page_title: Eleanor Mosley
section_title: Image and reputation
hierarchical_section_title: Eleanor Mosley / Image and reputation
caption_attribution_description: Gravure de l'Encyclopédie de Diderot et d'Alembert
context_page_description: Eleanor Mosley was an English milliner and a member in the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers. Mosley successfully ran her own millinery business as a single woman in eighteenth-century London.
context_section_description: Milliners had to be their own best advertising and subsequently they and their apprentices and shop girls were well dressed in the latest styles. Even if they had their own shop, milliners or their employees often had to visit the homes of their clients to show them goods or to deliver finished items. The painting by François Boucher, The Milliner (The Morning) has come to personify the image of the milliner: a well-dressed young woman with the tools of her trade - her bandboxes, trims, and wooden stick for taking measurements.
  
  This print by Denis Diderot from his Encyclopédie shows a dressmakers shop filled with well-dressed respectable young women helping female customers choose from a variety of dresses and accessories. Mosley's own shop was likely quite similar.   
  
  Other images, such as Robert Dighton's A Mourning Ramble shows young women who seem to more interested in flirting with male customers than in making sales. This satirical print by James Caldwell compares the "Charming Millener" to a demirep (which is a woman of questionable morals).
  The London Tradesman actually warned young women against going into the millinery trade:
  "The vast Resort of young Beaus and Rakes to Milliners' Shops exposes young creatures to many Temptations, and insensibly debauches their Morals before they are capable of Vice...Nine out of ten young Creatures that are obligated to serve in these shops are ruined and undone: Take a Survey of all common Women of the Town, who take their Walks between Charing-Cross and Fleet-Ditch and, I am persuaded, more than half of them have been bred milliners, have been debauched in their Houses, and are obliged to throw themselves upon the Town for want of Bread, after they have left them. Whether it is owing to the Milliners , or to the Nature of the business, or to whatever cause is owing, the Facts are clear, and the Misfortunes attending the Apprenticeship so manifest...it ought to be the last shift a young Creature is driven to."
  This and other period criticisms as well as the prevalence of satirical prints have led some historians to believe that milliners were not respected and thought to be nothing less than prostitutes.
  Other historians have looked more closely at the trade and women's roles in the eighteenth century and believe that milliners were actually highly respected.
  Work by Amy Erickson and Jessica Collins with the records of the Clockmakers' and Clothworkers' companies show that the girls apprenticed to milliners came from mainly middling class families - their fathers were clergyman, apothecaries, goldsmiths, clerks, shopkeepers, and other similar trades and occupations.  By contrast, the fathers of most of the boys apprenticed in the Clockmakers' company were from lower-status trades.  With premiums to apprentice a girl to a milliner higher than those paid in general for boys, it is unlikely that parents would have paid to put their daughters into an occupation that was so associated with prostitution. Jessica Collins also notes that of the seventeen milliners operating through the Clothworkers' Company, most were based in the more prominent areas of London further demonstrating that the millinery trade was prestigious.
  While The London Tradesman may have warned against milliners,in the same year A General Description of All Trades called millinery 'a considerable trade" and in 1761, the Parents and Guardians Directory noted that "A milliner, in good business, will not take a girl with less than £40 or £50.' An apprenticeship to a clockmaker, he thought, required a premium of £10 to £40. Furthermore, this same directory suggested the costs to set up a millinery would require £400 to £500, while it might take only £100-£200 to set up a clockmakers' shop. These were not inconsiderable sums at this time.
  Some critics thought milliners encouraged vanity and excessive vanity among their customers but others believed that female milliners preserved female modesty by allowing them to be dressed by other women rather than male tailors.  Additionally, rather than encouraging prostitutio
caption: La Marchande de modes Bénard
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "3119", "Image ImageLength": "1668", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Make": "Apple", "Image Model": "iPhone 6", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS5.1 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2015:10:17 15:08:56", "Image ExifOffset": "272", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "922", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6518", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/30", "EXIF FNumber": "11/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "160", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2015:07:02 14:43:00", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2015:07:02 14:43:00", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "5845/1191", "EXIF ApertureValue": "7892/3469", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "3761/1975", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "83/20", "EXIF SubjectArea": "[1631, 1223, 1795, 1077]", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "576", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "576", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3119", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1668", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "29", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[83/20, 83/20, 11/5, 11/5]", "EXIF LensMake": "Apple", "EXIF LensModel": "iPhone 6 back camera 4.15mm f/2.2"}