Hark, that rustle of a dress,
Stiff with lavish costliness;
Here comes one whose cheeks would flush
But to have her garments brush
‘Gainst the girl whose fingers thin
Wove the weary broidery in;
And in the midnights, chill and murk,
Stitched her life into the work;
Bending backward from her toil,
Lest her tears the silk might spoil;
Shaping from her bitter thought
Heart’s-ease and forget-me-not;
Satirizing her despair
With the emblems woven there!
Scientific American, 4 (Feb. 17, 1849), 1
Time was when half the human race were occupied chiefly in making clothes. When the machines took that avocation away from them they turned to other employments. The invasion of all occupations by women and the sweeping changes which have taken place in their relations to the law, society, and business can be ascribed in large measure to the sewing machine.
Speaker before the patent centennial celebration of 1891 celebrating one hundred years of patent laws
I remember the first time of the walkout we were all in break, eating, have some coffee. And then suddenly there was a whole bunch in the cutting room—the girls and everything. They went over to my table and said, “Alma, you’ve got to come out with us.” And I just looked at them. I was so scared I didn’t even know what to do. What if I go and lose my thirteen years? So long, having seniority and everything. I just looked at them and said, “Yeah, yeah, I’ll go.” That’s all I said. And I had a whole bunch of people sitting there with me and I said, “Let’s go.”
Women at Farah: An Unfinished Story (1979)