SUMMARY
APPLIED RESEARCH
䉬
Examines audience-centered writing strategies
in two very early sewing machine manuals
䉬 Considers the difference between nonsexist and
gender-neutral writing
䉬 Concludes that avoiding sexism in technical
writing may sometimes be impossible
Authority and Audiencecentered Writing Strategies:
Sexism in 19 -century
Sewing Machine Manuals
th
KATHERINE T. DURACK
INTRODUCTION
A
s practitioners of technical communication, we
are frequently advised to “know our audience”
so that we may best meet its needs and expectations in the documents that we produce. By
doing so, we shall be better able to accommodate to our
readers the technologies about which we write (Dobrin
1983, 1989). Understanding the reader is key to effective
document design (Rubens 1986; Schriver 1989, 1997), to
developing strategies for revision (Carroll, Smith-Kerker,
Ford, and Mazur-Rimetz 1987, 1988; Flower, Hayes, and
Swarts 1983; Keller-Cohen 1987; Matchett and Ray 1989;
Redish, Battison, and Gold 1985), and to determining the
appropriate writing style (Brockmann 1986; Mirel, Feinberg, and Allmendinger 1991); it is crucial to establishing a
document’s readability (Duin 1988, 1989; Huckin 1983), to
evaluating product usability (Norman 1990; Quiepo 1991),
and to writing texts for audiences of different cultures
(Mackin 1989; Matsui 1989).
As writers charged with fashioning effective communication, we are advised to shape our texts according to the
practical and cultural needs of our audiences, yet at the same
time, admonished to write in such a way that our texts are
nonsexist (Dell 1989; Frank and Treichler 1989) and that the
science and technology our documents depict is “genderfree” (Lay 1994). Leaving aside the question of whether science and technology are indeed “gender-neutral” (an idea
contested by many feminist scholars of science and technology), the question we must ask is to what extent is it possible
to reflect the concerns and interests of an audience and yet
construct texts that are gender-neutral in a society that has
historically divided labor—and correspondingly, the technologies used—according to the worker’s sex?
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. . . to what extent is it possible to
reflect the concerns and interests of
an audience and yet construct texts
that are gender-neutral in a society
that has historically divided labor—
and correspondingly, the
technologies used—according to
the worker’s sex?
We may presume that the fact-based, often impersonal,
“corporate” voice employed in many technical documents
obtains some level of “objectivity,” but as Sauer (1993) and
others have demonstrated, both impersonal style and standardized formats can mask culpability in disaster reports,
simultaneously serving the needs of powerful groups and
silencing the concerns of others (see also Herndl 1991). It
is easy to believe that texts associated with controversial
events, despite poses of objectivity, may become implicated in efforts to lay blame or conceal accountability. But
what of those documents whose purpose is merely to
instruct someone in the use of everyday technology—a
Manuscript received 7 November 1997; revised 14 January 1998;
accepted 16 January 1998.
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Figure 1. Sewing machine manufacture increased significantly during the 1850s (data from Bourne [1895], p. 530).
blender or perhaps an electric screwdriver? Is it possible to
write nonsexist prose for an audience defined (in large
part) by gender?
Even though many of us subscribe to the notion that
technology itself is “neutral” and that it is the purposes to
which technologies are applied that reveal biases, this
supposed neutrality has been questioned by the work of
scholars of technology (see Postman 1993; among feminist
scholars, Kramarae 1988a; Cowan 1983; Cockburn 1988;
and Wajcman 1991 are significant). Understanding how
technologies and writings about them reflect and reinforce
cultural values and beliefs has recently emerged as an area
of interest in the study of technical communication (for
discussion of feminism and technical communication, see
Allen 1991 and Lay 1994; for broader treatment of social
theory and technical communication, see Duin and Hansen
1996). In this article, I investigate questions of authority and
sexism in technical writing from the mid-nineteenth century. I chose the historical focus to attempt to overcome the
difficulty Bernhardt notes with detecting sexism in contemporary documents, namely that “for those immersed in the
culture, sexism can simply be difficult or impossible to see”
(1992, p. 218). My goal is to determine what, if any, textual
strategies writers used to accommodate the new, “mascu-
line” technology, the sewing machine, to its female users.
In particular, I am interested in whether authors acknowledged women’s authority and sought to bridge gaps between their knowledge about sewing and men’s knowledge of machines, gaps that resulted from the separation of
spheres and division of labor based on sex.
My assumption was that the burden for such accomodation would be greatest in the earliest days of market
penetration and expansion (see Figure 1), and might be
revealed by audience-centered writing strategies similar to
those advocated by current technical writing theory (by the
use of situated cases, examples, or scenarios). My efforts
are focused on early sewing machine manuals and the
extent to which content and textual characteristics meet
two general recommendations:
1. Good technical writing involves readers and anticipates their goals.
2. Good technical writing forges connections between new and existing knowledge.
Schriver (1997) observes that “the first decision people
make when confronted with a document is whether or not
to read” (p. 164). To encourage readers, documents should
be visually appealing and should help the reader accomplish real goals (Schriver 1997; Duin 1988). Good technical
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Sexism in 19th-century Sewing Machine Manuals
prose is “structured around a human agent performing
actions in a particularized situation” (Flower, Hayes, and
My goal is to determine what, if
any, textual strategies writers used
to accommodate the new,
“masculine” technology . . . to its
female users.
Swarts 1983, p. 42); technical writing should provide “questions, examples, illustrations, and metaphors” to involve
readers in the text (Duin 1988, p. 192). Current theory also
advises writers to forge connections between existing and
new knowledge (Duin 1988, 1989; Huckin 1983).
It seems likely that before the introduction of the sewing machine, texts were seldom used in teaching home
sewing, as the requisite skills were most typically learned
by girls from their mothers in apprenticeship fashion, starting with easier tasks—plain sewing on short, straight edges—and working up to greater challenges such as cutting,
fitting, or “turning” clothing (Strasser 1982; Beecher and
Stowe 1869). Instruction in technique was rewarded
through emotional means (for young girls, with toy dolls
and housekeeping play; for older girls and women,
through the admiration of others combined with the opportunity for feminine companionship). But the invention
of the home sewing machine greatly changed the nature of
the task, requiring of its users a different sort of mechanical
skill than previously needed for household sewing.
Did early technical writers employ knowledge of the
products of women’s household sewing (linens and clothing) and its emotional rewards, and claim an increase in
these results with the use of the machine? Did they use
textual strategies such as examples to “situate” the machine
in the household? To what extent were these early technical writers cognizant of the differences in knowledge
needed to sew by machine versus that necessary for sewing
by hand? Did they seek to bridge these gaps in knowledge
within the text? To answer these questions, I examined
selected texts for the following elements:
䉬 Use of metaphors or examples to situate the
machine in the household
䉬 Recognition of the goals of women’s household
sewing, indicated by references to its products
(linens and articles of clothing)
䉬 Recognition of sewing as a collaborative task reflected
in tone, word choice, and metaphors that personify the
machine, casting it as a feminine collaborator
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䉬
Recognition of sewing as a “labor of love” by
promises of emotional reward (improved
relationships, elevated social status, admiration of
others), as yielded by machine sewing
䉬 Explication (prose or illustration) of technical
mechanical terms (my assumption being that such
terminology would be unfamiliar to most 19thcentury female readers, unschooled in the
mechanical arts)
To determine the extent to which notions of audience and
audience needs are reflected in early sewing machine instructions, I examined publications from the Warshaw Collection in the Archives Center at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History. I established
three criteria for the instructions selected for analysis:
䉬 They should be published near or during the first
expansion of the industry (1858 –1860), when
manufacturers were beginning a new focus on
reaching the household market (Hounshell 1984; see
also Figure 1).
䉬 They should be published prior to the beginning of
the Civil War. The Civil War changed the rhetoric of
the sale— characterizing sewing by machine as
women’s patriotic duty (Brandon 1977)—as well as
the dynamics of competition among the major
sewing machine manufacturers (At the start of the
war, Wheeler and Wilson, the leading manufacturer,
suffered a dramatic decline in production, while the
globally diversified Singer continued steady growth
throughout.)
䉬 The manual should be for a home rather than
industrial model machine.
Figure 2 shows documentation from the three major 19thcentury sewing machine manufacturers available to researchers in the Warshaw Collection. Many of the documents are undated; dates of publication for undated
documents were estimated based on information about the
manufacturing dates of the sewing machines they describe
To determine the extent to which
notions of audience and audience
needs are reflected in early sewing
machine instructions, I examined
publications from . . . the
Smithsonian Institution’s National
Museum of American History.
APPLIED RESEARCH
Sexism in 19th-century Sewing Machine Manuals
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Figure 2. Selected 19th-century sewing machine instructions. Washaw Collection of Business Americana, Archives Center, National
Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.
and expert opinion on the clothing styles worn by women
shown at the machines. All but two of the documents—a
manual published by Grover and Baker in 1859, and an
undated leaflet published by Singer—were estimated to
have been published after the Civil War and were therefore
eliminated from my analysis.
The first document, for the Grover and Baker machine, is
a 38-page booklet (approximately 4 ⫻ 6 inches), which, by its
contents, appears to have two purposes: both to support the
sale of the machine and to instruct the user in its use. Its
contents and the pages devoted to each are listed below:
䉬 “A Home Scene” (pp. 1– 6)
䉬 “Directions for Using the Family Sewing Machine”
(pp. 7– 8)
䉬 “How to Prepare for Work, and Directions for
Sewing” (pp. 9 –13)
䉬
“Relative Merits of the Sewing Machine Stitches” (pp.
14 –20)
䉬 Sewing machine models and prices (pp. 20 –26)
䉬 “A Few Names of Purchasers” (pp. 27–28)
䉬 Testimonials (pp. 28 –37, plus inside front cover)
The document includes a number of illustrations, none of
which appear in the two sections titled “Directions.” Figure 3
shows a two-page spread from the Grover and Baker manual.
The second document, directions for using the Singer
machine, is a leaflet of four 81⁄2 ⫻ 11 inch pages (see Figure 4).
It also is multi-purpose, including both sales and instructional
material; additionally, the document identifes two purposes
for the machine (“For Family and Light Manufacturing Purposes”). Enumerated directions appear on the first three
pages, and the final (back) page of the leaflet is an advertisement proclaiming the merits of the machine, as well as listing
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Figure 3. A two-page spread from the 1859 Grover and Baker
sewing machine manual. The left-hand page (p. 8) shows
portions of the “Directions for Using the Family Sewing Machine”;
a new section, “How to Prepare for Work, and Directions for
Sewing,” begins on the opposite page. Washaw Collection of
Business Americana, Archives Center, National Museum of
American History, Smithsonian Institution.
available supplies and information for correspondence with
the company. The only illustration (of a woman seated at the
machine) appears on the front of the leaflet.
Before turning to the analysis, it would be useful to
understand these documents and the machines they describe in their historical context; for that reason I turn now
to a short history of the sewing machine and its introduction into the household.
A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE EARLY
HISTORY OF SEWING MACHINES
The sewing machine, when first commercially introduced
in the early 1850s, was as “awe-inspiring” and extraordinary then as it is ordinary now (Cooper 1976, p. vii). A
completely new technology, it revolutionized an ordinary
task—sewing—and in doing so provided impetus not only
to the burgeoning retail clothing industry but to numerous
manufacturing concerns ranging from bookbinding to the
production of flags and sails (Bourne 1895).
Because of the machine’s complexity and the ownership of key patents by competitors, the early industry was
plagued by patent disputes and litigation. A solution came
in 1856 when Orlando Potter, president of Grover and
Baker, suggested that Elias Howe, I. M. Singer and Co., and
Wheeler and Wilson join forces to form a “Combination,”
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Figure 4. The front page of a leaflet describing the use of an
early Singer Family Sewing Machine. Washaw Collection of
Business Americana, Archives Center, National Museum of
American History, Smithsonian Institution.
the first patent pool (Cooper 1976, p. 41). This action
served both to compensate the patent-holders and to limit
competition outside the membership of the Combination to
20 additional licensees until its conclusion in 1876 with the
expiration of the last of the patents.
Although the first machines were developed for the
manufacturing market, in 1851 Wheeler and Wilson led the
industry in introducing sewing machines for private ownership in the home (Cooper 1976, Hounshell 1984). Grover
and Baker soon followed, as did I. M. Singer in 1858
(Cooper 1976). Once the problem of patent litigation had
been addressed, two other impediments had to be overcome for the machine to penetrate the household market:
its high cost and the cultural belief that women and machines were fundamentally incompatible.
In 1859, a household sewing machine was a luxury. At
$75 to $100 per machine (Cooper 1976; A home scene
1859), its cost was nearly equivalent to the annual U.S. per
APPLIED RESEARCH
Sexism in 19th-century Sewing Machine Manuals
Once the problem of patent
litigation had been addressed, two
other impediments had to be
overcome for the machine to
penetrate the household market: its
high cost and the cultural belief
that women and machines were
fundamentally incompatible.
capita income of $115 in 1860 (Norris 1990, p. 12). The
problem of cost was met on two fronts. First, through the
innovative “hire-purchase” plan conceived in 1856 by Edward Clark of I. M. Singer and Co. (Bourne 1895), consumers were extended credit and permitted to “pay a dollar or
two a month until the full amount of the sale was paid”
(Cooper 1976, p. 58). Second, manufacturers sought to
reduce the cost of production.
The early sewing machines were painstakingly made in
small batches, then finished and assembled by hand, one by
one (Hounshell 1984). To meet increasing demand for machines, several sewing machine companies (first Willcox and
Gibbs, then Wheeler and Wilson) pioneered more sophisticated techniques, building on and improving practices from
armory manufacture (Hounshell 1984). The new manufacturing technology involved building special-purpose machines
(such as milling machines and lathes) designed for manufacturing particular parts. Such machines, combined with measures and gauges for evaluating whether the resulting parts
met established criteria, produced standardized parts that
were claimed by the manufacturers to be interchangeable and
that required less hand-fitting by individual craftsmen, resulting in greater similarity among machines of the same model as
well as less costly repairs for consumers.
Though slow to accept this “American System” of interchangeable manufacturing, I. M. Singer and Co. was the
first to innovate sales strategies for overcoming “the public’s suspicion of sewing machines” (Cooper 1976, p. 34).
Brandon (1977) reports that manufacturers had to confront
the widely held view that “women do not use machines”
(p. 70). In addition, the introduction of domestic laborsaving devices was both novel and threatening during this
era when fewer than 15% of women worked in the wage
labor force (Kessler-Harris 1982) and many women were
noisily agitating for the rights to own property and to vote
(Schneir 1972). Singer and the other manufacturers had to
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counter concerns about how women would use the newfound free time promised by the machine (Brandon 1977)
as well as attacks on the machine that
. . . often took the form . . . of trying to prove that there
were certain things for which women as a sex were
fundamentally unsuited. Women, for example, could
not and should not try to work on complex machinery.
It would be beyond them and would end in tears. (Brandon 1977, p. 122)
In seeking a middle-class household market for their machines, manufacturers also had to be concerned about their
association with the widely publicized plight of the sewing
woman and the unsavory reputations of employers in the
retail clothing industry. Sewing women suffered abject
poverty, a fact that had become a “national scandal” in the
early part of the 19th century (Kessler-Harris 1982, p. 30).
Attention to the poverty of the sewing woman continued
throughout the century, with interest revived by works
such as Thomas Hood’s “Song of the shirt,” first published
in England in 1843 and an immediate sensation when
printed in the U.S. in 1851 (Schneir 1972, p. 58).
WOMEN AND HOUSEHOLD SEWING
For generations prior to industrialization, sewing was an
essential skill passed down from mothers to daughters;
according to a popular etiquette book of the mid-19th
century, “A woman who does not sew is as deficient in her
education as a man who cannot write” (from The young
lady’s friend, quoted by Strasser 1982, p. 132). Beecher and
Stowe (1869) describe how a child might learn the craft,
beginning with the promise of a doll’s bed and pillow once
she had made a tiny bed quilt and the associated linens,
then moving on to undergarments and clothing with the
promise of a doll. By this strategy, “the task of learning to
sew will become a pleasure; and every new toy will be
earned by useful exertion” (p. 298).
Furthermore, this strategy ensured that young girls were
enculturated into the “never-ending productive labor that was
compensated in part by a mission of love, a sense of craft
satisfaction, and the sharing of a community of women”
The new manufacturing technology
involved building special-purpose
machines (such as milling
machines and lathes) designed for
manufacturing particular parts.
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Sexism in 19th-century Sewing Machine Manuals
(Strasser 1982, p. 126). Transforming yard goods into clothing
was a task accomplished by housewives “with the help of
their daughters and other female relatives” (Strasser 1982, p.
130). Sewing “provided [women] an approved way of talking
and relaxing with family or friends while still working” (Kramarae 1988b, p. 149). Families with the income to do so hired
seamstresses and dressmakers who might live with their employers for a period of time (Strasser 1982), and even women
wealthy enough to hire seamstresses to complete all their
household sewing “left their homes in the afternoons to join
their charitable sewing circles” (p. 133).
. . . there was little correspondence
between the knowledge and skills a
girl learned from her mother and
those required to run the machine.
Before 1860, the dressmaker employed by such a
wealthy woman might also act as a personal companion,
consulted by her mistress not just for her needlework skills,
but for advice on fashion and etiquette (Baron and Klepp
1984). Feminine collaboration eased the drudgery of what
must have seemed miles of plain sewing required to equip
a household with all the necessary household linens, and
collaboration was a necessity for constructing the day’s
close-fitting fashionable clothing. During the time in question, a fashionable dress required several lengthy fitting
sessions (Kidwell 1979).
One of the significant challenges to the sewing machine’s
development was that a successful mechanism could not
mimic the hand; one consequence was that there was little
correspondence between the knowledge and skills a girl
learned from her mother and those required to run the machine. Sewing by hand and sewing by machine are very
different tasks requiring different knowledge and skills. The
hand stitcher uses very simple tools, and with these, she
produces a wide variety of stitches: Beecher and Stowe (1869)
ennumerate “overstitch, hemming, running, felling, stitching,
backstitch and run, buttonhole stitch, chain-stitch, whipping,
darning, gathering, and cross-stitch” (p. 353).
The seamstress knew not just how to execute these
stitches but when to employ them for different uses and what
adjustments were required when working with different types
of fabrics. In contrast, a machine of this era could make only
a single type of stitch among the several necessary to complete a garment, and users had to determine when to employ
the machine and how to incorporate its comparatively limited
utility into the overall production process. Additionally, the
early machines were fairly complicated (certainly much more
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complex than simple needle and thread), and even machines
of the same model varied greatly as a result of manufacturing
processes and could be quite temperamental (Bourne 1895;
“The modern seamstress” 1869).
SEWING MACHINES, AUDIENCE, AND PERSUASION
From the preceding, we can see that manufacturers faced
several persuasive tasks:
䉬 To establish the household “necessity” of the laborsaving device
䉬 To overcome prejudice about women’s mechanical
ability
䉬 To “sanitize” the household sewing machine in
contrast to its use in industry
䉬 To displace or redefine women’s authority in the
context of sewing
Additionally, they had to educate women about differences
between machine sewing and hand sewing; Parton (circa
1872) reports that the “purchaser had to take lessons as on the
piano” (p. 14). Early on, knowledge of one brand or model of
sewing machine was not necessarily transferable to others, as
during this period three very different types of stitching mechanisms (producing a “lock-stitch,” a “chain-stitch,” and a “double-chain stitch”) competed for market share.
Manufacturers responded to these needs in their sales
and marketing strategies, and Isaac Singer is credited with
pioneering new methods for selling sewing machines to
Victorian customers. According to Hounshell (1984), by
1851 the company had initiated a “vigorous marketing
program which involved using trained women to demonstrate to potential customers the capabilities of the Singer
machine” (p. 84). At the same time, the company built
“lavishly decorated show rooms . . . rich with carved walnut furniture, gilded ornaments, and carpeted floors,
[which were] places in which Victorian women were not
ashamed to be seen” (Cooper 1976, p. 34; another description appears in Parton circa 1872). Other companies
adopted the same strategy, building luxurious showrooms
and hiring pretty young women to serve as “instructresses”
and to demonstrate the machines in storefront windows
These marketing strategies clearly
demonstrate that manufacturers
were sensitive to the attitudes and
needs of the consumer, but was this
information used to develop sewing
machine instructions?
APPLIED RESEARCH
Sexism in 19th-century Sewing Machine Manuals
(no doubt attracting the attention of both male and female
passers-by). These marketing strategies clearly demonstrate that manufacturers were sensitive to the attitudes and
needs of the consumer, but was this information used to
develop sewing machine instructions?
The Singer manual’s only attempt
to attract and respond to the
specific needs of a female audience
is its initial illustration; it is a
document that exemplifies
“machine-centered” technical
writing.
TEXT ANALYSIS
The two pre-Civil War manuals, published by Grover and
Baker and I. M. Singer and Co., stand in marked contrast to
each other.
The Singer manual’s only attempt to attract and respond
to the specific needs of a female audience is its initial illustration; it is a document that exemplifies “machine-centered”
technical writing. Human agents are rarely named because
the majority of sentences are passive or imperative; it is the
machine or one of its parts that serves as the subject of most
sentences. In very few cases is the user of the machine even
identified. When this does occur, she is referred to impersonally as the operator (six times) or as you (four times).
Of these instances, four occurrences indicate positional relationship to the machine (something should be
turned toward or away from the user, something can be
found on the machine just opposite the user) and two
pertain to subsequent action (“when you thus have the
needle in its proper position” [p. 1] and “when you wish to
take goods from the Machine” [p. 3]). In one instance, it is
the machine that “enables the operator” (p. 1) to perform a
task; in only two instances is the user indicated as acting on
the machine: “there is a spring which can be removed . . .
and substituted by the operator” (p. 2) and “fix the draw or
tension . . . as you want it” (p. 3).
The tone adopted by the writer is commanding and
demands that the reader cater to the needs of the machine; the
reader is expected to respond to numerous musts and shoulds
(often italicized or printed in capital letters): “The Machine . .
. MUST BE OILED . . .” (p. 1); “the center of the foot must be
placed directly over the cross-piece [of the treadle]” (p. 1);
“this spring . . . must be pressed down” (p. 3); “THE BEST
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SPERM OIL, AND NOTHING ELSE, SHOULD BE USED” (p.
1). And while the author states that there are “twenty-one
places about the Machine and stand to be oiled” (p. 1), these
places are neither listed nor illustrated, with the consequence
that the user must determine these locations by inspection.
The 14 enumerated sections (most of them single paragraphs) do not describe a sequence of tasks pertaining to
sewing itself, but rather to information describing the machine
or tasks pertaining to its set up, proper adjustment, and maintenance (see Table 1). The vocabulary employed is heavily
technical (using terms such as friction, crank, shaft, driving
belt, and inclined plane) with the necessary inclusion of
sewing terms such as spools, thread, seam, and hem (in
reference to the proper set up and functioning of the hemming guide attachment).
In a very few instances, some effort has been made to
explain the terminology, usually by comparison (five times) to
a more common term: “hinge or fulcrum” (p. 2); “turned to the
left or unscrewed” (p. 3). And there are a few implicit definitions: a reference to friction is followed, a few lines later, by
a requirement to oil the machine “on every place where one
part rubs against another” (p. 1), and the driving belt is
described as the “belt which communicates motion to the
machine” (p. 3). No reference is made to any article produced
by use of the machine except in the most abstract sense, as
goods, cloth, ordinary light work, and heavy work. There are
no examples given, nor is there any recognition of the emotional rewards many women associated with sewing. Even in
the final page of the document (a full-page advertisement),
the value of the machine to the household user is phrased
primarily in economic terms:
The purchasers of Machines, whose daily bread it may
concern, will find that those having the above qualities
not only work well at rapid as well as slow rates of speed,
but last long in the finest possible working order. Our
Machines . . . will earn more money with less labor than
any others, whether in imitation of ours or not. In fact
they are cheaper than any other machine as a gift.
(Emphasis in original; p. 4)
Those rare instances of personification occur within the advertisement only, wherein the machine is described as being finished in “chaste and exquisite style” (emphasis added p. 4).
There are no examples given, nor
is there any recognition of the
emotional rewards many women
associated with sewing.
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TABLE 1: TOPIC SEQUENCE OF SINGER DIRECTIONS AND
“A HOME SCENE” FROM THE GROVER AND BAKER MANUAL
Singer Directions
Grover and Baker “A Home Scene”
Oiling the machine [maintenance]
Operating the treadle [operation]
Oiling the shuttle spooler [maintenance]
Feeding fabric through the machine [operation]
Operating the treadle [operation]
Adjusting thread tension [operation]
Setting the Needle [set-up]
Setting the vertical needle [set-up]
Threading the Shuttle [set-up]
Threading the machine [set-up]
Threading the Needle [set-up]
Threading the circular needle [set-up]
The Check-Spring Lever [problem-solving]
Removing work from the machine [operation]
Changing foot-bar pressure [set-up]
Removing a seam [problem-solving]
Feed Motion [operation]
Oiling the machine [maintenance]
Removing goods from the machine [operation]
Tension of the Two Threads [problem-solving]
The Driving Belt [problem-solving]
Oil the machine if it runs hard [problem-solving]
Hemming-Gauges [operation]
䉬 Bracketed text denotes type of topic.
The instruction booklet for the Grover and Baker
sewing machine is greatly different. Although at first
glance this document appears to include fewer pages of
instruction for users than does the Singer document (just
two short pages of “Directions for Using the Family
Sewing Machine”), in fact three different sections of the
booklet are devoted to instructing the user. The “Home
Scene” at the beginning of the document describes in
narrative form the circumstances leading to the purchase
of the machine, introduces the machine into the household, establishes feminine competence with the technology, and claims long-term benefits of introducing the
machine into the household. This short vignette is more
than sales propaganda: the central portion of the story is
essentially an extended “scenario” that revolves around a
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series of problems posed by Mr. Aston, who attempts
unsuccessfully to operate the device and whose difficulties are repeatedly solved by Mrs. Aston:
Mr. A., after tea, jocosely remarked: “I think I will make
a good operator, Mary;” and seating himself at the
machine, said: “See me; I take hold of the lower part of
the wheel with my right hand, and pull it in a downward direction. What now? it does not run in the same
manner in which I started it.”
“Well,” answered Mrs. Aston; “you do not keep up a
regular motion on the treadle with your foot. While
interested in watching the needle, the motion of your
foot is arrested, and the wheel runs the contrary way
before you are aware. To avoid this, keep as good time as
APPLIED RESEARCH
Sexism in 19th-century Sewing Machine Manuals
if you were playing a melodeon: press first on the heel,
then on the forepart of the foot, without raising the
toes.” (Emphasis in original; p. 3)
The instruction booklet for the
Grover and Baker sewing machine
is greatly different.
Through this playful dialogue, many of the difficulties the
novice user might experience arise and are solved by Mrs.
Aston:
䉬 Why the fabric doesn’t feed properly through the
machine
䉬 How to determine and correct the five possible
causes of breaking thread
䉬 When and how to change the thread
䉬 How to remove work from the machine
䉬 How to remove a seam
䉬 How to maintain the machine
In many cases, Mrs. Aston considers more than one possible cause and correction for the problems Mr. Aston presents: for instance, breaking thread can be caused by tension that is too tight, by the absence of a cloth washer on
the upper spindle, by crowding the thread against the
needle-hole, by thread too large to lie in the groove of the
needle, or by a rough circular needle, all possibilities that
Mrs. Aston considers and many of which she describes.
Most of these same topics are discussed in the Singer
instructions, but in the Grover and Baker manual, the
sequence is determined by the likely order in which a user
of the machine would encounter each task (see Table 1 for
a comparison of topics and sequences) and presented in
the context of user action.
While modeling problem-solving techniques, this dialog also establishes the female user as expert and likens use
of the machine to activities a properly educated middleclass woman might be familiar with (for example, through
comparing the appropriate treadle action to that required
for playing the melodeon). Rewards for using the machine
are portrayed as emotional and involve relationships: the
cover proclaims that “A good sewing machine lightens the
labor and promotes the health and happiness of those at
home,” a statement seemingly verified by the peace it
brings to the household, quieting the older children who
become “silent with curiosity” and lulling the baby into
“sweet slumber” with its “gentle murmuring sound” (p. 3).
At the end of the story (some 2 years after the machine’s
purchase), the sewing machine has helped Mrs. Aston
provide the family with an “elegant and stylish wardrobe”
admired “on the promenade, at the church, or other public
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places” (p. 6). To the delight of her husband, Mrs. Aston
again has time for music-making and merry evening pastimes.
The congenial tone established in the story/scenario is
reinforced throughout the rest of the document, even in the
less personal “Directions for Using the Family Sewing Machine.” Consider, for instance, the explanation pertaining
to the machine’s driving belt from the Singer instructions:
The Driving Belt.—The belt which communicates motion to the Machine should always be tight enough to
move the Machine without slipping, and no tighter than
is requisite to perform that office. Should it become too
loose, it may be tightened to a certain extent by unscrewing the nut that holds the stud on which the large wheel
revolves. When the nut is thus loosened, pull the large
wheel backward, so as to make the belt tighter; hold it
fast until the nut is screwed back so as to hold the wheel
firmly. Should the belt happen to stretch beyond the
capacity of the adjustment last described to tighten it,
then the belt must be shortened. (p. 3)
. . . this dialogue . . . establishes the
female user as expert and likens
use of the machine to activities a
properly educated middle-class
woman might be familiar with . . . .
Similar instructions appear in the Grover and Baker manual:
THE BELT OF THE BALANCE WHEEL
Sometimes stretches, and the wheel will then fail to move
the working part of the machinery. It may be tightened
by first unscrewing the thumb-screw under the crossbar, shoving the wheel to the right, and then screwing
tight again. Some of the machines have the wheel placed
within a frame, fastened to the side of the cross-bar with
screws, which may be treated in the same manner. (p. 8)
While the Singer instructions begin by describing a state that
should always be maintained (“The belt . . . should always be
tight enough” [p. 3]), the Grover and Baker discussion begins
with a statement of the problem as the user would experience
it: the machine doesn’t work because the belt sometimes
stretches (p. 8). Word choice also affects the tone: The Singer
belt “perform[s] that office” of “communicat[ing] motion to the
Machine” (p. 3) while the Grover and Baker belt simply
“move[s] the working part of the machinery” (p. 8).
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This congenial tone is reinforced in the next section of
the Grover and Baker manual, “How to Prepare for Work
and Directions for Sewing,” a section devoted to bridging
hand sewing and machine sewing knowledge and technique. Here, the presumably female author identifies herself with the reader by use of “we”:
No fear need be entertained that these sizes [of thread]
will be too fine, when we take into consideration that the
thread is crossed several times. (p. 9)
This statement bridges the difference in thread choice appropriate for hand compared with machine sewing (the
hand sewer would use heavier thread) but also explicitly
reassures the reader (“No fear need be entertained”) and
explains why the lighter thread is appropriate. The feminine identity of the author is further suggested by the use of
“us” and a reference to “our grandmothers” in a section on
“selvedges or overhand seams”:
Instead of sewing the seam over and over, in the manner
taught us by our good grandmothers, before the advent
of sewing machines, a better plan is to lap the selvedges,
and stitch one or two rows of stitching. (Emphasis added; p. 10)
The author includes herself as a seamstress, respectfully
acknowledges the conventional method, then tactfully suggests a newer technique. This section is replete with such
direct comparisons between hand and machine sewing,
with tactful suggestions for replacing old knowledge with
new technique, and with recognition of the specific tasks
for which a woman would need to use the machine by
naming those products: “shirt” (p. 12), “skirt” (p. 11), and
“bed-quilt” (p. 12). The reader is also given choices (on
hemming with and without the hemming attachment) and
friendly advice as in the following from the section on
“crossing a seam”:
. . . the crossing will be facilitated by pressing the seam
flat, and rubbing a little white soap on the thick part. A
small piece of soap kept in the work-basket will be found
useful for softening the tough places which often occur
in sewing. Many ladies follow this practice in hand
sewing, where goods are hard to sew. (p. 12)
Taken together, these three sections (“A Home Scene,” “Directions for Using the Family Sewing Machine,” and “Directions for Sewing”) are intended to equip the reader with all the
information she needs to put the machine to work:
The preceding directions for the use of the machines,
and the preparation of work will materially aid the
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TechnicalCOMMUNICATION • Second Quarter 1998
The document seeks not to
establish rapport with the reader,
but rather dictates the terms and
conditions of use.
learner, and should be preserved for reference, when the
memory requires assistance, which will occasionally be
the case, when the machine has not been used for some
length of time. (p. 13)
The topics covered in the three sections are more or less
redundant (each covering some aspect of the basic functions of the machine; see Table 2), but different purposes
affect both presentation and exact content. Tension, for
example, is discussed in all three sections. In the vignette, tension is discussed and its adjustment explained
in the context of solving a problem (it is one possible
reason why the thread breaks when Mr. Aston begins to
sew [p. 4]). The “machine” directions (as well as the
“sewing” directions) are intended for reference and
structured somewhat differently. Toward this end, in the
“Directions for Using the Family Sewing Machine,” we
find tension discussed in two single-topic paragraphs.
These topics are presented without added contextual
information.
In the “Directions for Sewing,” the technique for
adjusting tension is again described, but this time in the
context of thread choice and fabric type (p. 9). In this
extended discussion, we learn that there is generally no
need to adjust tension even with different sizes of thread,
but that wool fabrics require a tighter than usual tension,
and that silk threads can tolerate much greater tension
than cotton. Similarly, the directions for sewing address
the many different types of sewing a woman might do:
hemming, felling, gathering, tucking, quilting, and embroidering (pp. 11–12). Yet another section, “The Relative Merits of the Sewing Machine Stitches,” likewise
makes reference to the larger context of women’s sewing, with discussion of the durability of the different
seams through successive washings and ironings. Finally, through the testimonials at the end of the document, we learn that by choosing a Grover and Baker
sewing machine, a woman joins the company of ladies
as opposed to “tailors and others” (p. 19) who prefer
shuttle machines. The respected social status of that
company is indicated by the quality and celebrity of
those happy users in a list (pp. 27–28) that includes the
wives or daughters of noted ministers (such as Henry
Ward Beecher), politicians (including James Pollack, ex-
APPLIED RESEARCH
Sexism in 19th-century Sewing Machine Manuals
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TABLE 2: TOPICS IN SUCCESSIVE SECTIONS OF THE GROVER AND BAKER MANUAL
“A Home Scene”
“Directions for Using the Family
Sewing Machine”
“How to Prepare for Work, and
Directions for Sewing”
Operating the treadle
Placing the upper spool
Threads or silk
Feeding fabric through the machine
The under spool
Tension
Adjusting thread tension
The vertical needle must be set
Needles
Setting the vertical needle
To thread the vertical needle
To regulate the length of the stitch
Threading the machine
To thread the circular needle
To commence sewing
Threading the circular needle
To commence sewing
Selvedges or overhand seams
Removing work from the machine
To regulate the length of the stitch
To hem without the hemmer
Removing a seam
The tension upon the threads
To adjust the Hemming-Gauge
Oiling the machine
The tension is regulated
To hem with the hemmer
To detach the cloth
To fell
When the machine is much used
To gather
The belt of the balance wheel
To tuck
To quilt
To embroider
To cross a seam
To turn a corner
To take the work out
Governor of Pennsylvania), and the editors of the New
York independent, the New York Christian advocate, the
Home journal, the Brooklyn star, and the Jeffersonian.
AUTHORITY AND SEXISM IN 19th-CENTURY
SEWING MACHINE DOCUMENTATION
In the preceding analysis, I have described how each of
these very different documents responded to the needs of
an audience comprised primarily of women. Now I will
reconsider these documents in light of the question posed
at the beginning of the article, whether it is possible for
technical writing to be nonsexist in a world where technol-
ogies are allocated for use according to the sex of the user.
Of the two manuals, that published for the Singer
sewing machine is more tightly focused on the knowledge and concerns of the 19th-century masculine sphere.
It relies on a vocabulary more suited to the machine
shop than to the sewing circle, and admires only the
beauty of the invention itself rather than of the products
it can produce or the stitch that it makes. It usurps female
authority and denies by omission that women have valuable knowledge that they bring to the task at hand. This
text ignores the larger question of applying the technology to the context of its use (the household) and to the
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Sexism in 19th-century Sewing Machine Manuals
. . . this document clearly reinforces
social hierarchies pertaining to
masculine and feminine behavior
and technological expertise.
her patience in teaching him, attributing her success to the
machine’s simplicity:
I am more than convinced of its simplicity, and think,
with a large majority of people, that the Grover and
Baker is the best made and most easily managed machine, for family use, that can be purchased. (p. 6)
If a woman should have difficulty in learning to use the
machine, we are to understand that
tasks (household linens and clothing) for which women
would use the machine. The document seeks not to
establish rapport with the reader, but rather dictates the
terms and conditions of use. When problems occur, they
do so because of the failure of the operator: “If at any
time the Machine appears to run too hard, it may be
presumed that some part which requires oiling has not
been oiled”; “A strict observance of this rule will save the
breaking of many needles” (p. 3).
The voice of authority is that of the male machinist
or inventor. The manual is sexist in the manner described by Treichler in its valuing of the “public over the
private sphere” (such the machine’s economic versus
personal/social value to the user) and its use of words
that represent the “activities, interests, and concerns,
associated primarily with men” (p. 53).
But what of the Grover and Baker manual? This
document is more clearly tuned in to the real needs and
knowledge of the women users of the machine. In this
small booklet, women are granted authority in at least
two senses: through the implied female identity of the
writer and by reference to and acknowledgment of
women’s expertise in sewing. Women are also granted
technological authority, demonstrated in “A Home
Scene” by the analytical, problem-solving capabilities
modeled by Mrs. Aston in contrast to her husband’s
apparent incompetence. Yet even this document clearly
reinforces social hierarchies pertaining to masculine and
feminine behavior and technological expertise. Mr. Aston, it turns out, is not truly inept but is instead testing
his wife; after she has guided him through solutions to
numerous problems, he “confesses”:
. . . I was incredulous that you had so good a knowledge
of the machine, and to test it, felt desirous of seeing how
far you could help me out of any difficulty I could get
into. (p. 6)
The whole thing has been a ruse. And, rather than congratulating her on acquiring expertise with a device so complex as the sewing machine (a fact established by the need
for and existence of the patent pool), he admires instead
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TechnicalCOMMUNICATION • Second Quarter 1998
There is nothing in [the sewing machine’s] management
that the simplest mind may not grasp. . . . Much depends
on the natural capacity of the learner; but there is no
person of ordinary intelligence who cannot become an
expert operator by the exercise of a very little patience.
(p. 13)
If a woman has difficulty learning, any deficiency lies with
her and not with the complexity (nor the temperamental
nature) of the machine.
Finally, in a reminder that it is Mr. Aston’s first evening
with the sewing machine that we have been invited to observe (through the subtitle of the story), Mary’s pleasure with
the device is interpreted through Mr. Aston’s eyes and valued
for its effect on him. Aston congratulates himself thus:
I feel that I have made a capital investment for saving
time and labor, and gained with the Sewing Machine
an assortment of sweet smiles, pleased and contented
looks; and many pleasant evenings we will have on
account of the freedom which the Sewing Machine will
give you, Mary. (p. 6)
Such statements grant priority to the machine’s value in
economic terms, and of its rewards as enjoyed by the
master of the house. Rather than granting Mary access to
“masculine” attributes such as mechanical skill and analytical ability, the machine is “feminized” and characterized as simple enough for even a woman to use.
The author includes herself as a
seamstress, respectfully
acknowledges the conventional
method, then tactfully suggests a
newer technique.
APPLIED RESEARCH
Sexism in 19th-century Sewing Machine Manuals
The documents I have analyzed are
historic examples of two very
different approaches to technical
communication.
CONTEMPORARY IMPLICATIONS: SEXIST, GENDER-NEUTRAL,
AND NONSEXIST TECHNICAL DOCUMENTATION
The documents I have analyzed are historic examples of
two very different approaches to technical communication.
The Grover and Baker manual is rich with context and
examples, even to the extent of providing a narrative which
details the machine’s functions as well as its social and
physical placement within the household. This narrative,
like the case studies Stewart (1991) discusses, plays an
important role: in addition to illustrating content and involving the reader, it also “socializ[es] the neophyte” to the
machine (p. 122). In doing so, it defines a then-new relationship between 19th-century women and machines, establishing the acceptability of mechanical expertise in
women so long as that skill is circumscribed in support of
women’s traditional tasks and domestic roles and such
expertise does not challenge the socially sanctioned view
of greater mechanical skill in men. Because it is explicit in
its description of the sex-differentiated relationships between men, women, and the sewing machine, it presents,
from a 20th-century vantage point, an easy example of
sexism in technical writing.
In contrast, we might admire the Singer leaflet, for all
its apparent deficiencies, as a good example of genderneutral technical communication: writing that employs surface-level features that are not marked for gender (such as
a preference for sewing machine operator over seamstress). After all, the only explicit indication that sewing
machine users might be defined by sex appears in the
illustration of a woman seated at the machine on the front
of the leaflet. Otherwise, an impersonal tone, imperative
style, and the use of nouns and pronouns that are not
gender-marked (“operator,” “you”) would seem to equitably accommodate use of the machine by either men or
women.
I’ve sought to demonstrate, however, that this document can also be considered sexist, because of the masculine authority it invokes and its denial of feminine expertise. As Sauer (1993) has demonstrated, a text’s form can
serve to silence women’s voices and women’s priorities in
preference for the priorities of companies. In presenting
procedures outside of their larger context and application,
sewing machine manufacturers dismissed the knowledge
and traditions of their audience, simultaneously denying
Durack
the complexity of the early machines and the value of a
woman’s knowledge and skill.
Women’s interests and responsibilities were not overlooked by manufacturers but were divorced from machine
documentation, in essence reflecting and reinforcing the interests of separate spheres by separate publications: scenarios
such as the “Home Scene” disappeared from manuals, which
“objectively” reflected a masculine world of machines. Other
publications distributed by the sewing machine companies—
children’s booklets, poetry, short stories, condensed versions
of Shakespeare’s works, and patterns for fancy work and
garments—reflect a feminine world concerned with relationships and care for others. These separate genres reinforce
19th-century ideals of women’s silence when in the company
of men (Spender 1983) by eliminating women’s authority in
the context of machine sewing.
Relating the machine to the practices and concerns
of the private sphere were the women employed by the
manufacturers to demonstrate the machines and to provide instruction to purchasers. In this fashion, women’s
special knowledge of and strategies for sewing by machine were consigned to oral circulation, one of many
means by which a literate patriarchal society subtly silences the voices of women in histories of technology
and technical communication.
Today, it seems we face something of a catch-22 whenever we are tasked with shaping communications for technologies targeted for use by populations defined by sex. If
we provide social and contextual cues (situated examples,
scenarios, and cases), we may make it easier for users to
put new technologies to work, but we also explicitly participate in socializing users into roles and relationships with
technology that may collaborate in reproducing the existing social order.
Crafting instructions with gender-neutral surface features may be a step in the right direction in terms a feminist
agenda, but such a tactic fails to guarantee that sexism in
our writing is eliminated. As Frank and Treichler (1989)
point out, nonsexist language is language with a political
agenda: it “works against sexism in society. While many
Today, it seems we face something
of a catch-22 whenever we are
tasked with shaping
communications for technologies
targeted for use by populations
defined by sex.
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gender-neutral terms are consistent with nonsexist usage,
the two are not the same” (p. 18). Nonsexist language takes
many forms—including a purposeful yet unexpected pairing of nouns and pronouns such as “home sewing” and
“he”—and actively challenges sexism in society. In doing
so, it may draw attention to the text and away from the task
at hand.
Is it possible to eliminate sexism from technical writing
when the technology in question is associated by its use to
men or to women? Cockburn and Ormrod (1993) assert that
“technology relations are . . . inevitably, gender relations”
(p. 155). With any technology, they continue,
An identity is projected for the artifact by its positioning
in the store and also by advertising, point-of-sale material, instruction booklets, the way it is spoken about, the
sales pitch . . . .
Gender is unavoidably at work in the whole life trajectory of a technology. (Emphasis added; p. 156)
A writer—any writer, regardless of personal politics—
can move only so far in the direction of change as long
as the technologies we write about are gender-bound in
their inception, production, and use, and men and
women are defined in contrast to one another, as opposites. Try as we may (and wish as we might), eradicating
sexism from technical writing is only possible to the
extent that gender does not serve in our culture as a
primary vehicle for demarcating its citizens, their capabilities, and the tools they use for work. TC
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to express special thanks to the many professionals
at the Smithsonian Institution who have helped in many ways with
this research: Shelly Foote of the Costume Division, National
Museum of American History, who kindly examined the clothing
styles on the early sewing machine manuals to help determine
approximate publication dates; Scott Schwartz, Susan Strange,
and Wendy Shay of the Archives Center for helping me obtain
complete copies of some of these documents; and Catherine
Keen and Annie Kuebler (also of the Archives Center) and David
C. Burgevin (of the Office of Photographic Services) who helped
provide the photographs accompanying this article. The materials
examined in this article were originally identified during a visit to
the Smithsonian funded by an STC research grant; I am grateful
to the Society for Technical Communication for its support.
Thanks also to Dr. Stephen A. Bernhardt and to the anonymous
reviewers and review coordinator of this manuscript for their
helpful suggestions for revision.
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