The Japanese Society for Aesthetics

Aesthetics No.20 (2016): 50-61

The Representation of Sewing Womenin Godey’s Lady’s BookHIRAYOSHI Hiroko
Kobe University, Hyogo

This paper aims to consider the features and meanings of images of “sewing women” as they
appear from the late 1840s to the early 1850s in Godey’s Lady’s Book[1], which was the mostpopular women’s magazine in 19th-century America.
Godey’s Lady’s Book was a women’s magazine first published in Philadelphia by Louis
Antoine Godey in 1830. It was a pioneer in the genre of the comprehensive women’s magazine,
and stood out for its duration of publication and high circulation. From the first issue, it dealt
with European fashionable styles and the manners of the upper classes. After the writer SarahHale joined the staff as an editor in 1837, the magazine enriched its coverage of literature and awide range of other topics related to women’s lives[2].
In this magazine, portrayals of sewing women frequently appeared from the late 1840s
onward, described in stories, sung in verse, and illustrated in prints. Those feminine portrayals
then disappeared in the early 1850s. Why did “sewing women” appear and continue to be
represented for five years? Around the 1850s, while images of sewing women were appearing in
Godey’s Lady’s Book, seamstresses’ harsh working environments had already emerged as asocial issue in the UK.
Regarding the UK, which led the global industrial revolution, previous studies have focused
attention on seamstresses in relation to the working-class labor issues. I also discussed imagesof the English seamstress deployed in the media in a previous paper[3]. But there are few
statistics from the time, and few previous studies[4], on the same theme in 19th-century America,
which was then a developing nation. However, if we look to the evolution of portrayals of “sewing
women” in Godey’s Lady’s Book in light of the industrial and labor history of the eastern UnitedStates, we can clarify a process of transformation of the image of women associated with thedevelopment of the modern garment industry.
In Japan, the garment industry and fashion of the United States have often been overlooked
or seen as peripheral to those of Europe. Here, by focusing on the region of the country thatexperienced growth with the arrival of the Industrial Revolution and developed an advanced
ready-to-wear industry, it may be possible to reveal one phase of the change in the relationshipbetween fabric and women in the modern age. Note that in the following paper, Godey’s Lady’s
Book is abbreviated to “GLB.”

1. The emergence of the seamstress image
As I mentioned at the beginning, figures of sewing women were frequently seen in GLB
around 1850. Although these images and descriptions of sewing women look varied at first

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glance, several common types can be identified. Let us consider how readers viewed sewing
women by examining the features of the image, starting with a bizarre image of a woman from
1847 (Fig.1).
In the July issue of that year, a figure of a woman with a hat-box appeared as an illustration
for the special topic, “Beauty and Health.” It is immediately evident that her arms holding a box
and her upper body are nothing but bones, and the head peeking under the hat is also a skull.
What does this ominous image mean? At the beginning of the article, it is stated:
It is a strange world--health and disease, beauty and ugliness, life and death always injuxtaposition around us. We must look at the shadow sometimes, in order to estimate thesunshine. Here we give the shadow first, so that those who seek to make themselves
beautiful by outward adorning chiefly may see the sacrifice their vanity inflicts on others. A
passion for dress and the desire to be first in fashion not merely produce results injurious tothose who indulge these fancies, but often entail disease and premature death for hundredsof young girls who work as dressmakers’ apprentices in the business[5].
“The sunshine” means health, beauty and life, in other words healthy and beautiful women
who are all dressed up. But here the focus is on the women lurking in their shadow. According
to the article, girls from 14 to 20 years old are crowded into small rooms to make ball dresses formore than half a day, and it describes young seamstresses literally working themselves to thebone.
A decorative pattern to the upper right of the seamstress seems to imply a doorway aheadof her. She may be about to deliver a completed hat to a customer. There is a striking contrast
between the brilliant feathers indicating the customer and the simple apron of the seamstress,
in other words, between the lady who dresses up and the women who sew.
Let us look at another similar example. In 1853, two
scenes were depicted side by side in a print (Fig.2): on theright side is a woman who holds a needle and a rag in an old,narrow and dimly lit room. A small candle on the table
illuminates her vacant look and sunken cheeks. Her poor
clothes are crumpled, a bare-boned hand emerging from theFig. 1 July 1847, p. 49. (All illustrations
are from Godey’s Lady’s Book unlessotherwise stated.)

Fig. 2 January 1853.

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Fig. 4 Punch, vol.XVII, 1849, pp. 250-251.

cuff. The scenery from the small window reveals that
she lives in an attic. Meanwhile, on the left side, there
is a lady wearing a dress with lace, sitting in front of adressing table in a room with fine furniture such as aclock and a lamp. She chooses a piece of jewelry with graceful hands as if she is going to a ball. A
servant wearing a simple dress arranges her hairstyle. The titles of these prints, “Pin Money” and“Needle Money,” refer respectively to money spent lavishly for fashionable dress, and wages
earned by seamstresses for their livelihoods. When the two images, the stylish lady and the wreckof a woman, are shown side by side, the misery of the seamstress is thrown into sharp relief.
The figure of the seamstress was depicted in this way starting in the latter half of the 1840s.
Articles about the wealthy class seem intended to simultaneously convey the poverty andhardship of the lower class to the reader. However, the articles were not originally written withthis purpose in mind. The fact is that these articles published in GLB were altered andreproduced from British publications[6]. The image of the seamstress as a skeleton noted above(Fig.1) was derived from the London-based The Illuminated Magazine[7] (Fig.3), while the two
women’s images (Fig.2) seem to have been based on work by John Leech in the satirical London
magazine Punch[8] (Fig.4). Here, instead of regarding GLB as a mere imitation, we must look at
how those articles were modified. Only through a close consideration of this can we sharecommon recognition of the problems involved.
Let us look first at the seamstress as a skeleton. The image in GLB (Fig.1) was copied
carefully from The Illuminated Magazine (Fig.3). Although the line is slightly thicker andsimplified, nothing else is particularly different. However, the original title has been removed
and the content of the article is quite different. In the United Kingdom, the labor environmentof youth grew worse as a result of the Industrial Revolution, and a labor survey in 1843 exposed
the realities of life for young women who worked as seamstresses. In response to this government
report, The Illuminated Magazine called for policies to address the problem of poverty among
the lower classes[9]. By contrast, GLB, quoting words from the UK magazine, described thecondition of seamstresses for the reader as follows: “We should be careful not to makeunreasonable requisitions to have dresses completed; and then the delay in paying their bills byfashionable ladies—this often destroys the hopes of the dress-maker, if it does not quite kill her.”Fig. 3 The Illuminated Magazine,
June, 1843, p. 97.

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As to the image of the woman, it described as follows, “The figure represented has not wasted
from consumption or disease brought by tight-lacing—she has evidently been worked andstarved to death. Who would seek the beauty fashionable dress can give at such a price—thedestruction of sister[10].” By indicating that this ominous female image did not represent healthdamage caused by the corset, but the seamstress exhausted from making dresses, the magazine
demanded that fashionable corset-wearing readers pay attention to them.
What about the two contrasting images of women? In the UK publication Punch, there is alady adjusting her appearance on the left page, and a seamstress on the facing right-side page(Fig.4). The servant modifying the lady’s hairstyle, the snake jewelry in the lady’s hands, theshadow of the sunken cheek of the seamstress. Because two different situations are juxtaposedin a detailed depiction, the satirical aspect is emphasized. On the other hand, in GLB a vase in
the middle divides the two scenes on either side, and a decorative floral pattern sets them in aframe. The aspect of social critique becomes less pronounced, and the picture resembles theother fashion plates and prints that made GLB popular[11]. Although the article in GLB statedthat the evil in our land was only beginning, the Tribune, in fact, had reported in 1845 on theharsh work of seamstresses in New York[12]. That is to say, GLB depicted the figure of theseamstress, but it didn’t seem to have a pressing interest in the actual conditions of the lower
class in American society. Rather than raising concerns about the social problems of the working
class, as in the UK magazine, GLB expected its readers, who were also its customers, to view thehardships of seamstresses as their own problems.

2. To become a seamstress
In the previous section, we examined the alterations of articles in GLB that had originallyappeared in English publications. Readers are encouraged to show compassion for the batteredseamstress, and reflect on their own behavior. Stories reflecting a moral attitude toward theseamstress were published, similar in tone to these articles and images. In this chapter we willconsider the reader’s gaze directed toward the seamstress by focusing on their circumstances inthese stories.
The story “The Spring Bonnet,” published in 1850, has three characters: Miss Wheeler, whomakes bonnets for a living, and her two customers,
Caroline and Martha[13]. The heroine, Caroline, orders abonnet from Miss Wheeler on referral from her closefriend Martha, but cannot get her order completed soon.
When impatient Caroline visits Miss Wheeler, she finds
the seamstress with her head down and her face buried inher hands (Fig.5). Although Miss Wheeler has continued
working for two days overnight, the hats on the table for
Caroline and Martha are still without embellishment.
Caroline suggests that she take a rest, saying “let mybonnet lie over until next week.” In contrast, Martha isFig. 5 June 1850, p. 381.
cruel to Miss Wheeler’s child, telling her his mother is sick.

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She says to the child that she doesn’t care--she wants her bonnet and must have it. Describing
the contrasting behavior of two characters, a charitable woman and a self-centered woman, thestory encourages readers to be self-controlled with regard to fashion and to have compassion forthe lower class. Although work does of course provide needed financial assistance for membersof this class, the story preaches that concern for the seamstress should not be forgotten in thequest to satisfy one’s own desires.
In other stories, we can see the diverse circumstances faced by underprivileged seamstresses[14]. For example, a story published in 1851 is about a seamstress named Ruth Lee.
What should be noted in this story is how she became a seamstress. After her father’s death, Ruth
is told by her mother, “Strangers will reap the fruits of your dear father’s taste and judgment inplanning and executing this comfortable and elegant abode.” Reacting to this situation, Ruth
decides to become a seamstress, saying, “while I have youth and health, I will look to no one but
myself for my support--I have decided on making dresses.” But her mother refutes her, “You be
the dressmaker! --But you play and sing so beautifully! If you must do something, why not teachmusic?” Through their conversation it is revealed that Ruth, who has talent for singing and musicin addition to needlework, has been brought up in luxury. But she insists that the work of aseamstress “is honest employment,” and gets an order to make dresses from her cousin, Bertha.
Here the cousin, still in the upper class, pretends to have no acquaintance with her, and thefamily of the cousin also tries to hide their relationship. Because Ruth makes dresses that fit
perfectly, Ruth becomes Bertha’s favorite dressmaker. But former schoolmates also do not alsohide their arrogant attitudes toward Ruth, who became a seamstress. Now, Ruth realizes that“her position is so degraded, --her employment so mean.”As with Miss Wheeler, who appears in the story “Spring Bonnet,” Ruth supports the family
as a young woman at home on behalf of her absent
father. But their origins are different. Ruth was once,
like the cousin, in the position of the dress customer.
The title of the story, “The Dress-Maker and theDress-Wearer,” refers to the customer ordering a
dress and the seamstresses making a dress. Drawn in
the print are proud Bertha, wearing a beautiful dress,
and Ruth drooping her head with scissors and clothin her hands (Fig.6). As illustrated by the cousin who
tried to deny her relation to Ruth, those who produced and consumed dresses belonged to different
Fig. 6 December 1851.
social strata. However, women economically andsocially dependent on men had no other choice but to relinquish their positions of wealth whena father died or a husband failed in business. In such cases, educated women may have tried tobe tutors or writers in order to continue to live independently and maintain their dignity;
otherwise they inevitably had to take on work as seamstresses.
In the 1848 story entitled “The Seamstress,” a woman who becomes a seamstress is a lady
who has enjoyed a wealthy life[15]. Because of her husband’s failure in business, she sells off alarge residence and elegant furniture, and starts a new life on the old land. Her husband had theThe Representation of Sewing Women in Godey’s Lady’s Book55

misfortune to die of an infectious disease in the course of a trip, and she also falls ill. As a result,she ekes out a living by becoming a seamstress.
In this way, seamstresses depicted in GLB were not only lower-class women but also upperclass ones who were tragically compelled to work as seamstresses. The large number of such
images and stories reveals seamstresses’ ambiguous position. For women in the 19th century,socially as well as gender-segregated, the work of a seamstress was synonymous with “lowerclass” labor. On the other hand, needlework was traditionally assigned to women, and because
women could carry it out at home, sewing was regarded as work that could be executed withoutleaving the “women’s sphere.” At the same time, sewing was a technique for every woman tolearn, and because every woman could sew, sewing as wage labor was differentiated from othersewing. As the story suggests, anyone could have the misfortune of becoming a seamstressworking for a wage. Of course, even if all of the readers did not worry about misfortunes thatmight occur in their future, they would realize that they lived in the same world as the seamstresswhom they had frequently met. What GLB tried to maintain here is that seamstresses were notnecessarily in a despised position, and they were just doing “the work women have to do.” Themagazine encouraged readers to consider the seamstress as people and as women just like them.
That is, the representation of the seamstress in GLB did not problematize wage labor; instead it
perhaps reflected the change of attitudes of 19th-century American women toward sewing as
housework. We could say that the sympathy of bourgeois readers for the seamstress, evenalongside their self-satisfaction, stemmed from the positioning of sewing as “women’s work”
more than wage labor in GLB. Women sewing as a form of housework are also frequently
represented in GLB in the same period.

4.Women sewing as a domestic task
As we have discussed the image of a skeletal seamstress in the story entitled “Beauty and
Health,” another female image in the same series of June 1847 should also be noted (Fig.7).
What is depicted is a profile of a woman sitting on a chair, whose stooping back attracts ourattention. The article says that a perfect and noble chest is the grand basis of good health[16],and that it is necessary to exercise outdoors appropriately and activate the lungs sufficiently inorder to maintain the chest. Otherwise habitual bad posture will cause contraction of the chest.
An illustration gives a specific example of bad posture, showing a woman with a bent back, theline from her neck to her back emphasized by her
upswept hairstyle. We can see the woman holding apiece of fabric in her left hand and a thin thread
between both hands, her toe appearing from the hemof dress. Placing her right foot on a cushion and thefabric on her knee, she concentrates solely on sewing.
The text says, “No lady should ever make a table of herlap, either for sewing, reading, or writing, or any
occupation whatever.” From these texts and images, it
Fig. 7 June 1847, p. 311.
can be assumed that in those days sewing was

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recognized as one of a woman’s tasks, occupying her timealongside reading and writing in those days. That is, the woman
represented here is a “lady” (as described at the beginning of theprevious citation) rather than a seamstress. Even so, her dress iscuriously simple for her to be called a “lady.” Let us look at
another example related to this issue.
A poem entitled “The Balance of Happiness” was publishedin 1851. It begins with the phrase “My pipe is of no use at home,
for my wife can’t bear the smoke,” stated from the viewpoint of a
Fig. 8 June 1851, p. 390.
man[17]. He indulges in his hobby outside the home but doesn’tallow his wife to enjoy her freedom. The witty tone of the poem
amplifies his wife’s melancholy. In the accompanying illustration,“the balance of happiness” is represented by a balance-type scale(Fig.8). Champagne and pipes that represent the husband’s
indulgence are on one of dishes, whereas the wife is sitting on theother dish instead of a chair. As the balance bar leans slightly to
one side, the wife seems to be heavier. It seems to be saying thatthe wife is more important than hobbies. Although the house key
is suspended from the edge of the dish full of indulgence, thewoman who is waiting for her husband to come home has no facial
expression. It is noted that whereas the man can afford to enjoy
tobacco, alcohol and horse racing, his wife wears very simple
clothes and is sewing.
Fig. 9 July 1843.
These images of “sewing women” have common aspects.
Although we cannot see the small needles they hold, the women are sewing with cloth and threadin their hands. Their attire is also characteristic. Their hair is tied up, and their dresses are simple
without embellishment. Concerned with their own health, they keep sewing silently and wait for
their husbands to return. In other words, what is represented here are middle class women
sewing as domestic work at home. In the period when exhausted sewing women were drawn,
sewing housewives also appeared in print. The “sewing women” in GLB are not only
seamstresses who sew as paid work, but also housewives who sew as one of their householdchores. But if we look back to the history of GLB, the magazine had not dealt with the theme of“sewing,” or the labor of lower-class seamstresses, until then. It is because this magazine wastargeted at rich women in the eastern United States who had a longing for the Europeanaristocratic society. This change reflects a change in the notion of “ladies” in GLB, that is, achange in the image of women it was assumed readers would have.
From the start of its publication, GLB carried European fashion and original fashion plates
and introduced manners suitable for the sophisticated look of “ladies,” like manners forhorseback riding, dance, and embroidery. The magazine covered the history of embroidery,
Greek mythology, and traditional embroidery in Europe, as well as how to make stitches andpatterns for embroidery. At the same time, it carried the image of woman doing embroidery, oneof which was a lady showing her artwork in a sanctum (Fig.9). Until then, what GLB published

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on paper was not plain sewing but embroidery, although both were forms of needlework. The
practice of making stitches for embroidery indicated that a woman had knowledge andtechniques acquired through education, had the ability to practice and could afford to do so. She
could express her tastes and culture through her completed artworks. Embroidery was a meansof showing off her economic position to others[18]. As Parker writes in her history ofembroidery[19], GLB taught embroidery as ladies’ culture to ambitious bourgeois readers in theeastern United States. In such magazines, however, women doing plain sewing also appeared.
Historically, sewing in relation to making and mending clothes was classified as “plain sewing,”
while embroidery was called “fancy work,” was fun and involved use of the imagination[20]. As
sewing was differentiated from embroidery, which was used to show off ladies’ culture and ability
in public, one had to do plain sewing secretly. However, around 1850, images of sewing women,with their backs bent over, wearing simple dress, appealed to the ladies who read articles in GLB.
This change was caused by a rapid increase in new readers around the 1850s, most of themmiddle-class women who constituted a new readership. According to figures released by themagazine, its circulation was about 25,000 in 1840, but increased to 150,000 in the 1860s[21].
This increase was driven by the expansion of
the country, the development of transport, themaintenance of distribution chains, increasing
population and inflow to cities. As social
conditions improved and more people becamemagazine readers, articles diversified. For
example, a new article entitled “Cottage Model”
introduced houses and interiors for a nuclear
family consisting of a married couple and twochildren (Fig.10). When middle-class women
who sewed at home for themselves and theirFig. 10 September 1846, p. 134.
families joined the readership, topics related toeveryday life appeared as articles in GLB[22]. As the magazine’s readership expanded, sewing
was no longer invisible and became recognized as proper work that women should do at home.
Therefore, it is notable that the sewing women depicted in GLB were not the same as theseamstresses whose conditions were proclaimed a labor issue in the UK. The images of sewing
women in GLB function as signifiers for the relationship between women and home. For further
understanding we have to turn our eyes to the existence of female workers, another category ofsewing women, who had never appeared in magazines.
Amid the Industrial Revolution many weaving mills were established in the first half in the
19th century[23], such as the Lowell Boston manufacturing firm in the northeast USA. Cloth,
which used to be produced by hand, came to be mass-produced using factory machinery. Here,it was young girls who watched and operated those machines. Many of them had left their family
homes and lived in dormitories, bought popular goods using their own wages, and enjoyed theirspare time[24]. In spite of their presence in real society, GLB didn’t refer to working women at
weaving mills, but continued to cover sewing women. This is because the seamstress remained
at home, the women’s sphere, in spite of her horrible environment. If she kept making humble

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stitches, a merciful lady would help her and she could have a chance to grasp happiness.
Seamstresses were clearly differentiated from female laborers, who worked at factories outside
the home as men did, and were recognized as independent from the role prescribed for womenin patriarchal society. In this sense, the work of seamstresses was affirmed as a feminine workin spite of its similarity to wage labor carried out in factories.
Additionally, let us consider the relation of this type of work with others regarded as“women’s work” throughout Western history. As the archaeologist Elizabeth Barber has
explained, women’s work had been that of spinning and weaving since ancient times[25]. But
the invention of spinning machines and improvement of looms during the Industrial Revolution
took away what had traditionally been women’s work. A great deal of cloth began to be producedwith unprecedented speed at factories that integrated the processes of spinning and weaving. In
the 1840s, however, the sewing machine was not yet in practical use and much manpower was
still needed to make clothes from massive amounts of fabric. It was at this very moment that theseamstress emerged. In other words, a labor surplus caused by the mechanization of spinningand weaving in the production of clothes generated seamstresses in the city and factory workers
in the country[26]. Even when the process of sewing could be mechanized, the seamstress still
kept sewing without giving up her needle. She carried out the same needlework at home as
unpaid domestic labor. GLB gave sewing, hidden from the public eye, the status of women’svaluable work by distinguishing the wage labor of seamstresses from sewing as a domestic task,
and describing women who were sewing relentlessly. The sewing woman became a new symbolof femininity, replacing the spinning woman or weaving woman, which faded due to thedevelopment of cotton mills in the Industrial Revolution[27].

5. Conclusion: The extinction of the image of the sewing woman and visual depictions ofsewingAs we have seen, sewing had become something visible, and topics related to sewing were
frequently featured in the magazine. Then in 1853, a diagram of patterns for children’s clothingappeared in the magazine (Fig.11). The article says, “this dress is considered very elegant, andwhat is of more importance, is found to be easily made up[28].” The accompanying rough figure
indicates the form of each part of the clothes,
that is, how to cut the cloth. It seems that themost important thing for readers was whether it
could be easily made or not. And in an article ofthe same year, a pattern store in Philadelphia
was introduced. The article relates that Mme.
Suplee, who dealt with lifelike patterns for ladies’
dresses and aprons, got much attention frommerchants and dressmakers. Anyone who sent
three dollars by mail could get one set of six
patterns[29]. Women no longer needed to utilize
Fig. 11 April 1853, pp. 364-365.
their own clothes at hand for cutting patterns

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59

out. The next year, 1854, a serial article entitled“Practical Guide for Dress Making” appeared,
which explained (women’s) dressmaking withdiagrams for cutting (Fig.12). In addition, thesewing machine was introduced later the same
year. The article illustrated the household sewing
machine, which had been invented but was not yet
in common use, and explained its structure andspecifications[30]. Through these articles, readers
could access not only popular styles but also
information and means to make clothes easily. Of
Fig. 12 March 1854, pp. 262-263.
course, not all readers used these diagrams for
cutting in the magazines to make their children’s
clothing and ladies’ wear. Since a pattern was just a disposable tool, and clothes were also to be
outworn, nothing was left behind. However, what we can find in the magazine is exactly the same
instrumental information for making clothes as the readers were able to read in those days.
Sewing, which had been hidden from public view, now was visually depicted so as to be sociallyand educationally valuable; however, in the period when all readers were required to sew with aneedle and cloth, the images of sewing women became extinct.
When images of sewing women came to reflect the ordinary figures of readers themselves,
the representation of sewing women disappeared. These sewing women, who were represented
for only five years and then disappeared from the magazine, swept aside by the emergence ofpatterns and sewing machines, indicate a murky boundary between wage labor and domestic
tasks for women in American society. They render visible the way in which women were sewn
into their homes.
Notes
[1]
[2]

[3]

Godey’s Lady’s Book, Philadelphia: L. A. Godey, 1830-1892.
The first magazine, published in 1830, was entitled The Lady’s Book. As I discuss later, Sarah
Josepha Hale , who played an active part as a writer and aimed to promote quality reading, became
an editor, and Godey seemed to have a great influence on fashion plates and fashion-related
articles. For the promotion of fashion plates in The Lady’s Book in the early period, see my article“Philadelphia Fashion: The Representation of the Lady in The Lady’s Book” (in Japanese),
Fukushoku Bigaku (Costume Aesthetics) 47, 2008, pp. 55-72. For the problem of evaluatingfashion in the discourse in Godey’s Lady’s Book, see my article “Authentic Fashion: The Discourse
on Fashion Plates in Godey’s Lady’s Book,” (in Japanese) Bigaku (Aesthetics), The JapaneseSociety for Aesthetics, 60(2), 2009, pp. 84-97. For the significance of Godey’s Lady’s Book as a
subject of fashion study, see my article “A Reconsideration of Fashion History: Searching for Clues
in Godey’s Lady’s Book,” (in Japanese), Bulletin of the Graduate School of Human Development
and Environment, Kobe University, 3(2), 2010, pp. 75-83.
See my article “Representation of the Seamstress in Mid-19th Century England,” (in Japanese),
Bulletin of the Graduate School of Human Development and Environment, Kobe University, 5(1),2009, pp. 75-83.

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[4]

[5]
[6]

[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]

[12]
[13]
[14]
[15]
[16]
[17]
[18]

[19]
[20]

[21]
[22]

[23]

[24]
[25]
[26]
[27]

HIRAYOSHI Hiroko

For example, see the American History Statistics by the American Department of Commerce(Translated by Makoto Saito and Yasuhiko Torii, Hara Shobou,1986). There are only fragmentary
records of the first half of the 19th century. For the needlewoman’s reality in the age ofdevelopment of clothing industry, see Norman Ware, The Industrial Worker, 1840-1860, Chicago:
Ivan R. Dee Publisher, 1924, and Mathew Carey, Miscellaneous Essays, Philadelphia: Clark &Raser Printer, 1830. For images of needlewomen in other visual media, for example, there is apainting entitled The Seamstress by John T. Peel, but the details are not clear at the present stageof investigation. For this reason, we consider images of sewing women in women’s magazines,
which are numerous and constitute primary sources from those days.
Godey’s Lady’s Book, “Health and Beauty,” 1847, July, pp. 49-50. In the following notations, thejournal title is omitted when quoting from Godey’s Lady’s Book (GLB).
Charles Dickens expressed displeasure with the copyright policies of American publishingcompanies. Reprints and quotations from other publications were frequently performed in the
United States in those days, and those tendencies in GLB were no exception. Charles Dickens,
American Notes, London: Penguin Books, 2002 (first published by Chapman and Hall,1842.)
The Illuminated Magazine, London, 1843, June, pp. 97.
Punch, London: Punch Publication, 1849, vol.XVII, pp. 250-251.
The Illuminated Magazine, op. cit., pp. 97-100.
“Health and Beauty,” op. cit., p. 49.
GLB established fashion as a theme for women’s magazines in the US before fashion magazines
had been published, by aiming for the technical and artistic improvement of fashion plates. For thepromotion of fashion plates as ornamental painting, see my article in Aesthetics cited in note (2).
George G. Foster, New York in Slices by an Experienced Carver, Montana: Kessinger Publishing(first published by W.F. Burgess, 1849), pp. 50-53.
Anna Wilmot, “The Spring Bonnet,” 1850, June, pp. 381-384.
Mary Spenser Pease, “The Dress-Maker and the Dress-Wearer,” 1851, Dec., pp. 325-331.
Mrs. H. Beecher Stowe, “The Seamstress,” 1848, pp. 363-366.
“Health and Beauty,” 1847, June, pp. 310-311.
Cara, “The Balance of Happiness,” 1851, June, p.390.
Beverly Gordon, “Victorian Fancywork in the American Home: Fantasy and Accommodation,”
Marilyn Ferris Mots and Pat Browne, ed., Making the American Home: Middle-Class Women &Domestic Material Culture, 1840-1890. Ohio: Bowling Green State University, 1988, pp. 48-68.
Rozsika Parker, The Subversive Stitch, London: The Women’s Press, 1984, p. 159.
For the historical development and the cultural meaning of the two types of needlework, i.e. sewing
and embroidery, in American society, see Susan Burrows Swan, Plain and Fancy, New York: A
Rutledge Book, 1977.
Frank Luther Mott, A History of American Magazines 1741-1850, Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, p. 581.
For the qualitative change in articles with expansion of readership, see my article, “Women and
Ornamentation in 19th-century America: A Consideration of the Discourse in Godey’s Lady’s Book,”(in Japanese), Journal of the Japan Society of Design, no. 56, 2012, pp. 454-58.
For American social circumstances as seen in construction of factories for spinning and weaving in
the first half in the 19th century, see Norman Ware, op.cit., 1990, and Sean Wilentz, Chants
Democratic, New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
For the life of factory girls, see the following document which compiled the letters of factory girls:
Thomas Dublin, ed., Farm to Factory, New York: Columbia University Press, 1981.
Elizabeth Wayland Barber, Women’s Work, New York: W.W.Norton &Company, 1994.
Alice Kessler-Harris, Out to Work, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003,pp. 23-26.
Midori Wakakuwa mentions in her book Shouchou tositeno joseizou (The image of women as

The Representation of Sewing Women in Godey’s Lady’s Book

[28]
[29]
[30]

61

symbol) that among the causes of the disappearance of women spinning and weaving in the 18th
century were changes in the identities of art practitioners and differentiation of hierarchies in thecontext of art history. (Chikuma Shobou, 2000, p.392.)“Boy’s Tunic Dress,” 1853, Apr., pp. 364.
1853, Mar., p. 286.
“The New Sewing-Machine,” 1854, Mar., p. 127.

* This paper is based on the Japanese version printed in Bigaku, No. 242 (2013), pp. 144-166, publishedby the Japanese Society for Aesthetics. This work was supported by KAKNENHI 22720061: The
Representation of the Seamstress in Fashion History with a Focus on 19th Century America.