The Female Economy : The Millinery and Dressmaking Trades, 1860-1930 / Wendy Gamber.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gamber, Wendy, 1958- author.

Series:

The working class in American history

Women in American history

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Businesswomen--United States--History.

Businesswomen.

Dressmakers--United States--History.

Dressmakers.

Millinery workers--United States--History.

Millinery workers.

Women consumers--United States--History.

Women consumers.

Women's clothing industry--United States--History.

Women's clothing industry.

United States.

Genre:

History.

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (320 p.) ill

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Urbana, Illinois : University of Illinois Press, [1997]

Summary:

"Hemmed in by "women's work" much less than has been thought, women in the late 1800s and early 1900s were the primary entrepreneurs in the millinery and dressmaking trades." "The Female Economy explores that lost world of women's dominance, showing how independent, often ambitious businesswomen and the sometimes imperious consumers they served gradually vanished from the scene as custom production gave way to a largely unskilled modern garment industry controlled by men. Wendy Gamber helps overturn the portrait of wage-earning women as docile souls who would find fulfillment only in marriage and motherhood. She combines labor history, women's history, business history, and the history of technology while exploring topics as wide-ranging as the history of pattern-making and the relationship between entrepreneurship and marriage."--Jacket

Contents:

Intro

Cover

Half Title

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

One. Fashion and Independence: Dressmakers and Milliners in the Antebellum City

Female Artisans and Feminine Pursuits

Villains, Victims, and Disreputable Women: Literary Images

Part One * The Female Economy: Proprietors, Workers, and Consumers, ca. 1860-1910

Two. A Precarious Independence: Female Proprietors in Gilded Age Boston

Understanding Women's Businesses

Boston's Milliners and Dressmakers: Who Were They?

"I… Will Admire Your Independence": The Business of Singlehood

"Not Much of a Help": The Business of Marriage

Three. The Female Aristocracy of Labor: Workers in the Trades, 1860-1917

Age and Ethnicity

Motives: Family and Independence

Work and Gentility

Work and Wages

Madame, the Employer

Accommodation and Resistance: Workers' Responses

Four. The Social Relations of Consumption: Producers and Consumers in the Era of Custom Production

A Different Kind of Consumerism

The Ambiguities of Class

Fashion and Beauty: Contested Terrain

Time and Money

The Sexual Politics of Fashion

Part Two * Gendered Transformations: Toward Mass Production, 1860-1930

Five. A Feminine Skill: Work, Technology, and the Sexual Division of Labor in the Dressmaking Trade, 1860-1920

A "Feminine" Skill

Home and Workshop: The Double Meaning of Women's Work

"Reduced to Science": The Transformation of Dressmaking

Six. Commerce over Craft: Wholesalers and Retailers in the Millinery Trade, 1860-1930

Male Wholesalers, Female Retailers: Credit, Gender, and Paternalism

The Rationalization of Wholesaling

Industrialization from Without: The Separation of Production from Retailing

Seven. Engendering Change: The Department Store and the Factory, 1890-1930.

The Art of Selling: Dressmakers, Milliners, and Department Stores

The New Kind of Shop

Millinery in the Wholesale Factory

The Efficient Millinery

From Dressmaker to Garment Worker

The Specialized Dressmaking Shop

Conclusion

Appendix

Essay on Primary Sources

Notes

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0-252-05464-4

OCLC:

1410115755