Women's Work: Quilts: June 2018

Women earning money by sewing were often viewed as miserable.

The wages were low (true) and the work was viewed as unpleasant (by whom?)

A large problem in studying the role of professional seamstresses in the making of fancywork like quilts is the 19th century aversion to discussing women's need to earn money. In the delusional view of an ideal society women were supported by men. Women needing to earn their own money were seen as disreputable failures.

"Decayed Gentlewoman" and family

One solution to the lack of employment choices for poor women was the Women's Exchange movement, which is generally thought to have begun in the U.S. in Philadelphia in 1833. The first annual report of the Philadelphia Ladies' Depository explains:

"In every large city, a numerous class of persons is found, whom the vicissitudes of fortune have reduced from a state of ease or affluence to the necessity of gaining a subsistence by their own personal exertions. The sufferings of females are, in most cases, greatly augmented by a natural feeling of delicacy, which leads them to shrink from observation...To devise means for relieving this class of females; to afford them facilities for disposing of useful and ornamental work in a convenient and private manner, a number of ladies consulted together, and as the most eligible plan for effecting the object, determined to open a small shop...."

Mathew Carey (1760-1839)

Rather than helping the lower classes, these early charity organizations assisted women of "good families" who had fallen upon hard times. The idea was suggested by Irish-born Philadelphian Mathew Carey in 1828 who saw a need for discretion in paying these women better wages than could be earned at plain sewing for a wholesaler.

"There is no subject that has more painfully occupied my mind, than the very inadequate return, for I will not call it compensation, made to females who depend on their needles for support...I allude to persons who have been delicately brought up, but have all there prospects blasted, and who have not strength for any other employment than the needle…"

An 1855 sweatshop

Carey suggested that well-to-do "ladies form associations in order to have...poor women...taught fine needlework, mantua making [dressmaking], millinery, clean starching, quilting, etc. There is always great want of women in these branches." Elizabeth Phile Stott and her friends followed his suggestions and opened the Philadelphia Ladies' Depository.

Carey's idea caught on. The basic principles: Seamstresses were anonymous and items for sale handled discreetly. The shop sold fancy needlework of good quality made by women who received most of the price less a commission to support the agency. Plain sewing did not sell well and poorly made or unfashionable items were rejected, hopefully with advice or training in how to improve. Some agencies established sewing rooms for training and to provide pleasant working conditions. Charitably minded sponsors paid dues to the society and helped with the organization.

Organizations and shops were known by various names. In 1854 the Brooklyn Female Employment Society opened at 64 Court Street where women were given "a fair share of the work at fair prices, from the finest embroidery down to a Hickory shirt."

Sewing room at the House of Industry about 1900

Quakers in Philadelphia developed a second agency, the House of Industry, to give work to a different class of women--- immigrants and poor women. Lucretia Coffin Mott, one of the founders, described a trip to the shop in 1879 where she paid $2 for two quilts, " very pretty red patchwork quilt and a red & mixed-calico not large." A 1919 directory described the work of the House of Industry as making "new quilts and recovering old ones."

Store at the Women's Educational & Industrial Union in Boston

In the late 19th century the term Women's Exchange came into general use. A few of these Women's Exchanges continue in their traditional mission today, still keeping the craftswoman's name discreetly secret. Manhattan's New York Exchange for Women's Work closed in 2003 after 125 years but the Greenwich Connecticut Exchange for Women's Work is still going strong---with a Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/greenwichexchange/
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Follow this link to see an 1898 list of Women's Exchanges.

https://books.google.com/books?id=13riAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA332&lpg=PA332&dq=new+brunswick+jersey+ladies+depository&source=bl&ots=dy5qniK-bh&sig=3oYYFwlPjrYcIp3ynSnG1Nfej3k&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwifjpComaTbAhUDm1kKHY5hABgQ6AEINzAF#v=onepage&q=new%20brunswick%20jersey%20ladies%20depository&f=false

New York City's House of Industry advertised that they did quilting in 1843. A large size quilt was 15 something (maybe shillings?), a smaller one 9. They'd tack a comfortable for 3 or quilt one for 4.60.

The Brooklyn Women's Exchange is still open.

Many of us interested in quilt patterns have collections of blocks---lone blocks.

There was a time when we thought these "orphan blocks" needed to be set, quilted and bound.

Wilene Smith addressed this issue thirty years ago in an AQSG Paper. She writes: "Gradually I realized that these were not left over quilt blocks, or stray quilt blocks, but quilt pattern collections."

Her paper "Quilt Blocks? -- or -- Quilt Patterns?" gave us some insight into the origins and use of many of these lone blocks.

Until the explosion of printed patterns in the late 1920s quiltmakers kept pattern blocks just as we keep digital files on Pinterest pages. We can guess their reasons for saving single blocks: Quilts they intend to make; quilts they might make again; patterns to share with friends. And some people just love to collect patterns.

Pattern collector Mary Pemble Barton (1917-2003) collected many vintage single blocks, organizing them by color and tacking them to backgrounds. Her collection is now in the Iowa State Historical Society. Her panels are pictured in the Quilt Index.

Carrie Hackett Hall (1866-1955) was another pattern collector. She donated her collection of over 800 blocks to the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas. Hall made a few quilts and a lot of blocks in the 1920s and '30s, hoping to make one in every pattern she could find.

California Star

She also collected older blocks which are scattered throughout

the collection.

Block with a note attached from an online auction.

The date may be 1881

When we look at these blocks today we think about women stitching them and perhaps trading them. Here's one origin story that hasn't occurred to me until recently.

1898 Ladies' Art Company catalog

The Ladies' Art Company in St. Louis is well-known as a source of quilt patterns from about 1890 through the 1930s.

For a dime "we will send you...paper patterns" and a colored diagram.

The colored diagram was printed on a small card

But when you notice the fine print in some of the catalogs you also see they would send you a Finished Block.

"We will make up finished blocks to order from any diagram in this catalogue, of any size....It will be impossible to quote any prices here....some...are simple and require little labor, while again others are very complicated....They will be worked in the neatest and most artistic manner....we can make them any size desired."

Has anyone ever identified an "orphan block" as a Ladies Art Company product?

See a post on Emma Zimmer Brockstedt, the woman behind the Ladies Art Company.
http://womensworkquilts.blogspot.com/2018/07/emma-zimmer-brockstedt-and-mail-order.html