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The fruits of nimble finger: garment construction and the working lives of eighteenth-century English needlewomen

The research objective of this thesis is to re-examine womens labour in the eighteenth-century English sewing trades. Several aspects womens working lives in the sewing trades are explored in three sections. The first section examines diversity within the sewing trades, employment opportunities, working conditions and quality of life. The second focuses on garment construction practices and techniques. The third discusses social standings of needlewomen, and consumer economy issues as they pertained to the needletrades. Methods employed include building upon prior scholarship of womens work and aspects of pre-industrial English garment trades, primary source material, and object-based research using garment artefacts from the Museum of London, England, Berrington Hall, and the Royal Ontario Museum. The research findings indicate that pre-industrial English needlewomens working lives were highly nuanced, their skills more sophisticated than generally believed, and their role within the burgeoning consumer society worthy of further in-depth investigation. / Clothing and Textiles

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:AEU.10048/1343
Date11 1900
CreatorsDowdell, Carolyn
ContributorsBeverly Lemire, History & Classics, Human Ecology, Arlene Oak, Human Ecology, Jeremy Caradonna, History & Classics
Source SetsLibrary and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis
Format1522063 bytes, application/pdf

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