Kristina Harris - Authentic Victorian Dressmaking Techniques

Authentic Victorian Dressmaking Techniques

Edited by

Kristina Harris

Dover Publications, Inc.,
Mineola, New York

Copyright

Copyright 1999 by Dover Publications, Inc.

All rights reserved.

Bibliographical Note

This Dover edition, first published in 1999, is an unabridged republication of the work originally published in 1905 by the Butterick Publishing Company, Limited, New York, under the title Dressmaking, Up to Date. It contains a new Introduction written especially for the Dover edition.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dressmaking up to date

Authentic Victorian dressmaking techniques / [edited by] Kristina Harris.

p. cm.

Originally published: Dressmaking up to date. New York : Butterick Pub.

Co., cl905.

ISBN-13: 978-0-486-40485-1

ISBN-10: 0-486-40485-4

1. Dressmaking. 2. CostumeUnited StatesHistory19th century.

3. CostumeUnited StatesHistory20th century. I. Harris, Kristina. II. Title.

TT518.D74 1999

646.4dc21

98-51587

CIP

Manufactured in the United States by Courier Corporation

40485406

www.doverpublications.com

INTRODUCTION

Sewing and Dressmaking in Victorian America

Butterick's Dressmaking, Up To Date (the original title of this work), dates from 1905, and was the first modern American sewing book. The book is so rare that even Butterick's extensive archives do not contain a copy of it. Nevertheless, this volume, which sold in its day for a mere 25 postpaid, was a milestone in the history of American fashion.

When we think of Victorian women today, we often visualize them lavishly dressedand by their own hands. However, this is not altogether accurate. By the early 1900s, for example, many American women cast off the extravagantly frilled and lace-trimmed dresses styled in the mode of their European counterparts, in favor of tailored shirtwaists and rather plain skirts. Also, American women were not likely to sew allor even mostof their clothing; they hired seamstresses and dressmakers to do most of their sewing.

"It is estimated that there are eight thousand dressmakers in the City of New York, exclusively engaged in making ladies and children's dresses, Mrs. M.L. Rayne wrote in the 1893 edition of What Can A Woman Do, a book whose avowed purpose was to help turn-of-the century women find work in a male-dominated society. The author was quick to point out, however, that not even the trade of dressmaking belonged exclusively to women, the figure cited above including more than three hundred men dressmakers. Wages varied according to skill, class of society served, and (undoubtedly) sex; according to Rayne, $40-$60 per week was typical in New York.

Arthur's Magazine offered less optimistic figures. Although the editors quoted a newspaper article which reported that a good dressmaker receives from one dollar and a half to three dollars per day, they suggested that few seamstresses actually earned that much. Furthermore, seamstresses working in factories or sewing in their own cramped tenements were likely to develop poor eyesight in addition to the general health problems associated with their lot. (However, the circumstances American seamstresses found themselves in were an improvement over those in England, where women who plied the trade were frequently little more than prostitutes who sewed for extra money.) Nonetheless, Arthur's noted that a competent dressmaker, who goes from house to house, can always command good wages, nearly, if not quite, equal to those of a man.

But whether a woman wished to make dressmaking her trade (for, as Arthur's Magazine pointed out in 1870, there were three, and only three, branches of labor to which women may turn with perfect proprietyteaching, sewing, and housekeeping). or simply wished to take on a certain amount of sewing at home, there was no formal system of education in place for women who wished to learn dressmaking skills.

Although young girls were supposed to learn sewing at home, the evidence suggests that most American women didn't possess sufficient skills to teach their daughters how to sew properly. If a girl decided to become a professional dressmaker or seamstress, she typically served as an apprentice for about six months with a dressmaker, often beginning, one fashion magazine of the time proclaimed, in comparative ignorance of the plainest of sewing, so that much of her time is lost in mastering the rudiments, which ought to have been familiar to her before she entered the workroom. At the end of six months, she has learned how to sew a straight seam, can put a dress body together if it is properly cut out and basted, and, if she be quick and ready with eye and needle, can, when the pattern is plainly indicated, put on a fold or a ruffle. This was in sharp contrast to male apprenticeships, which, for almost any trade, lasted for years rather than months.

However, probably the most important reason American women were lacking in sewing skills pertained to class conventions. Many middle- and upper-class American women were raised to believe they would always be taken care of by men. Yes, they might learn to sew fancy ornamental stitches, but why should they bother to learn the rudimentary skills? Not infrequently, these cultivated women became reduced in life. and although they seldom knew anything about dressmaking, it might be the only occupation open to them: She has been forced into [sewing] by circumstances not because she understands or has any taste for the use of the needle, but because she knows nothing about anything else, and is a victim of the popular fallacy that all women can sew, whether they have ever tried or not. Arthur's commented.

Rayne also noted that, in general, American sewing skills left much to be desired. How many women are there who can make a beautiful button-hole? she asked. How many who can do fine and elegant needle work, as it used to be done before the era of sewing machines? The average seamstress makes everything on a crazy machine that runs off the track persistently, and what she finishes with the needle is an awful alternative. Hand sewing is still considered superior to machine work, and the goods sold in the Ladies Exchange, and in some of the best stores in the large cities, are of fine needle work. There are several stores in New York devoted to the sale of ready-made underwear, all of which is done by hand, and the prices are proportionally high."

The Modern Sewing Book is Born

A woman who did not sew for a living, but needed to sew some items for herself and her family, had even fewer resources to call upon in order to learn to sew. She might pick up hints here and there from family or friends, and she might read some of the rather complex yet scant directions offered in fashion magazines like Godey's Lady's Book or Butterick's own Delineator. The only books that taught dressmaking were often mathematically mind-boggling and written for professional dressmakersnot for women who sewed at home.

In the early 1800s, The Workwoman's Guide was a staple how-to book for amateurs; later, The Ladies Hand-book of Plain Needlework (1842), The Ladies Self Instructor (1853), Butterick's Needle-Craft: Artistic & Practical (1889), and The Art of Garment Cutting, Fitting & Making (advertised in 1895) were popular. These differed markedly, however, from the current volume. Most manuals contained scaled patterns, or instructions on how to draft crude, home-made sewing patterns, unlike this book, which relied on the fact that turn-of-the-century women had ready access to superior, professionally drafted, commercial sewing patterns. The old manuals also focused on fancy work (like embroidery), household furnishings and accessories, and gave hints at making only very basic clothes meant to be given away to charity.