The Female Economy: The Millinery and Dressmaking Trades, 1860-1930Hemmed 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. A volume in the series The Working Class in American History, edited by David Brody, Alice Kessler-Harris, David Montgomery, and Sean Wilentz, and in the series Women in American History, edited by Anne Firor Scott, Nancy A. Hewitt, and Stephanie Shaw |
Contents
Fashion and Independence Dressmakers and Milliners in the Antebellum City | 9 |
The Female Economy Proprietors Workers and Consumers ca 18601910 | 23 |
A Precarious Independence Female Proprietors in Gilded Age Boston | 25 |
The Female Aristocracy of Labor Workers in the Trades 18601917 | 55 |
The Social Relations of Consumption Producers and Consumers in the Era of Custom Production | 96 |
Gendered Transformations Toward Mass Production 18601930 | 125 |
A Feminine Skill Work Technology and the Sexual Division of Labor in the Dressmaking Trade 18601920 | 127 |
Commerce over Craft Wholesalers and Retailers in the Millinery Trade 18601930 | 157 |
Engendering Change The Department Store and the Factory 18901930 | 190 |
Conclusion | 229 |
Appendix | 233 |
Essay on Primary Sources | 235 |
Notes | 239 |
| 275 | |
| 293 | |
Other editions - View all
The Female Economy: The Millinery and Dressmaking Trades, 1860-1930 Wendy Gamber Limited preview - 1997 |
The Female Economy: The Millinery and Dressmaking Trades, 1860-1930 Wendy Gamber No preview available - 1997 |