"Ladies Notice:" Dressmaking & Millinery on Main Street in Nineteenth-Century Northampton
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Speaker:
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Lynne Zacek Bassett, Costume and Textile Historian
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Date:
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Tuesday, March 30, 2021 at 7 pm
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Trade Card for Wheeler & Wilson's New High-Arm Family Sewing Machine, The "No. 9," for sale by F.B. Day,
66 Franklin Street, Northampton, Mass. |
An 1891 article in the Hampshire Gazette asked how Northampton's "excess of women" made their living. In Northampton, the answer for over 200 women was making dresses and hats.
In the decades following the Civil War, thousands of women across the country supported themselves and family members after the loss of nearly 750,000 men in the war. The needle trades had offered money-earning opportunities to women for hundreds of years. In this richly illustrated lecture, nationally recognized costume and textile historian Lynne Zacek Bassett will examine the 19th-century millinery (hat making) and dressmaking trades in Northampton. She will focus particularly on the Dickinson family, who dominated the millinery trade in Hampshire County for most of the century, and dressmakers represented by dresses now in Historic Northampton's collection. |
Two-piece silk dress, 1881, made by Mary Ferry & Mary Dickinson, dressmakers in Northampton, Massachusetts.
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Lynne Zacek Bassett is an independent scholar specializing in New England's historic costume and textiles. The former curator of textiles and fine arts at Old Sturbridge Village and former curator of collections at Historic Northampton, she has worked as an independent curator for a wide range of museums since 2001. Her award-winning exhibitions, lectures, and publications on textile topics ranging from the 17th century to the present day have taken her all over the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic region. Lynne’s contribution to the field of historic costume and textiles has been recognized by the American Antiquarian Society, the Massachusetts Historical Society, Historic New England, and the International Quilt Study Center, which have all elected her to membership in their honorary or advisory societies.
Bassett has written numerous exhibition catalogues and articles that have appeared in The Magazine Antiques and Piecework Magazine. Her book publications include:
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Excerpts from "Among the Dressmakers," Daily Hampshire Gazette, Monday, January 12, 1891
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"Mrs. Emma A. Williams 209 Main St., -- I employ 7 or 8 girls most of the time, and can always find plenty for them to do. Sometimes even with two extra hands, we are working until late at night. Most of my business is done with the ladies of Smith college. Frequently on return of the girls from vacation, I get orders for as many as 4 or 5 suits at a time, therefore dispelling at once, the idea some people have, that the students bring their clothes with them. One young lady who was going to California, a short time ago, had 8 suits made for one order. They have their clothes made of the best material, and I have never lost a dollar by one of them. I go to Boston and New York twice a year for the latest fashions, and to get new ideas."
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"Mrs. Lizzie Violet, Main street – I came here from Fall River four months ago, and have not had much work yet, and God knows I need it. My husband met with an accident which injured his head, causing deafness, three months ago, and has not been able to work since. I am afraid my rooms are too far up, but I cannot afford to pay the rent charged for the lower ones. I have a few customers, and hope to have more. The doctors have given their opinion that my husband’s deafness is incurable, so that I find it a hard matter to make enough for both of us."
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