Shirts, Shifts and Sheets of Fine Linen explores how the jobs of the ‘seamstress’ evolved in scope, and status, between 1600-1900.
In the 17th and early 18th centuries, seamstressing was a trade for women who worked in linen and cotton, making men’s shirts, women’s chemises, underwear and baby linen; some of these seamstresses were consummate craftswomen, able to sew with stitches almost invisible to the naked eye. Few examples of their work survive, but those that do attest to their skill. However, as the ready-to-wear trade expanded in the 18th century, women who assembled these garments were also known as seamstresses, and by the 1840s, most seamstresses were outworkers for companies or entrepreneurs, paid unbelievably low rates per dozen for the garments they produced, notorious examples of downtrodden, exploited womenfolk.
Drawing on a range of original and hitherto unpublished sources, including business diaries, letters and bills, Shirts, Shifts and Sheets of Fine Linen explores the seamstress’s change of status in the 19th century and the reasons for it, hinting at the resurgence of the trade today given so few women today are skilled at repairing and altering clothes. Illustrated with 60 images, the book brings seamstresses into focus as real people, granting new insights into working class life in 18th- and 19th-century Britain.
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List of Plates
List of Illustrations
List of Tables
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. ‘The Art and Mystery of Simistry’ in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
2. ‘Well-handed Needlewomen’
3. The Development of Ready-to-Wear
4. ‘Linnen Drapery at Reasonable Rates’ 1720-1820
5. Slops and Slop-sellers
6. ‘Seam and Gusset and Band’
7. ‘Society came and shuddered’
8. Bespoke Needlework
9. Real Lives
10. The Seamstress in Art and Literature
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Image sources
Index
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Pam Inder has accomplished a monumental feat of scholarship with this comprehensive history of the seamstress. It is an invaluable resource for understanding the lives and economies devoted to what was long considered to be “women's work”.
Les mer
An examination of the profession of ‘seamstress’ and how it changed from being a respected craft in the 17th and early 18th centuries to being a symbol of downtrodden womanhood in the 19th century.
While numerous books have been devoted to period dress, few have described the people who made garments in any detail
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781350252967
Publisert
2024-01-11
Utgiver
Vendor
Bloomsbury Visual Arts
Høyde
234 mm
Bredde
156 mm
Aldersnivå
U, 05
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet
Antall sider
328
Forfatter