Overview

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 Drawing on a range of original and hitherto unpublished sources, including business diaries, letters and bills, Shirts, Shifts and Sheets of Fine Linen explores the seamstress’s change of status in the 19th century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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9781350252967

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Reviews

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”. * Jean Druesedow, Kent State University, USA * Pam Inder’s forensic research shines a spotlight into the corners of the seamstress’s world and gives voice to their lives. * Kate Strasdin, Falmouth University, UK * An important contribution to the study of female achievement in the provision of simple but essential clothing and household linens. Across three centuries, using original documents and artistic and literary sources, this book offers a fresh perspective on the role of seamstresses in relation to dress history. * Valerie Cumming, Costume: The Journal of the Costume Society, UK *

Author Information

Pam Inder is an independent scholar and was formerly Curator of Applied Arts at first Exeter and then Leicestershire Museums (specialising in dress history), after being an Assistant Curator at Birmingham City Art Gallery. She later taught at Staffordshire and De Montfort Universities, UK. She is the author of the companion book, Busks, Basques and Brush-braid (Bloomsbury, 2020).

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