Adams Clothier & Fine Fashions

In a rural town like Westville, clothing would have been made by hand. Cotton was the most commonly used fiber for fabric in this area. In the wiregrass region, which is southern Georgia, parts of Alabama, and northern Florida, it was mostly grown on smaller, family-owned farms as opposed to large plantations. Sheep and goats would have been standard farm animals and would have been sheared of their wool once a year.

The process of turning fiber into thread or yarn is called spinning and would have taken place on a wheel. Two skeins spun in a day was considered to be a good day’s work, with a professional spinner being paid 8 cents a day, or $2.14 in today’s money, along with their room and board. In the 1800s, thread would need to be dyed by using natural dye. On display, we show black walnut shells, Indigo, and carmine-which is a red that was created from grinding up beetle shells. This dye is still used today to color food.

A loom would weave thread into fabric. Some common fabrics that were used in the 19th century were: twill, Kentucky Jean, linsey-woolsey, coutil, and linen. Paper patterns were not mass-produced until 1860. People that made clothes, either in a shop or at home, would have to make their own.

While sewing machines were invented in the 1700s, they didn’t work very well. The Singer sewing machine, which worked much better, was patented in 1851. Throughout the last half of the 1800s, sewing machines slowly replaced hand sewing-although for much of the period, detail and certain finishing work was still done by hand.

A dressmaker in Westville’s time period would be participating in one of the few professions that were open to women. It was also acceptable for free Black women. In Georgia, they would have worked roughly 60 hours per week for about 50 cents per day in the 1880s or $12.64 per day in 2020. Occasionally, enslaved women would be trained as a dressmaker.