| This is the story of an ordinary woman named Mabel Lewis Patterson who left behind an extraordinary piece of fashion history: a scrapbook, filled with swatches, magazine clippings, and details about nearly every piece of clothing she acquired from the year she was born until 1896, when she was twenty-four years old. The scrapbook of Mabel Patterson, started by her mother, Marcia Patterson, in 1872, contains swatches of fabric, cut-outs from fashion magazines, and personal notes indicating where she bought the fabric, who made it, and where it was worn. Mabel kept the scrapbook for twenty-four years, until she was a sophomore at Vassar College. In leaving the scrapbook behind, she has made it possible for fashion historians to study the sartorial situation from 1872-1896 uniquely through the eyes of a well-educated middle-class woman living in New York City. Her entries reveal the process in which she kept up with changes in fashion: shopping at department stores, employing local dressmakers, remodeling clothing and devouring fashion news found in The Delineator. The entries in the scrapbook of Mabel Patterson not only bring her clothes to life, but bring to life her whole self. In addition, the scrapbook allows a glimpse into life in general at the end of the nineteenth century---going to school, social events, the landscape of New York City, and more, all through the personal point of view of one woman. This qualifying paper explores Mabel's fashionable life, and the lives of her family members, friends, dressmakers, and other people she connected with. It also examines the changing methods of consumerism during the late-nineteenth century, including the popularization of department stores and the increasing prevalence of ready-to-wear clothing. |
