Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Speaker 1: Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. Oh, this one's for
Speaker 1: my stitching folks. If you're not into stitching, you might
Speaker 1: still find this interesting. I hope you do. The first
Speaker 1: week of June this year, there was a report that
Speaker 1: circulated that the company IG Design Group had sold its
Speaker 1: Design Group America division that's usually abbreviated as DGA in
Speaker 1: any headlines or legal filings that you might see. That
Speaker 1: they were selling DGA off of the international business. And
Speaker 1: DGA is the company that is the umbrella company for
Speaker 1: the sewing pattern companies that are known among stitchers as
Speaker 1: the Big four or the Core four. So that's Simplicity Patterns, McCall's, Butterick,
Speaker 1: and Vogue. DGA does also contain other proper lines and brands.
Speaker 1: But this was grave news because DJA was sold to
Speaker 1: a liquidation firm called Hilco Capital for a dollar plus
Speaker 1: per the agreement seventy five percent of proceeds that Hilco
Speaker 1: collects from the sales of the assets. Hilco is the
Speaker 1: same company that purchased Joanne Fabrics and then liquidated it
Speaker 1: earlier this year, as reported by the Craft Industry Alliance
Speaker 1: quote IG Design Group cited the impact of tariffs imposed
Speaker 1: by the US as a factor. Over fifty percent of
Speaker 1: dga's products are manufactured in China, although the sewing patterns
Speaker 1: are made in the US. The company also mentioned a
Speaker 1: softening market over the last several years, as well as
Speaker 1: the bankruptcy of Joanne as factors in the sale. You
Speaker 1: can get into a whole discussion about that of like,
Speaker 1: it's so sad that Joeanne going bankrupt and liquidating is
Speaker 1: killing our sales. Let's hand everything over to the same company. Listen,
Speaker 1: that's a whole discussion that's you're having. But there have
Speaker 1: been some social media posts by DJA brands that are
Speaker 1: indicating like, no, no, it's still business as usual. We're
Speaker 1: still working on the next batch of patterns. But it
Speaker 1: really definitely does seem like a little bit of death
Speaker 1: knell too many people that are in the sewing and
Speaker 1: crafting hobby and professional space. And when I started this outline,
Speaker 1: there actually had not been an update on what was
Speaker 1: going to happen next, and when hey, there has been
Speaker 1: since we'll talk about it at the end, but most
Speaker 1: of the folks who sow are expecting the pattern companies
Speaker 1: to vanish, And this of course got me thinking about
Speaker 1: how we got here in the first place. Right when
Speaker 1: I was growing up and into my early adulthood, those
Speaker 1: Big four sewing companies pattern companies were competitors for the
Speaker 1: most part, but they eventually all somehow ended up in
Speaker 1: one big company, which is just weird. But well before
Speaker 1: they existed, there were already people trying to share sewing patterns.
Speaker 1: So I thought we could talk about how this all evolved.
Speaker 1: And because it is near and dear to my heart
Speaker 1: and I can't st typing when it's about things like this,
Speaker 1: it turned into a two parter. So Part one is
Speaker 1: going to cover ways that books and periodicals that shared
Speaker 1: sewing patterns or templates to create them started out and
Speaker 1: then became very popular in Europe and the US over
Speaker 1: the course of a couple hundred years, and then part
Speaker 1: two will dig into the origins of the Big four
Speaker 1: and where we got here. So my mention of Europe
Speaker 1: and the US is the clue that this is going
Speaker 1: to be pretty Western eccentric. The approaches to how you
Speaker 1: do showing in other areas of the world are actually
Speaker 1: in some ways very different or have been historically, But
Speaker 1: the US and European sewing markets are really what we're
Speaker 1: talking about. And then at the end of part two
Speaker 1: we will have some information about news that broke near
Speaker 1: the end of my research process. There will probably be
Speaker 1: more between when we record this and when it comes
Speaker 1: out we'll see. So people have of course been putting
Speaker 1: together garments since before recorded history, and then over time
Speaker 1: those garments have generally become a lot more complex. They
Speaker 1: started requiring more knowledge of geometry and how to basically
Speaker 1: assemble something inside out and then when it's turned right
Speaker 1: side out it fits on the body. Not every garment
Speaker 1: works that way, obviously, but a lot of garments in
Speaker 1: the clothing traditions that Holly and I grew up in
Speaker 1: do yeah, listen, great kill people, I hear you out there.
Speaker 1: Don't worry about it. It's not about that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not what we're talking about right now. But anyway,
Speaker 1: these like this geometric focus and this inside outing and
Speaker 1: right side outing of the garments eventually led to the
Speaker 1: drafting of patterns and the first known publication of such
Speaker 1: Patterns was in fifteen eighty. This was in book form
Speaker 1: and it was written by a Spanish man named Wanda
Speaker 1: as Sega, and that book was titled Libro de Geometria
Speaker 1: Practica israsa. This this is translated in different ways, but
Speaker 1: the most direct translation seems to be Book on Geometry
Speaker 1: Practice and pattern RASA, for example, is tracing. It's basically
Speaker 1: like making out patterns. Later editions of this book, because
Speaker 1: it did go through multiples, feature an illustration of Wanda
Speaker 1: of Sega on the title page and he's using what
Speaker 1: looks like a compass, and he has a ruler in
Speaker 1: scissors nearby on his work table. And you would need
Speaker 1: those tools to use this book because there were illustrations
Speaker 1: in it that needed to be hand drafted into human
Speaker 1: size pieces. Today, that's not the most common way to
Speaker 1: acquire a pattern, but it's also not unusual. There are
Speaker 1: still books on sewing that work this way. Sometimes they
Speaker 1: have a grid in them and you size them up
Speaker 1: using that grid as a reference for line placement. I
Speaker 1: remember my mom having a couple of special rulers and
Speaker 1: tools for doing this kind of thing. That's common today
Speaker 1: is the method used in Alsega's book and that's where
Speaker 1: the measures are listed on the diagrams and the home
Speaker 1: pattern drafter just tries to enlarge the pattern based only
Speaker 1: on those numbers. But not all of Alcega's illustrations have measurements.
Speaker 1: In some of them, you get a shape and then
Speaker 1: you just you have to sort of work it out
Speaker 1: into a full sized item based on vibes. One to Alcega,
Speaker 1: who was born in the Bosque region of Spain, became
Speaker 1: a tailor by trade, and when he completed his book,
Speaker 1: two other important tailors endorsed it as a valuable work.
Speaker 1: Those are Juan Lopez de Borgette, who was the tailor
Speaker 1: of the Duke of Alba, and ernand Gutierrez, the Princess
Speaker 1: of Portugal's personal tailor, and it was through their support
Speaker 1: that al Sga received a license from the King of
Speaker 1: Spain to print book on Geometry Practice and Pattern for
Speaker 1: public sale. The book's first section does not feature patterns.
Speaker 1: It's all about the techniques that are needed for enlarging them,
Speaker 1: and it also includes information about al Sega's effort to
Speaker 1: write the book. It sounds really arduous. He mentions just
Speaker 1: wanting to quit several times, but this book really set
Speaker 1: the standard for sewing books that include patterns. According to
Speaker 1: a summary by the Library of Congress quote, the quality
Speaker 1: of the designs is noteworthy and contrasts with the neglect
Speaker 1: scene in the writing of the accompanying explanatory texts. That's
Speaker 1: something that's persisted over the centuries. A lot of times
Speaker 1: stitchers have found the explanatory text in these kinds of
Speaker 1: books a lot more confusing than helpful. Al Sega gives
Speaker 1: information on the amounts of fabric that you'll need for
Speaker 1: various patterns, just as you would find on the back
Speaker 1: of a pattern envelope today, although the measure was different.
Speaker 1: There's nothing about yards or meters in this book. At
Speaker 1: the time, Alsega and a lot of other tailors were
Speaker 1: using a measurement called an L. The exact length of
Speaker 1: an L has varied in different places in different cultures,
Speaker 1: so you can find l's that correspond to anywhere from
Speaker 1: twenty seven to forty five inches. The L was its
Speaker 1: own system, and tailors of Alsega's time would have an
Speaker 1: L wand, which is a length of L and that
Speaker 1: had marks on it to break down the various fractional
Speaker 1: lengths of the L, like a half and a quarter
Speaker 1: and things like that. This all just sounds so easy
Speaker 1: and straightforward and interchangeable with everyone's different patterns. I can't
Speaker 1: even imagine. It's like if you we have a hard
Speaker 1: enough time converting yards to meters in you know, modern
Speaker 1: day stitching, but can you imagine if everybody were calling
Speaker 1: it a yard but it was all different? Like, wait,
Speaker 1: whose yard? What are you talking about? No, it's a
Speaker 1: half yard, that's all you'll need. Yeah, but what yard?
Speaker 1: I would lose my mind. In addition to this text,
Speaker 1: which is not as six naorious one might desire, al
Speaker 1: Sega's book also has so many patterns. It has one
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty five in all, and they actually cover
Speaker 1: a wide range of clothing categories. There are garment patterns
Speaker 1: for both women and men, like capes and trousers and dresses,
Speaker 1: but there are also items that fall into very specific
Speaker 1: use groupings. For example, there is a section on garments
Speaker 1: that the clergy would need. There are clothes for jousting
Speaker 1: and even things like Turkish clothing for lifting. There's rope
Speaker 1: de la trado d'panno that's lawyer's clothing, and there's even
Speaker 1: a bathrobe set. It is a very comprehensive set of
Speaker 1: blocks for any stitcher who may need to clothe all
Speaker 1: kinds of people. So having been calling these diagrams patterns
Speaker 1: all this time that Tracy and I have been talking
Speaker 1: is actually a little bit incorrect, because they are what's
Speaker 1: called a block. A block is a set of basic
Speaker 1: pieces that are not exactly patterns. They look very much
Speaker 1: like a pattern, but they're really more like te blitz
Speaker 1: that patterns can be drafted from. They don't have seam allowance.
Speaker 1: They kind of represent the exact shape of the body,
Speaker 1: so if you were to tape them together edge to edge,
Speaker 1: it would theoretically look like the shell of a person. Blocks,
Speaker 1: by the way, are also called slopers. Those words get
Speaker 1: used pretty interchangeably, and these are still used by pattern
Speaker 1: makers today to make patterns for all sorts of garments.
Speaker 1: So in skilled hands, a good set of blocks becomes
Speaker 1: the foundation for an entire library of potentially very different
Speaker 1: looking pattern designs. We'll talk about some of those pattern
Speaker 1: layouts after we pause or a sponsor break. Some of
Speaker 1: the blocks in al Saga's book are fairly simple. For example,
Speaker 1: there is one pattern block for some of the capa
Speaker 1: Solas d' Pagno. Those are cloth capes in the book,
Speaker 1: and those just have three pieces with instructions for cutting
Speaker 1: some of the pieces on the fold. It looks very
Speaker 1: similar to the way you'd see a pattern in a
Speaker 1: modern pattern instance, although again you would have to add
Speaker 1: seam allowance, but others have many pieces for creating much
Speaker 1: more tailored garments. And of note too, is that these
Speaker 1: are not graded for multiple sizes. Right. If you've ever
Speaker 1: bought a commercial pattern today, you'll see multiple cutting lines
Speaker 1: for different sizes. But these are really what are considered
Speaker 1: base size blocks, intended to represent the average sized person,
Speaker 1: whatever that means. It would be up to the person
Speaker 1: using the book to then make any necessary alterations to
Speaker 1: those blocks and the resulting patterns to suit the size
Speaker 1: and shape of the person that a garment was being
Speaker 1: made for. And in a very smart move in terms
Speaker 1: of how the book would be used, it's a book
Speaker 1: that was very short and very wide, with binding along
Speaker 1: the short edge, and that made it really easy for
Speaker 1: the user to keep the book open while working without
Speaker 1: risking the page's flipping due to how tight the binding was.
Speaker 1: The real accomplishment of Alcega's book was that it opened
Speaker 1: the door to the idea that Taylor's manuals could even
Speaker 1: be a thing, and Spain continued to lead the way
Speaker 1: in printing instructional sewing books for almost a century. In
Speaker 1: fifteen eighty eight, another Spanish book, Geometry and Design for
Speaker 1: the Taylor's Trade, was published and written by a tailor
Speaker 1: named Diego de Fryla. It's very similar to al Sega's
Speaker 1: book in terms of layout and organization, including the binding
Speaker 1: style that lays open more easily than a traditional sized book.
Speaker 1: One of the ways Frela's work diverges from his predecessor
Speaker 1: is in the unit of measurement used instead of the
Speaker 1: l Frela uses. The vara and Navara had actually become
Speaker 1: Spain's official standard of measurement in fifteen sixty eight, so
Speaker 1: even before al Sega's book came out, but by fifteen
Speaker 1: eighty eight, when Frela published, it had become more and
Speaker 1: more commonly used and finally replaced that very haphazard assortment
Speaker 1: of measures used in Spain by various municipalities. Incidentally, Avara
Speaker 1: is actually pretty close to a yard at just under
Speaker 1: thirty three inches, so that's zero point eight three six
Speaker 1: meters long. Frila also addressed something that had come up
Speaker 1: when Alcega published his book and which applied to his
Speaker 1: own work as well. And sharing all of this information
Speaker 1: and these pattern blocks both tailors were perceived by some
Speaker 1: members of their trade as basically blabbing professional secrets. The
Speaker 1: knowledge that had for centuries been passed down through the
Speaker 1: apprentice system was suddenly available to anyone who could get
Speaker 1: one of these books. But Frila defended the publications by
Speaker 1: explaining that the information he was sharing was to the
Speaker 1: benefit of the public financially and to the tailor profession reputationally.
Speaker 1: It wasn't very likely that a novice would plant a
Speaker 1: train's tailor just by having a book full of blocks.
Speaker 1: But if people who had their clothes made by tailors
Speaker 1: understood more about the process, including how much fabric various
Speaker 1: garments require, it would prevent them from being taken advantage
Speaker 1: of by unscrupulous vendors, and that would help maintain the
Speaker 1: integrity of the trade. As far as we know. It
Speaker 1: actually wasn't until sixteen seventy one that the French started
Speaker 1: publishing patterns, which began with a book titled The Sincere
Speaker 1: Tailor that was written by Benoi Boulay, and the full
Speaker 1: title of this book translated is The Sincere Tailor, containing
Speaker 1: what must be observed to correctly, trace, cut, and assemble
Speaker 1: all the principal pieces which are made in the tailor's profession.
Speaker 1: And in the opening of the book, Boulay invokes God
Speaker 1: as the reason he is a tailor, writing quote, when
Speaker 1: God calls us into some profession or some job, we
Speaker 1: must consider it as something that divine providence has established.
Speaker 1: Man is a block to spend his life in this work.
Speaker 1: Like the Spanish examples we've mentioned, this has a wide
Speaker 1: range of patterns and mentions the ease of use of
Speaker 1: some of them in their accompanying text. For example, one
Speaker 1: rogue pattern is described this way quote, The said dress
Speaker 1: is made in the manner that I represented in the
Speaker 1: figure below, and to cut it one has very few measurements.
Speaker 1: To take. One only needs the length, which should only
Speaker 1: go to four fingers from the ground, the thickness, and
Speaker 1: the seams must be loose on the body. The tellure
Speaker 1: since there, has been so popular with costumers and clothing
Speaker 1: historians that patterns from it were being reproduced into the
Speaker 1: twentieth century. In the book Period Patterns published in nineteen
Speaker 1: forty two and written by Doris Edson and Lucy Barton
Speaker 1: in English. The first book that included patterns was The
Speaker 1: Tailor's Complete Guide, that did not come out until seventeen
Speaker 1: sixty nine. An attribution here is hazy. Advertisements for the
Speaker 1: guide describe it as the work of Quote, a society
Speaker 1: of adepts in the profession, and the goal of the
Speaker 1: book was to address the common problems of misfitting. Getting
Speaker 1: a garment to sit perfectly on a human body can
Speaker 1: be very tricky, particularly because, in addition to just being
Speaker 1: different shapes, people are not statues, and their movements will
Speaker 1: shift the garment around as they go through their day
Speaker 1: to day lives. And apparently the tailors of England were
Speaker 1: really struggling with this issue at the end of the
Speaker 1: eighteenth century. But this book maybe didn't achieve its goal
Speaker 1: because it was heavily criticized as late as one hundred
Speaker 1: years later by another English tailor named Edward B. Giles,
Speaker 1: who noted in his own book about the history of
Speaker 1: tailoring that Quote its issue could only be warranted by
Speaker 1: the non existence of any other published method, and in
Speaker 1: those circumstances it was better than none. At all. As
Speaker 1: for the US, the first entry into the market of
Speaker 1: tailoring books that featured patterns was The Tailor's Instructor in
Speaker 1: eighteen oh nine. This publication, written by Philadelphia taylors William
Speaker 1: Lapsi and James Queen, has the marvelously long alternate title
Speaker 1: of A Comprehensive Analysis of the Elements of Cutting Garments
Speaker 1: of every kind, to which are added directions for cutting
Speaker 1: various articles of dress for both sexes without the usual
Speaker 1: seams and regimentals of all descriptions with instructions for making
Speaker 1: up work with accuracy and precision. What's really interesting here
Speaker 1: is that Queen and Lapsie actually referenced the Taylor's Complete
Speaker 1: Guide in their introduction, and like Edward Giles, they seem
Speaker 1: to find it lacking. Their criticism of it is a
Speaker 1: little more subtle, though, choosing to praise what came after
Speaker 1: as better quote. The following work will no doubt produce
Speaker 1: in your minds a degree of curiosity, as it is
Speaker 1: the first of its kind that has made its appearance
Speaker 1: in the United States, and we believe the second ever
Speaker 1: known in the English language. The first was published in
Speaker 1: London in the year seventeen ninety six, and received the
Speaker 1: liberal patronage of the trade in general, not only for
Speaker 1: its novelty, but for the interesting and useful instructions contained
Speaker 1: there in. The one following was more judiciously executed, being
Speaker 1: an improvement on the first, and exhibited one of the
Speaker 1: briefest compens of instruction, both in cutting and making up
Speaker 1: work of different kinds, so that from the master taylor
Speaker 1: down to the youngest apprentice it proved interesting and useful.
Speaker 1: This book begins with quite a bit of writing about
Speaker 1: clothing theory, including the nature of fashion, writing quote the
Speaker 1: eye will soon discriminate between the elegant contour and dress
Speaker 1: of a complete gentleman and the extravagant whimsies of a
Speaker 1: city fop. These are great considerations in the articles of dress,
Speaker 1: the former being the result of grace, sensibility, and refined experience,
Speaker 1: the latter the extravagance of follow under the sanction of
Speaker 1: the whim of fashion. And even before a single pattern appears.
Speaker 1: In the first section, which is on outerwear, there's an
Speaker 1: essay titled a Dissertation on coats. Then it gets into
Speaker 1: a how to, still quite worthy, on measuring a thin
Speaker 1: man for a single breasted coat and notes which measures
Speaker 1: mapped to which figures in the drawings of pattern pieces
Speaker 1: that follow, So not too bad in terms of conveying
Speaker 1: the information needed to create clothing. All of these books, though,
Speaker 1: were really prepared for the tailoring market and professionals more
Speaker 1: than the at home stitcher, even though there were absolutely
Speaker 1: likely a few non tailors who managed to access them
Speaker 1: and perhaps learned a few tricks of the trade in
Speaker 1: the process. This started to shift a bit in the
Speaker 1: early to mid eighteen hundreds, as tailors were augmenting their
Speaker 1: income by offering lessons to anyone who had the money
Speaker 1: to enroll with them. This still wasn't usually a person
Speaker 1: sewing for them, though it was in most cases tailors,
Speaker 1: or would be tailors from rural areas who would travel,
Speaker 1: for example, to London to learn from a pro. And
Speaker 1: while this didn't democratize tailoring and pattern access for everyone,
Speaker 1: it does mark another big step out from under the
Speaker 1: umbrella of trade secrets that a lot of professionals still
Speaker 1: believed in for centuries. Outside of this handful of publications
Speaker 1: we've mentioned, specific pattern blocks were passed down through families
Speaker 1: or through a shop's apprentice lines, and they were generally
Speaker 1: pretty carefully guarded, but by the mid nineteenth century that
Speaker 1: had all changed significantly. More and more books on tailoring
Speaker 1: started to come out, and some even offered early grading
Speaker 1: systems to try to help address the needs of multiple
Speaker 1: sizes to aid in customized fittings without needing to draft
Speaker 1: brand new slopers. As this loosening of trade secrecy grew
Speaker 1: more common, periodicals dedicated to tailoring also started to emerge,
Speaker 1: with patterns for women as well as men, and tissue
Speaker 1: patterns started to be sold in England, first as standalone
Speaker 1: items advertised in magazines and then included as inserts in
Speaker 1: those magazines. We are about to get to sewing books
Speaker 1: that were targeted to women in just a moment, but
Speaker 1: first we will hear from the sponsors that keep stuffymus
Speaker 1: in history class Going. Books specifically published for women home
Speaker 1: sists started to appear on the market as early as
Speaker 1: the seventeen nineties, but these were often less about fashion
Speaker 1: and more about utility or in some cases even charity.
Speaker 1: For example, the first known of these was titled Instructions
Speaker 1: for Cutting Out Apparel for the Poor, so this didn't
Speaker 1: have patterns so much as directions for how to use
Speaker 1: basic rectangle cuts to create very simple clothing for people
Speaker 1: who just needed something to cover them. There was no
Speaker 1: fashion in the mix at all. Similarly, the eighteen oh
Speaker 1: eight publication of The Ladies' Economical Assistant did feature actual patterns,
Speaker 1: but they were no frills, extra basic patterns. Right. You
Speaker 1: weren't going to find any pockets anywhere, and you weren't
Speaker 1: going to find any lines for placement of trims. And
Speaker 1: a lot of these patterns were actually for children, so
Speaker 1: that mothers could just keep their babies clothed. Again, not
Speaker 1: so much about fashion. In the book The History of
Speaker 1: the Paper Pattern Industry, which came out in twenty fourteen,
Speaker 1: Joyce spanbell Emery notes that it's entirely possible that full
Speaker 1: sized patterns for women's garments were available as early as
Speaker 1: the eighteen thirties. There were ads and magazines for patterns
Speaker 1: that were available to purchase at retailers, but there aren't
Speaker 1: any known surviving examples of such patterns. As most patterns
Speaker 1: were still issued in small scale and needed to be
Speaker 1: hand enlarged. A lot of companies developed their own in
Speaker 1: large systems to go along with proprietary patterned diagrams, so
Speaker 1: by using any given system. Home stitchers and professional dressmakers
Speaker 1: were assured by the manufacturer that they would have the
Speaker 1: greatest ease of success. Magazines that were focused on women's
Speaker 1: garment sewing started to circulate in the second and third
Speaker 1: decades of the eighteen hundreds. The World of Fashion began
Speaker 1: publishing in London in eighteen twenty nine. This was a
Speaker 1: magazine that wasn't so much about sewing a dress as
Speaker 1: it was about informing readers about fashion trends. It featured
Speaker 1: color plates at the front and then text in the
Speaker 1: main pages describing and commenting on the clothes represented in
Speaker 1: those opening pages. For example, in one entry in the
Speaker 1: January eighteen twenty nine issue, there's this write up about headwear.
Speaker 1: Quote caps Lapont and Ala Psyche constitute the most favorite headdresses.
Speaker 1: The former has the pawn ornament in front of splendid
Speaker 1: blonde and very narrow pink satin rulo, under which is
Speaker 1: the stiffening which keeps the areola so formed in shape.
Speaker 1: This gap is tastefully but slightly ornamented with white gauze
Speaker 1: striped ribbon and in front next the hair with full
Speaker 1: blown roses. The call is of tool finished by pink
Speaker 1: and white satin ribbon. Tila Grek, a psyche cap of
Speaker 1: toul and very broad blonde of a most superb pattern,
Speaker 1: is entitled to a high degree of admiration. It is
Speaker 1: ornamented across the front with half a wreath of damask
Speaker 1: roses and those of Jericho in full bloom, and the
Speaker 1: same flowers cross the crown. Behind the strings are of
Speaker 1: white gauze ribbon, finished at the edges by a border
Speaker 1: in a Greek pattern. The magazine also included information on
Speaker 1: what fashions were popular in London, Paris and other places
Speaker 1: including Russia. It also had features on more standard news
Speaker 1: like births and deaths in prominent families. While the World
Speaker 1: of Fashion taught more about style than stitching, a book
Speaker 1: came out a decade later titled The Workwoman's Guide, containing
Speaker 1: instructions to the inexperienced in cutting out and completing those
Speaker 1: articles of wearing apparel, et cetera which are usually made
Speaker 1: at home. Also explanations on upholstery, straw platting, bonnet making, knitting, etc.
Speaker 1: This volume, attributed simply to a lady, was very clearly
Speaker 1: intended to share practical and comprehensive information on how to
Speaker 1: make clothing and home goods for almost anything you would
Speaker 1: need for a fully stalked wardrobe and linen closet. The
Speaker 1: preface notes as much, stating quote, the author of the
Speaker 1: following pages has been encouraged to hope that in placing them,
Speaker 1: after much deliberation, in the hands of a printer, she
Speaker 1: is tendering an important and acceptable, however humble, service to
Speaker 1: persons of her own sex, who, in any condition of life,
Speaker 1: are engaged by duty or inclination, in cutting out wearing
Speaker 1: apparel in a family or for their poorer neighbors. She trusts,
Speaker 1: in particular that clergymen's wives, young married women's schoolmistresses, and
Speaker 1: ladies maids may find in the Workwoman's Guide a fast
Speaker 1: and serviceable friend. The first chapter teaches basic sewing, covering stitches,
Speaker 1: and how to finish garments. Subsequent chapters focus on materials,
Speaker 1: setting up a sewing basket, and how to properly cut
Speaker 1: fabric for clothing before it gets into actual patterns, including
Speaker 1: perhaps Holly's favorite piece of advice quote, cutting out whole
Speaker 1: sets of things together often prevents much waste. Hence, it
Speaker 1: is better to cut out six or twelve shirts at
Speaker 1: once than only one at a time. Uh. That's good advice,
Speaker 1: y'all if you sew listen to a lady, even if
Speaker 1: all of her advice is super gendered. Once the book
Speaker 1: gets to the pattern sections, it is robust. There are
Speaker 1: chapters that cover kids clothes, women's clothes, and men's clothes,
Speaker 1: all from your base layer your undergarments up to accessories,
Speaker 1: along with pattern diagrams for enlargement. There is also a
Speaker 1: chapter titled Receipts meaning recipes in this context that has
Speaker 1: directions to make everything from inks to mark clothing and
Speaker 1: fabric to cleaning solutions. I was unable to find any
Speaker 1: information on exactly how many copies of this book were published, though,
Speaker 1: so while it actually would have been incredibly useful, it
Speaker 1: isn't clear how many people would have owned a copy.
Speaker 1: It was a British publication that was printed in London
Speaker 1: in eighteen thirty eight by Simpkin Marshaling Company. Not long
Speaker 1: after that publishing house moved their company into a larger
Speaker 1: office that actually became a huge publishing company for a while,
Speaker 1: but this was one of their earlier publications, so it
Speaker 1: seems a little unlikely that there would have been a
Speaker 1: huge number of copies printed. A lot of the contents
Speaker 1: of the book, though, were reprinted in the US in
Speaker 1: women's magazines. One of the developments that impacted the success
Speaker 1: of patterns for home use in the US, also noted
Speaker 1: by Emery in her book, is the eighteen forty five
Speaker 1: expansion of the US Postal Service. This made postage cheaper,
Speaker 1: and it also opened up the mail not just to letters,
Speaker 1: but also, per the bill that was approved by Congress,
Speaker 1: quote circulars and handbills or advertisements, as well as other materials.
Speaker 1: So the stage was set for mail order businesses, which
Speaker 1: was perfect for pattern distribution. According to an article in
Speaker 1: the Journal of American History that was written by Margaret
Speaker 1: Walsh in nineteen seventy nine, in the eighteen fifties in
Speaker 1: the US, we see a three tiered hierarchy of clothing options.
Speaker 1: The top tier was bespoke garments crafted by boutique artisans
Speaker 1: for people who had a lot of money. The middle
Speaker 1: range was clothing that was created by dressmakers but who
Speaker 1: were operating as sort of trades level small businesses rather
Speaker 1: than fashion houses, so their customers were generally the middle class.
Speaker 1: And then the third tier was clothing that was made
Speaker 1: by the home stitcher, and while many homestitchers are and
Speaker 1: have been historically very skilled, I'm not knocking the homestitcher obviously.
Speaker 1: In general, the garments, though in this third tier, were
Speaker 1: of inferior quality to the other two, but that had
Speaker 1: less to do with stitching skill than it did with
Speaker 1: the rather different skill of draping and pattern making. If
Speaker 1: you've ever done any garment sewing, this makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense. The people in the top two tiers had
Speaker 1: years of experience and their own libraries of garment blocks.
Speaker 1: While there were some books and patterns hitting the market,
Speaker 1: a lot of home sewists had to kind of guess
Speaker 1: at how fabric had to be cut to create clothing.
Speaker 1: If they did have access to books or periodicals about sewing,
Speaker 1: there was still a good bit of guesswork. It was
Speaker 1: and still is possible for a person to take a
Speaker 1: part an exis garment and use the pieces of that
Speaker 1: as a pattern, but even then it's imprecise because the
Speaker 1: years of where that a garment has had will have
Speaker 1: warped or stretched some of the pieces, and just taking
Speaker 1: it apart would probably compromise some of the components or
Speaker 1: change their shapes. But the late eighteen fifties was when
Speaker 1: the first sewing machines intended for home use were introduced,
Speaker 1: so we of course talked about this in our twenty
Speaker 1: thirteen episode The Contentious Invention of the Sewing Machine that
Speaker 1: ran as a Saturday Classic on August nineteenth of twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1: And sewing machines enabled dressmakers and homestitchers to create clothing
Speaker 1: that had cleaner finishes and look sharper and more professional.
Speaker 1: The highest level fashion tier, though, we should note, continued
Speaker 1: to tout its fine hand sewing, and that is actually
Speaker 1: still the case in many instances today. Couture fashion houses,
Speaker 1: for example, employ a lot of artisans who are extremely
Speaker 1: skilled at handwork. But despite the production of the sewing machine,
Speaker 1: there were still hurdles in the way of easy access
Speaker 1: DIY fashion. A lot of patterns were distributed in diagram
Speaker 1: form in periodicals, as we mentioned earlier, so readers would
Speaker 1: have to scale them up by hand to use them.
Speaker 1: This is a tricky process and it meant that the
Speaker 1: resulting pattern was likely to have some faults that needed
Speaker 1: correcting once the garment was actually stitched up. There were
Speaker 1: some full sized paper patterns available, but not that many,
Speaker 1: and often they either came in a basic generic size
Speaker 1: that had to be altered, or they might come directly
Speaker 1: from a dressmaker drafter to the stitcher's measurements. That meant
Speaker 1: a greater expense, though, and it seems to have been
Speaker 1: a more unusual path. Yeah, I did find a couple
Speaker 1: of advertisements for that, but I would imagine most people
Speaker 1: that were stitching their own clothes were not willing to
Speaker 1: take on the extra expense of having someone else draft
Speaker 1: the pattern. Another factor that made pattern use at large
Speaker 1: a bit of a challenge in the mid eighteen hundreds
Speaker 1: was a rapidly shifting silhouette in fashion for women. In
Speaker 1: the years before that, a lot of the pieces of
Speaker 1: address started out still mostly rectangular, like if you look
Speaker 1: at the ampere waists that were popular before then, and
Speaker 1: then they were altered through darts and gathers to shape
Speaker 1: to the body. But in the mid nineteenth century that
Speaker 1: all really started to change, and it happened very quickly,
Speaker 1: so more tailored cuts became fashionable, and that necessitated much
Speaker 1: more specialized pattern pieces, and this means that people needed
Speaker 1: not only patterns, they also needed more education on how
Speaker 1: to assemble those patterns into clothing, and to meet that demand,
Speaker 1: instructional books began to appear on the market in Europe
Speaker 1: and the US. One such book was eighteen forty nine
Speaker 1: The Art of Dressmaking, containing plain directions in simple language
Speaker 1: from the fitting of the pattern to the finish of
Speaker 1: the by Eliza and Corey. She signs her dedication, which
Speaker 1: is to her cousin, as Eliza Ann, but her name
Speaker 1: on the title page is only given as Missus Corey.
Speaker 1: This book doesn't actually give much in the way of patterns.
Speaker 1: It features diagrams of only two pieces, a half back
Speaker 1: and a half front, and then the rest of the
Speaker 1: book is text explaining how to measure a person and
Speaker 1: then adjust those two pieces to customize them. But really
Speaker 1: it's mostly suggesting how to use a method people had
Speaker 1: been using for a long time already. It starts the
Speaker 1: instructions with quote supposing the reader to have no idea
Speaker 1: of cutting the first patterns, she is requested to take
Speaker 1: the body of an old dress and pick it to pieces. When,
Speaker 1: if made with a single plat, the half front will
Speaker 1: be found something in the form shown in the frontispiece
Speaker 1: of this little manual. The half front is then to
Speaker 1: be laid upon a piece of undressed Holland and a
Speaker 1: pattern cut from it. It must be remembered that this
Speaker 1: is not the pattern to work from, but only a
Speaker 1: necessary preliminary groundwork on which to take the paper or
Speaker 1: working pattern. Viewed through today's lens, when there are video
Speaker 1: tutorials for almost anything you might want to make, books
Speaker 1: like the Art of Dressmaking don't actually seem very helpful
Speaker 1: or informative. There was a lot of assuming that the
Speaker 1: reader would be able to kind of figure out some
Speaker 1: things for themselves. There was pretty clearly a gap in
Speaker 1: the available patterns that would enable people to make their
Speaker 1: own fashionable clothes. Two people were highly instrumental in developing
Speaker 1: an industry of affordable, size graded patterns for home soists
Speaker 1: in the second half of the nineteenth century in the
Speaker 1: United States. Those were Ellen, Curtis Demorist and Ebenezer Butterick.
Speaker 1: And we're going to talk about them and other people
Speaker 1: in the industry on our next installment this episode. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: do you have listener mail? Mees correct? My first piece
Speaker 1: of listener mail is from our listener Ellen, who is
Speaker 1: talking about her encounter with Beerstatt's last of the Buffalo,
Speaker 1: and Ellen writes, Hi, Holly and Tracy, longtime listener and
Speaker 1: first time writer. Your wonderful podcast has gotten me through
Speaker 1: many hours of cleaning stalls, painting walls, and long road trips.
Speaker 1: I just finished listening to your episode on Albert Berstatt,
Speaker 1: and I was so excited to realize while listening to
Speaker 1: the episode, I had seen some of his art in person. Recently,
Speaker 1: we took a family trip to Washington, d C. And
Speaker 1: as part of the trip toured the National Gallery, where
Speaker 1: I was struck by the painting The Last of the Buffalo.
Speaker 1: It is a massive work of art and has a
Speaker 1: very nice plaque next to it describing how the hunting
Speaker 1: of American bison by European settlers decimated the species. My
Speaker 1: initial reaction to the painting was the opposite of what
Speaker 1: y'all point out in the episode. I saw the lone
Speaker 1: figure of the indigenous hunter as included in the lament,
Speaker 1: and not the cause of the death of the bison.
Speaker 1: Just an example of how art can speak different messages
Speaker 1: to different people, I suppose. Frankly, I love your read
Speaker 1: way better, Ellen. I really enjoy learning about the different
Speaker 1: artists as part of the history podcast y'all put out,
Speaker 1: and I hope you continue to include them in your rotation.
Speaker 1: Listen safe, bet I'll talk about an artist any day.
Speaker 1: Ellen then gives a suggestion of a cool topic and
Speaker 1: then puts pet tax and it is some photos, she says,
Speaker 1: of my horses I raise show prospects for Western performance riding.
Speaker 1: And let me tell you, horses are not so majestic
Speaker 1: all of the time. I've tried to include a few
Speaker 1: photos to show you. One of these photos is of
Speaker 1: this gorgeous horse wearing a baseball cap, which is the
Speaker 1: cutest thing I've maybe ever seen. There is another of
Speaker 1: just a beautiful horse kind of standing before a gorgeous sunset.
Speaker 1: That's a beautiful, beautiful combination of images. There is a
Speaker 1: very cute baby horse in this, but he already has
Speaker 1: a little go tea, which I love. He or she
Speaker 1: and some horses eating these are all such beauties. Horses
Speaker 1: are so pretty. A bicolor horse that's absolutely gorgeous, and
Speaker 1: one that is a like a buff colored horse, like
Speaker 1: an ivory colored horse making the horsiest horse face like
Speaker 1: it's a face that if you drew it and said
Speaker 1: it was a horse, people would be like have you
Speaker 1: seen a horse, but horses make that face? I love
Speaker 1: it so much. And Ellen, I love that you pointed
Speaker 1: out that you know, art is interpreted differently by different people,
Speaker 1: And like I said, I like your read of that
Speaker 1: painting better than what it actually seemed to be about,
Speaker 1: at least according to Beerstot and many people at the time.
Speaker 1: So if you would like to write to us and
Speaker 1: share your takes on art that we've talked about or not,
Speaker 1: and animals being very silly, which is one of my
Speaker 1: favorite flavors of animal pictures, you can do so at
Speaker 1: History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You can also subscribe
Speaker 1: to the podcast on the iHeartRadio app wherever you listen
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Speaker 1: is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
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