force the rich to pay for their luxurious consumption. Yet, their failure to change ingrained habits serves as a cautionary tale. Mrs. Astor might have lost two precious gowns in her battle with McKinley, but she won the war because the highly visible fight only intensified her cultural influence.

This suggests that Trump ought to be wary of tariff fights backfiring. While he may see them as the perfect geopolitical weapon, they aren’t likely to change the preferences of American consumers and might come with a heavy political price at the polls.

Einav Rabinovitch-Fox teaches at Case Western Reserve University and writes on the intersections between culture and politics. She is the principal editor of Dress: The Journal of the Costume Society of America. Her recent book is Dressed for Freedom: The Fashionable Politics of American Feminism (University of Illinois Press, 2021) and she is currently writing a book on the 1930s Broadway musical Pins and Needles.

Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors.