American Sewing album by Etta Davis with cloth examples and printed instructions, ca. late 1920s
Sewing instruction album belonging to Etta Davis, born in New York, 1909. Cloth-backed marbled boards, 8.75 x 7.5 inches. Fire damaged with blackened covers and discoloration around the edges. The pages have been cleaned of topical residue. 20 sewing models, 17 in cloth and 3 paper. 33 paginated leaves of spirit duplicated manuscript text mounted to the album pages, 46 pages of content in total.A good example of an American sewing notebook, distinguished by the extensive printed instructions that call for the combined use of hand and machine sewing techniques. The nature of the instructions suggest the notebook was part of occupational training for a young woman tailor, as opposed to a general sewing skills course that was frequently part of girls' education in earlier decades, and later adapted as part of home economics curricula.