Women poor enough to have to sew for a living rarely left any written records of their work but the better-educated, richer women they sewed for sometimes did. Here are glimpses by two Georgia women:
Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas of the planter elite in Augusta, Georgia wrote of a cousin Mary Ann Cooper, a "poor creature" who supported herself and her invalid husband by sewing clothing.
Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas 1834-1907
If ear bobs are a measure of wealth the Thomases were rich.
The Clanton Vason-Coleman House, 503 Greene Street, Augusta
photographed by Lawrence Bradley in 1936. Library of Congress.
"March 30, 1856
The merchants are beginning to receive their new goods. I have bought me a very pretty blue silk and had it made by cousin Mary Ann Cooper. Poor creature. She appears to have a hard time of it. She is nursing Jim Cooper and sewing for a means of subsistence. He has had rheumatism...has been constantly confined to his bed...I had rather I believe work for a sick husband than an idle trifling one like Mr Blalock. There is Sarah, sewing hard all the while and he, although in the enjoyment of health and strength, doing nothing. Standing idle while his wife---a woman---is sewing for the bread she eats."
Sarah Blalock is listed as a dressmaker in the Augusta census in 1880. Augustus Blalock is "at home." Things hadn't changed at the Blalocks over 25 years.
Gertrude Thomas mentioned her own sewing. Like many plantation mistresses she had the duty of cutting out clothing for the slaves. She may have also sewed these clothes but that job was often delegated to others, free and slave. Her sewing may also have included embroidery and decorative needlework for her own clothing.
"May 12, 1856
I stayed in town...[sewing and conversing at Ma's] We were speaking of the virtues of men. I admitted their general depravity, but considered that there were some noble exceptions. Among those I class my own husband.
May 26, 1856
Today I have been quite busy in finishing cutting out the pants for the men on the plantation."
Maria Bryan Harford Connell (1808-1844)
Maria Bryan grew up at Mount Zion plantation near Sparta, Georgia and married William Harford. Letters to her older sister Julia Bryan Cumming (1803-1879) are full of detail about her life in the 1820s and '30s. As her editor Carol Rothrock Bleser wrote: Maria "successfully captured in her correspondence a vanished civilization in miniature exactness."
The Quilting Party, 1849
"January 1825- I was at a quilting at Mrs. Norton's the other day and the girls began to plague Nancy Robertson about Butch Lyons.
December 1829 - Aunt Wales & Catherine have been with us this afternoon assisting us to quilt."
Maria is buried in the Mount Zion Presbyterian Church cemetery.
Mrs. Matthews, a fellow church member at the Presbyterian Church, seems to have been quilting for Julia Cumming.
"December 29 1836 - Mrs. Matthews has commenced the quilt; she sent for thread which was furnished her & for cotton, & sent the lining to have it shrunk, so I suppose she is at work upon it, but I never see her nowadays but at church. I sent her word to come and look at a quilt here which I thought was done in a very pretty pattern, but she said you had told her how you wished it done.
January 5, 1837 - I went to see Mrs. Matthews a few evenings ago. She was quilting and I really felt sorry for her in that cold, open house sitting alone at work, and she has laid it off so thickly that it will take her a long time, I think, to finish it. I should go and help her quilt at least one day, if it were not for leaving Ma entirely alone."
By April the quilt was finished:
"April 17, 1837 - Uncle Jacob left home today for August. He took your red trunk, containing the bedquilt.
August 9 1837 - Mrs. Matthews has spent two or three night with me since I have been alone, but not a day, and indeed seems very much indisposed to leaving home. She is now very busily engaged in quilting and I presume I shall not see her until that is finished for whatever she has to do she does it with her might. Do you ever hear of a friend who has work to put out? It would be a great act of charity to secure such things for her if you could do it."
Julia Bryan Cumming and daughter Emily Cumming Hammond
in the late 1830s
Three years later Julia had at least two tops to be quilted. The first took about a month and cost $5.
"October 3 1840 - Mrs. Matthews will do your quilt as soon as you send it up, and any other work that you wish, for, as she tells Mrs. Rossiter, Heaven only knows what is to become of her, for she can get nothing to do. She must incur some expenses, and does not make on average $2 a month. I pity her with all my heart. Don't forget the lining and thread for we cannot get these things on near as good terms as in Augusta.
November, 1840 - Mrs. Matthews has finished the quilt, and I have paid her what she asked $5.00. She wants to let her know how you want the other quilted.
November 23, 1843 - Cornelia wanted much to go home with Elizabeth but Mrs Smith always has so much for her to do and is now so crazy in her preparations for going to housekeeping that poor Cornelia does nothing but work and quilt, etc. and has not time for visiting or reading or music or anything else. Mrs. Rossiter from the great delight she takes in Mrs. Smith, has made her a bed quilt with her own hands and this of a very elaborate kind in stars, and last week they spent at her house quilting it."
This entry is a little confusing. Cornelia might be a slave but slaves didn't get to visit or read, etc. She might be a relative. Someone is going to housekeeping (moving into her own home), probably Mrs. Smith. Mrs. Rossiter, however, has clearly made an elaborate star quilt for her friend Mrs. Smith.
Perhaps like this one from an online auction
The Bryans and the Cummings left family papers now in the South Caroliniana collection at the University of South Carolina ( Hammond-Bryan-Cumming collection.) Historian Carol Rothrock Bleser did much to preserve the documents in published form.
Extra Reading:
Maria Bryan Harford Connell's letters: Tokens of Affection: The Letters of a Planter's Daughter in the Old South edited by Carol K. Bleser
Most interesting! Why is it that when we are young we find history is boring, but when we are getting older it becomes fascinating? Love reading your blogs.
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