From 1851 to 1875, the visual dissemination of style in America continued to be shaped by technological innovation; expanding retail — despite the Civil War — and the early systems of mass production. With the first passenger and freight lines already in motion, New York remained central to the circulation of taste and goods, while cities like Philadelphia; Boston, and Lowell, Mass., also contributed to the rise of textile manufacturing, ready-made clothing and consumer culture.
The Jubilee Singers of Fisk University before a concert with Queen Victoria, 1860.
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Introduced in 1851, Isaac Singer’s sewing machine reshaped manufacturing, home sewing, the use of paper patterns and the labor market. Women working as independent contractors and business owners emerged as designers and dressmakers of the moment, including Elizabeth Keckley, the former enslaved seamstress, designer, and confident to First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln.
Currier & Ives print titled “Central-Park, Winter; The Skating Pond,” New York, 1863.
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By midcentury, fashion moved further into structured Victorian forms, with crinoline and hoop-skirt technology dramatically widening skirts until the 1860s, when form began to suggest function. Menswear retained its polish in cities and out West, where Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis improved modern workwear in 1873 with the first blue jeans — still America’s most salable fashion item. Meanwhile, the rise of outdoor sport keeps reform dress, and its ideas around health, practically and women’s rights in the conversation.
E.V.Haughwout & Co. fashion emporium, Lower Broadway, New York, 1857.
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Dry goods stores and emporiums across the nation rose to meet the demands of a new consumer. From the mid-1850s to early 1870s, cities from New York to Chicago expanded as centers of fashion, advertising and urban retail. Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s and Abraham & Strauss in New York, Strawbridge & Clothier and Oak Hall in Philadelphia, Rich’s in Atlanta, and Marshall Fields in Chicago helped define a new landscape. With Harper’s Bazaar, America’s first magazine founded in 1867 and the railroad accelerating the movement of people and goods, American fashion is no longer defined only by imported influence setting the stage for the Gilded Age.
