Tag: 19th Century Shirts

The Shirt Off His Back

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Who doesn’t love to watch a magic trick? I think they can be a lot of fun, at least as long as I’m not the volunteer from the audience. Especially for this trick!

1784

To pull off any Perfon’s Shirt without undreffing him or having Occafion for a Confederate.

This trick requires only dexterity, and nevertheless when I performed it at the Theater-Royal in the Hay-Market everybody imagined that the person whom I had tricked out of his shirt was in a confederacy with me.

The means of performing this trick are the following, only observing that the cloaths of the person whose shirt is to be pulled off be wide and easy.

Begin by making him pull off his stock, and unbuttoning his shirt at the neck and sleeves, afterwards tye a little string in the button-hole of the left sleeve; then, passing your hand behind his back, pull the shirt out of his breaches, and slip it over his head, then pulling it out before in the same manner, you will leave it on his stomach; after that go to the right hand, and pull the sleeve down so as to have it all out of the arm; the shirt being then all of a heap, as well in the right sleeve as before the stomach, you are to make use of the little string fastened to the button-hole of the left sleeve, to get back the sleeve that must have slipped up, and to pull the whole shirt out that way.

To hide your way of operating from the person whom you unshirt and from the assembly, you may cover his head with a lady’s cloak, holding a corner of it in your teeth.

In order to be more at your ease, you may mount on a chair, and do the whole operation under the cloak. Such are the means I used when I performed publicly this trick.

–PHYSICAL AMUSEMENTS and DIVERTING EXPERIMENTS, 1784

That kind of describes what it feels like when I’ve tried to change clothes in the car. Actually, I think this trick would require a good bit of dexterity, as well as a few practice runs. But still not as much as was required to make this little boy’s shirt. A lot of stitches went into it; decorative backstitching on the collar and cuffs measures about 32 per inch. The simple hemming was 12-14 stitches per inch and seaming (like shallow overcasting) was up to 20 per inch!

A small boy’s shirt, early 19th century. The fineness of all the plain sewing I try to photograph is hard to convey, since close-up shots make the materials seem coarser. But in a more scaled shot, it’s hard to see the dainty stitching. Maybe this one where I’m holding it adds perspective. It would fit a 4 or 5 year old.

He did get some wear out of it! There are several mends and worn spots, like on the wristband here. So this buttonhole is where the conjurer would attach the string!

The boy’s shirt is made like a man’s shirt. There were 20 parts in a “gentleman’s” shirt:

The body, two sleeves, two wristbands, two binders, two shoulder-straps, one collar, two sleeve-gussets, two neck gussets, two side-gussets, two wrist gussets, one for the bosom, and the frill.

This one, however, was made with without the shoulder straps (a strip of linen along each shoulder), binders (lining next to the armscye), wrist gussets, or a “bosom gusset.” It did have a frill and an inserted pleated front made out of finer linen

It was interesting to see that the two separate ruffles were both sewn to the wearer’s left side, and hemmed folded in the same direction, making them look correctly worn when both are folded over toward the right and exposing the pearl buttons. On all the other shirts I have or have seen, the ruffles are hemmed with each side’s hem folded inward toward the front opening.

This is the neck gusset next to the collar, and the tear at the point along the shoulder gives a hint why most shirts needed the reinforcement of “shoulder straps.” Perhaps more for strength when tugged than for abrasion!
Bet the little guy couldn’t wait to unbutton his collar – it measures barely over 10 inches when buttoned!
The neatly sewn underarm gusset.
Inside view of the sleeve gathers at the shoulder. These aren’t usually visible in surviving shirts, because they are hidden inside “binders” which weren’t used on this one. The other shoulder has two coarsely-mended vertical tears, one at the same point on the gusset.
Side gusset exterior.
Side gusset interior.
A peek inside the the shirt front, which had 4 pleats on each side of the front opening. A narrow strip of linen covers the bottom edge.

The SHIRT TRICK was republished in other books over the following decades. It even showed up as late as 1870, but by that time the cut of a man’s shirt was more fitted and complex, and I doubt the stunt would work as easily. Maybe the little fellow who wore this had a copy of the The Boy’s Own Book (1828) and had a go at it? I can’t imagine the maker would have appreciated seeing her work handled so roughly and the “person who was unshirted” might have had to conjure up an explanation!

If Mr. Darcy’s Wet Shirt Shrank

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Mini Shirt 01

Yesterday a friend sent me a link to the most exciting news I’ve seen all year. Mr. Darcy’s Shirt is coming to the U.S.! Yes, you can forget Tutankhamun’s treasures or the Beauty of Xiaohe. Mr. Darcy’s shirt outranks them all.

Who can forget the (totally not in the book) scene from the 1995 Pride and Prejudice film where Mr. Darcy rises from the lake at Pemberley after his swim, only to run into the startled and stunned Miss Elizabeth Bennett? Be still my heart.

Unfortunately I won’t get to see the celebrity shirt on display, so I’ll have to content myself with a miniature version. This is a tiny “sampler” shirt dated 1838, very much like the square-cut linen one that embarrassed the soggy Colin Firth and melted the rest of us.

It measures 7 inches from the top of the tall collar to the hem. The cuff is 1 and 3/8  by 1/2 inch. The backstitches per inch are so small that I cannot count them. There are microscopic gussets on the collar, the sleeve openings at the wrists, and the side flaps. Oh, and of course there are the underarm gussets that are a whopping 1 inch long.

Mini Shirt 02
The back – notice the “binders” which line the armscyes inside the shirt.

Mini Shirt 03
Here you can see the tiny collar gusset, over which the “shoulder strap” lies.

Mini Shirt 08
A view of the shoulder strap which is backstitched on both edges.

Mini Shirt 05

Mini Shirt 09
The sleeves are set into the body with gathering and stroking.

Mini Shirt 04
You can barely see the diminutive gusset at the end of the sleeve opening. Its purpose was to allow ease, so the shirt would be less likely to tear at that joined seam.

Mini Shirt 10
This cuff has come unstitched, and you can see how tiny the sewn gathers are.

Mini Shirt 07
Here is a view of the gusset for the side flaps of the shirt, also meant to reduce tearing and the seam.

Colin Firth in a wet linen shirt, or a sampler made by tiny fingers in days long gone? I don’t know which one makes my heart beat faster: the man-sized or the miniature. But who would shrink from a closer examination of either?

Pin Money

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Pin Money 3
PIN MONEY – money allowed by a man to his wife to spend for her own personal comforts. When pin money is given to, but not spent by the wife, on his death it belongs to his estate. ~A Law Dictionary: Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the United States, 1843. (You may detect some irony here.)

Pin Money 1Most of us are familiar with the important social justice issues of the 19th century, causes like abolition and child labor. But there was another one that became quite fashionable to champion: the plight of workers who fashioned fashions. Women who worked as seamstresses, dressmakers, and milliners were vulnerable to exploitation, and as the pathos and romance of their situation caught public fancy, there was a flurry of response in literature, art, “committees,” laws, private philanthropy and even investigative journalism.

The seamstress who sewed shirts was the poster-child for the cause; you can see one period image I used in a post a few years ago here. Shirt-making was tedious and poorly paid, but the pattern was simple and most of the women who could sew knew how to make one. There was also a steady market for the product, at least until the sewing machine and mass production made hand sewn shirts obsolete.

Dressmaking was different. It required greater skill and was more susceptible to the whim of the patron (and employer if a woman worked for a dressmaking establishment) and vagaries of the trade. But it retained some shreds of respectability as a way to earn a living for those women who were not born to the working class, and yet found themselves with no means of support.

The images here are from a set of stereoviews, the one above titled “Pin Money,” with the model carelessly displaying her wealth of finery. The other is called “Needle Money,” implying that the plainly dressed lady in shabby surroundings must be earning her bread with her needle.

Needle Money 3Needle Money 1

Apparently public sympathy didn’t quite translate into action – or not enough to bring about significant change. A decade or two after Thomas Hood’s famous poem The Song of the Shirt appeared, the image of the genteel but impoverished worker persisted. The poem below was by Francis Charles Weeden, c1860s. It was republished with the explanation:

* These two poems are printed, as written by the author, in juxtaposition, to make the contrast more striking.

Pin Money Poem 1
I haven’t copied the whole poem, since the point and tone are pretty obvious. Victoria was reigning, but so was sentimentality!

Many bloggers have covered the subject, so if you’re interested try a search for “song of the shirt” – it will get you started. If you prefer the old-fashioned-read-a-book way, try The Ghost in the Looking Glass, by Christina Walker – not recent, but fascinating!

Pin Money 2

Needle Money 2
Notice anything about the models?

Sadly, the days of sweatshops aren’t gone forever. If you want to help, here’s one place to start.

A Dorset Knot – I mean Knob – Button

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Dorset Knob 1
Dorset Knob Buttons, early 19th century

The Dorset Button! Not the more common flat disk with thread spokes, but a “high top,” a tiny sphere wrapped in a spider’s web of thread. I mentioned in the Love Shirt post that I would explain how I made the buttons for the shirt – a non-documented, unauthenticated version for the directionally challenged: me. Believe me, before I finished the trial button, it did look more like a Dorset Knot. But I persevered.

The originals I wanted to copy are pictured above. They seemed to be stuffed with a kind of fiber, but the base was a black substance with a greenish-yellow cast and waxy look. It had puzzled me for years. Then after reading more about Dorset knob buttons, I realized the material must be horn.

Dorset Knob 3
You can see the horn button base on the original.

I didn’t have horn buttons, so I used shell instead, about 1 cm in diameter. I cut a little square of linen, about 3.5 cm, and on that I traced and cut out a circle larger than the button. The scraps served as stuffing for the knob. Waste not, want not.

Next I ran a gathering stitch around the circle, put the scraps in the center with the flat button on top, pulled the gathers tight, and stitched them closed. Voilà! The mold!

Then I wrapped thread around the button in a compass rose pattern and anchored it. Beginning at the top, I circumnavigated the button, taking a backstitch around each “spoke” and moving on to the next. It was a bit fiddly, having to smush the lumpiness of the mold and realign the spokes as I worked toward the base.

Once I had made a final pass around the base, I took a few stitches to anchor it all. And then I had to make four more.

For those who like pictures better, see below. For those who want a more authentic method, there is a lot of serious research available online now. And for everyone else… well, there’s always velcro.

Stuffed and gathered.
Stuffed and gathered.
Thread laced in spokes around the mold.
Thread laced in spokes around the mold.
Dorset Knob Weaving
Circumnavigating the globe: backstitching around each spoke before going on to the next. Or back one, forward two.
Dorset Knob Done!
Dorset Knob Done!

The Love Shirt

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Love Shirt Cuff
The Love Shirt, a replica by Yours Truly

Ta da! After ten grueling years (ok, I don’t really know how long, but it has been years) I finally finished a 19th century gentleman’s square-cut shirt of fine linen. Complete with all twenty parts, including the frill. And Dorset knob buttons.

Where did the name come from? Well, a long time ago a friend and I (I miss you, Janet!) were studying one of these shirts, one that had a heart-bit (see that blog). We reached frantically for our vinaigrettes, trying not to swoon on the artifact, as visions of Mr. Darcy flitted around the room. Somehow we started calling that handsome relic The Love Shirt. So it has been to me, ever since. And I wanted to make one myself.

That type of linen is impossible to find nowadays. However, a dear friend (thanks, Dianne!) provided the closest thing possible, and with a pattern from an 1820 book, I commenced.

Darned little gussets, all the work I did backstitching was mostly hidden when assembled.
Darned little gussets, all the work I did backstitching was mostly hidden when assembled. Having since acquired some cobwebby 100-year-old linen lawn, I intend to replace the muslin ruffles, this time hemming them the right direction. If there’s a harder way to do anything, I’ll find it.

Unfortunately I have a memory like Dory, so every time I put away the project for a spell, I’d have to practically learn how to do the next step all over. A 19th century seamstress would have been appalled to see me.

Love Shirt Full

Um, do I sew both ends of XYZ before I ABC? Do I cut or fold first? Did I sew the sleeve on backwards? Oops. Front and back are the same before the collar goes on, right? Not if you hemmed them first. Oh right, I was supposed to check that I was putting the slit in the front. Well… I’ll just cut the back shorter and make it be the front. And my g-g-g-g-great-grandmother could make one of these in a day or so? How embarrassing.

I did learn a lot. I learned how hard it is to backstitch over two threads without going blind. I learned that there is NO not-shiny sewing thread available today. I learned that linen thread breaks, other people’s buttonholes always look nicer than mine, knots are usually unnecessary, even poor work looks better when ironed, and a drawn thread is no guarantee you’ll sew a straight line. I learned that you had to love your man, or love survival to make one of these. And I learned how to make Dorset knob buttons, my own way! Maybe I’ll write about that next time.

Love Shirt Cuff
You can see the backstitching that nearly blinded me. And you can see the gauging thread I used to hold the stroked gathers in place. I’m going to leave it there a loooong time.

A Heart-bit for St. Valentine’s Day

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Heart-bit? No, I don’t mean smitten with love, phrased in a folksy sort of way. I mean a little bit, or piece, in the shape of a heart! Worn right over the heart.

Heart Bit Shirt
Heart-bit with decorative knots on an early 19th century man’s fine linen shirt. The shirt was rescued from captivity where it had been altered and abused with scissors, sewing machines, and synthetic trim!

That perfect specimen of plain sewing, The Shirt, has a romantic soul. Back in days when shirts were only slit down the front, and not buttoned closed the full length, that end of the opening was vulnerable to tearing. There were various ways to prevent it, and I came across references to this lovely way when researching early sewing instructions. For example, Instructions for Cutting Out Apparel for the Poor, 1789, gives a description of cutting linen for shirts:

This half overplus being a quarter of a yard in length, serves to cut out hearts for the bosoms.

 Or a sewing manual from 1833:

 HEART-BIT

Before commencing the shirt, small pieces of muslin are given to each girl, for the purpose of learning to settle in, and work the breast-gusset.

Of course not all shirts had them. Some had a triangular gussets, or a buttonholed reinforcement, or a tiny rectangular piece to prevent a tear, and some had nothing at all. But you have to love linen with a heart!

Heart Bit Shirt 2
Another early 19th century man’s fine linen shirt, with a beautifully worked heart-bit. Unlike the shirt above, this lucky gentleman spent his retirement carefully packed away.

Heart Bit Chemise
An early 19th century woman’s chemise made of muslin, showing she had a heart, too.

Heart Bit Manual
A girl’s sewing manual from the mid-19th century displays an alternative shape for the gusset, but still called in the instructions a Heart-piece.

Worn Out

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Sewing a shirt
Fortunately my garret has a window.

In spite of my plain shirt obsession, it took me forever to finally reproduce one myself. I have a tendency to procrastinate, and it doesn’t seem to matter if it’s something I really love or not.

I’ll start with enthusiasm, and then the motivation fizzles and the project goes on the UFO shelf. So it’s been with the fine linen shirt I’ve been playing with for the proverbial seven years.

But then last year I had to make one for a local history event, and a Deadline With People Waiting On Me provided the necessary spark.

This square-cut shirt wasn’t made of fine fabric, but of worn-out linen, since it was to dress an interpreter at a historic slave cabin. It was easier to do since I was replicating an old and tattered garment: all my stitches didn’t have to be perfect, thread could be mismatched, patches were expected.

The hard part was working on a heavier material that still contained prehistoric starch, as well as making the shabby parts fit the pattern in the right places. Working over two threads on lumpy and uneven material made the finished product look a bit coarse. Um, not my fault… right. However, I made the deadline although both the shirt and I were worn out!

Cabin Shirt

20,000 Stitches: You Do the Math

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Seamstress
Exhausted from an all-night binge of shirt-making.

Just when I get complacent, thinking I’ve found a bit of information and can safely pack it away, something comes along to surprise me. As Seen on TV advertising is not new to our generation. Well, maybe the TV part, but not the advertising!  About 150 years ago readers of Godey’s Lady’s Book were told how much easier their lives would be if they only had that new invention, The Sewing Machine.

Old Sewing MachineValue Of A Sewing-machine.—The following curious calculation of the number of stitches required in making a man’s shirt, gives us a realizing idea, as a Yankee would say, of the value of the sewing-machine in one single branch of needlework. As a household aid this invention is invaluable to women. Is it not pitiful that more than twenty thousand stitches have often been required to make one single shirt, for which the poor seamstress received, probably, not over seventy-five cents or one dollar:—

“Stitching the collar, four rows, 3,000; sewing the ends, 500; button-holes, and sewing on buttons, 150; sewing the collar and gathering the neck, 1,204; stitching wristbands, 1,228;  sewing the ends, 68; button-holes, 148; hemming the slits, 264; gathering the sleeves, 840 ; setting on wristbands. 1.468; stitching on shoulder-straps, three rows each. 1880; hemming the bosom, 393; sewing the sleeves, 2,532; setting in sleeves and gussets, 3,050; tappiug the sleeves, 1,526; sewing the seams, 841; setting side gussets in, 424; hemming the bottom, 1,104. Total number of stitches, 20,620.”

In true journalistic tradition, Harper’s presented, almost word for word, the same thing in 1869. Only their math was a little different.

Shirt FoldedThe following curious calculation of the number of stitches in a shirt, which somebody has had the patience to make, we mean the calculation, not the shirt, by any means, may induce some gentleman to present his wife with a good sewing machine.  Stitching the collar, four rows, 3000; sewing the ends, 500; buttonholes and sewing on buttons, 150; sewing the collar and gathering the neck, 1204; stitching wristbands, 1228; sewing the ends, 68; buttonholes, 48; hemming the slits, 264; gathering the sleeves, 840; setting on wristbands, 1468; stitching on shoulder straps, three rows each, 1880; hemming the bosom, 393; sewing the sleeves 2335; setting in sleeves and gussets, 3050; tapping the sleeves, 1526; sewing the seams, 848; setting side gussets in, 424; hemming the bottom, 1104. Total number of stitches 20,530.

Apparently this “curious calculation” didn’t begin life as a sewing machine ad. It appeared in the years after, but also in the years before the sewing machine.  Note how the article was borrowed and adapted (just like the blogs we’re writing now – ha!)

Now come the long evenings with devices for amusing them. In the intervals of recreation there is “work to do.” This word “work” is significant of an employment which astonishes men, and seems never to tire the fingers of their industrious helpmates and daughters; except that, with an expression which we are at a loss to take for either jest or earnest, because it partakes of each, they now and then exclaim, “women’s work is never done!” The assertion is not exactly the fact, but it is not a great way from it. What  “man of woman born” ever considered the quantity of stitches in a shirt without fear that a general mutiny among females might leave him” without a shirt to his back?” Cannot an ingenious spinner devise a seamless shirt, with its gussets, and wristbands, and collar, and selvages as durable as hemming? These inquiries are occasioned by the following Letter from a Lady:— “To the Editor of the Every Day Book.—

Sir, I assure you the Every Day Book is a great favourite among the ladies, and therefore I send for insertion a calculation, furnished me by a maiden aunt, of the number of stitches in a plain shirt made for her grandfather: —Stitching the collar, four rows, 3,000; sewing the ends, 500; button-holes, and sewing on buttons, 150; sewing on the collar and gathering the neck, 1,204; attaching wristbands, 1,228; sewing the ends, 68; button-holes, 148; hemming the slits, 264; gathering the sleeves, 840; setting on wristbands, 1,468; stitching shoulder-straps, three rows each, 1880; hemming the neck, 390; sewing the sleeves, 2,554; setting in sleeves and gussets, 3,050; taping the sleeves, 1,526; sewing the seams, 848; setting side gussets, 424; hemming the bottom, 1,104—Total number of stitches 20,646 in my aunt’s grandfather’s plain shirt, as witness my hand, —Gertrude Grizenhoofe.—Cottenham, near Cambridge, Sept. 1825.”

It was great fun tracing the path of these “curious and significant” calculations, although a bit confusing because sometimes a publisher would acknowledge the source (quite helpful), sometimes not (greater challenge), and sometimes it was a reprint from their own magazine (I got lost).  Not to mention, their math could be as wobbly as mine! The trail of the tale was pretty typical for 19th century publishing.

However, I was astonished to finally come across the same calculation in another magazine – from 1782! So this stitchery factoid was much older than I had supposed, even more exciting!

As a plain-sewing-square-cut-shirt devotee, I’m fairly familiar with the terms used in their construction. I know about the “nineteen pieces in a shirt, twenty in a trimmed one.” But I was puzzled by “tapping the sleeves.”  After finding the other versions I assumed it was a typo for “taping.” And behold! In The Lady’s Magazine, the word was clearly ‘taping’ – but what did it mean? Tapes in the early garments were usually what we call drawstrings today. Hmm… Ideas, anyone?

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