Resources for Victorian Working Class Clothing
Primarily for 1820-1890.
Books
Often the drawings of the poor women look very 18th century like. Bedgowns in particular, which were worn in the 18th century, appear to have carried on into the 19th for poorer people - basically it is a simple fairly shape-less jacket worn with a petticoat-skirt. This is also where the Welsh interest comes in - apparently their national clothing in the 19th century was a bedgown and petticoat arrangement. But unfortunately this doesn't really tell us that much about how other people were wearing the bedgown as the Welsh appear to have been wearing it more universally rather than just as poor clothing, and the existing ones in the Welsh museums are very nice and rather more shaped than the simple 18th century varieties.
I haven't been able to find any information about any actual 19th century bedgowns (maybe none have survived) from outside Wales, and although one can extrapolate from the 18th century ones, and even though the garment is simple, there are variations of cut and construction and shaping that is unknown.
I did discover that in some notes I have on the 18th century, I've drawn a picture of a bedgown construction and labelled it 1814, but I didn't record where I got the image from, so I don't know how if it is based on a real garment or some extrapolation. It is also still a bit early for what I would like - I want something from 1830-1850 preferably.
So - if anyone has anymore information on bedgowns in the 19th century, please pass it on to me.
Something else interesting
I have no idea what's going on with the skirts in these pictures. Somehow the women have bunched up either their dress or their bedgown garment up like a bustle. If you have any input on this I would also be interested.
Books
- Everyday Dress 1650-1900 Elizabeth Ewing
- The Victorians and Edwardians at Work John Hannavy
- Fabric of Society - A Century of People and Their Clothes 1770-1870 Jane Tozer & Sarah Levitt
- Working Class Costume from Sketches of Characters William Johnstone White 1818
- Working Dress: A History of Occupational Clothing Diana De Marly
- Manchester Galleries Collection search
- Manchester Galleries "Collection Themes" includes a "Clothes for Work" section
- The Museum of English Rural Life has a lot about smock-frocks, sun-bonnets and the Women's Land Army and a little about other things - Collection Search
- People's Collection Wales Collections (use "Discover" box to search or look through the pre-made collections) has a lot of prints of Welsh 19th Century people, and a few photos of extant clothing. They may or may not be working class, but they look like "normal people".
- Gathering the Jewels is another Welsh site where I found some things, but I think they linked back to the previous site, however maybe still useful.
- The Workwoman's Guide from 1840 describes how to make clothes, etc, from that time, including useful things like "these [dresses] are particularly suitable for house-maids" and "caps for poor women and servants" so you can see what would have been appropriate, and also make gowns, etc from the instructions with working-class-appropriate fabric and complexity.
- The Ladies Worktable Book from 1845 contains a little information on this topic, although very similar to the previous book, in fact a lot of the clothing stuff is just copied and summarised.
- Picturesque representations of the dress and manners of the English, . Illustrated in fifty coloured engravings from 1813 kind of speaks for itself.
- I haven't looked through this list of museums yet, having only just found this page "Museums with strong collections of working class dress"
- You can also find a few more drawings of poor women in various clothing around, although a lot of the ones I've found are covered in the books and links above.
Often the drawings of the poor women look very 18th century like. Bedgowns in particular, which were worn in the 18th century, appear to have carried on into the 19th for poorer people - basically it is a simple fairly shape-less jacket worn with a petticoat-skirt. This is also where the Welsh interest comes in - apparently their national clothing in the 19th century was a bedgown and petticoat arrangement. But unfortunately this doesn't really tell us that much about how other people were wearing the bedgown as the Welsh appear to have been wearing it more universally rather than just as poor clothing, and the existing ones in the Welsh museums are very nice and rather more shaped than the simple 18th century varieties.
I haven't been able to find any information about any actual 19th century bedgowns (maybe none have survived) from outside Wales, and although one can extrapolate from the 18th century ones, and even though the garment is simple, there are variations of cut and construction and shaping that is unknown.
I did discover that in some notes I have on the 18th century, I've drawn a picture of a bedgown construction and labelled it 1814, but I didn't record where I got the image from, so I don't know how if it is based on a real garment or some extrapolation. It is also still a bit early for what I would like - I want something from 1830-1850 preferably.
So - if anyone has anymore information on bedgowns in the 19th century, please pass it on to me.
Something else interesting
I have no idea what's going on with the skirts in these pictures. Somehow the women have bunched up either their dress or their bedgown garment up like a bustle. If you have any input on this I would also be interested.
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