Artists Known: Two Dressmakers in Gilded Age Boston

"Mrs. M. A. Friend" and "Mrs. J. E. Chapman," creators of some of the gowns in the Gibson House collection, were self-made women, in more than just business. Even their ages were reinvented several times over the years, with different dates given to census takers. In a world that frequently defined women by the men around them, they belonged to a group that allowed (conditional) self-determination: career women. Both set out to make their mark in the female-dominated field of dressmaking.
Margaret Alice McKenna Friend was born around 1850 in New Ipswich, New Hampshire; Julia Evelyn Dobson Chapman between 1850 and 1857 in New Brunswick, Canada. The former would end up separated from her husband by 1900, with three daughters. The latter, who had no children, remained married to Everett Chapman, with whom she ran a dressmaking business, until her death.
The two women's paths converged in the same place: the Boston dressmaking world. Margaret first appears in the 1882 city directory working at 25 Winter Street; from then until her last listing in 1902, her business would move several times. The Chapmans seldom moved, settling at 579 Dudley Street in Roxbury from 1892 until their business closed in 1923.

Punch Magazine, July 28, 1877

While Margaret was the sole proprietor of her business, the Chapmans worked in tandem. Rare in dressmaking, husband-and-wife teams had the distinct advantage of bringing a man’s social privilege to the business enterprise. Reflecting this bias, only Everett appears in directories representing the Chapmans; he is described as a “ladies’ tailor.” Surviving gowns are “signed” by Julia, however, so she likely did the prestigious work of design, cutting and fitting, and dealing directly with clients.

Collection of the Gibson House Museum

Dressmakers’ shops generally had hierarchies. Apprentices formed the base, learning the trade (although the unlucky only sewed seams until their apprenticeships ended). Above them were stitchers or seamstresses, employees who assembled garments. And at the top of the pyramid was the proprietress, often called "Madame," to whom the most complex tasks fell: draping patterns for garments and fitting them. Some dressmaking shops seem to have been close-knit institutions, but this system, while it provided some economic freedom for women, also presented avenues for exploitation. Women with money were the most likely to be able to afford the start-up costs of a business. Here, as in all elements of life, race, ethnicity, and class played a role in who ended up a "Madame" and who spent her career in the workroom. Julia’s and Margaret’s employees are not documented, with one exception: an eighteen-year-old bookkeeper named Bertha Thorne, who boarded with the Chapmans in 1910.

Clientele could be difficult, too. For high-ranked dressmakers, balancing consumer demands with reasonable expectations was a necessity. A customer might return from Paris with a couture gown, for example, and commission a dressmaker to make an equally sumptuous evening bodice for it with only leftover silk. One of the biggest potential issues for a dressmaker was client bill nonpayment, a situation that reflected patriarchal social realities. A woman’s ability to pay her bill usually depended on her husband’s willingness to open his purse—and with popular lore being full of derogatory stereotypes of predatory dressmakers “forcing” women into extravagance, he might well be inclined to refuse. A dressmaking proprietress could sue for recompense, but a successful suit commonly hinged on an ability to pay court fees, something few could sustain for long.

It’s no wonder that the average lifespan of a dressmaking business in Gilded-Age Boston was about six years—a fact that makes Margaret’s twenty-year career remarkable, and Julia’s thirty-one years in business nothing short of exceptional (although she had the benefit of a man’s name on the enterprise). This perhaps accounts for the wide breadth of Julia’s work that can be found in the Gibson collection: gowns dating from the 1890s almost until the 1910s. So much work from one local dressmaker, all with attribution, is rare indeed. While the Gibson House holds only one dress by Margaret Friend, it’s still unusual: a work of commercial art produced by a woman that can be definitively linked back to its designer.

Collection of the Gibson House Museum

The end of each woman’s career differed greatly.
Julia Chapman died around 1923, while the business still operated. Afterwards, Everett closed the shop and moved with Julia’s sister Gertrude, who had worked with the couple for many years, to a farm in Maine. He died in the 1930s. Margaret Friend left dressmaking in 1902, and by 1909, when she was almost sixty, had, remarkably, reinvented herself as a fashion journalist. She regularly traveled between Paris and the United States, writing for Vogue even during World War I. She died in 1930, while living with her daughter in New York City.
Through the lenses of these women’s lives and work, we can see two possible roads that one could travel to success in dressmaking. Perhaps most notably, these women managed to fashion lives for themselves in a way that few working women were able to at the time, crafting self-identities with as much skill and care as their artistic creations.

- Catherine Carver, Office Assistant, Guide, and Museum Technician