Chapter I: Introduction

In a community like that in which we live, where respectability of appearance is essentially important to our prospects in life, and where, at the same time, the means of the vast mass of the population are more or less limited, a wise and judicious economy is one of the most valuable habits which can be formed and practised by those who see a family rising up around them, with daily-increasing wants, and whom they are naturally and laudably desirous of introducing into the busy scenes of the world with that education, and those capabilities, which appear most likely and best calculated to insure success.

So strong is the wish in the bosom of the parent to see his offspring prosperous and respected, and to save them, as much as may be, from those difficulties which beset his own path in his youthful career, that we must consider it as an innate propensity of our nature, which, though often abused and carried to a most criminal excess, is yet planted in the bosom of man, by his all-gracious Creator, for the best and most salutary of purposes.

This feeling of anxiety for the well-being of our offspring, is, to a very considerable extent, manifested by both parents; but it more especially exhibits itself in the conduct and habits of the wife and mother. We have witnessed, with the most acute pain, the sacrifices willingly and cheerfully made by conjugal and maternal affection, in order that the husband and the child might be able to appear as she thought they ought among their connexions and associates; and we deem it the duty of all to do the utmost in their power to point out the means by which this proper and praiseworthy desire may be gratified, without incurring those serious privations which the effort for its accomplishment not unfrequently occasions.

Clothing is an item in the expenses of a family, especially if that family consists of a number of females, of no inconsiderable moment; and though the materials of dress are at the present time exceedingly low, it must be borne in mind that the remuneration for most kinds of labor is also low, and that the cost of making up apparel nearly doubles that of the materials. That a knowledge of the most common principles of millinery and dressmaking would be of essential service, both to young ladies and the maternal heads of families, no one, we presume, will venture to deny; and that such knowledge is seldom acquired, is a fact equally beyond the verge of dispute. It is often felt that the means placed at her disposal by the husband’s and the father’s industry are inadequate, without much contrivance, to support the mother and daughters in that respectability of appearance they are, very properly, desirous of maintaining; and those efforts to lessen expenditure are made which, for want of the necessary instruction, often end in aggravating the evils they were intended to diminish.

To all ladies thus situated this little hand-book is respectfully presented; and the author cherishes the hope that it will prove eminently useful in imparting those elementary principles of information, upon confessedly-important subjects; which will enable the noble-minded females of the United States to secure many blessings of which they are at present deprived: to assume that respectability of appearance which their modest worth and home-virtues so well qualify them to adorn; and to enable them, with serenity and cheerfulness of mind, to cultivate those high moral faculties which are the glory of a nature made only “a little lower than the angels.”

MILLINERY AND DRESS-MAKING.