S9 Ep33: Did the Sewing Machine Liberate Women?

About this episode

The episode explores the impact of the sewing machine on women's lives in the 19th century, highlighting different effects based on social class.

In January 1860 the New York Times gave its blessing to a new machine: the sewing machine. These "iron needle-women", it wrote, were the only invention that could be claimed “chiefly for women's benefit”. Sewing was women's work in the nineteenth century, rich or poor, and a machine could now do it in a fraction of the time. So did it set women free? Philipp Ager and Davide Coluccia have traced the adoption of the sewing machine in Massachusetts between 1850 and 1900, using census records and digitised business directories to work out who was exposed to it, in the factory and in the home. For poorer women the machine meant work, in garment factories and in boot and shoe production; they married later, had fewer children, and many never married at all. For wealthier women, who had few acceptable jobs open to them, the hours it saved went into earlier marriage and earlier motherhood. Philipp tells Tim Phillips the story of a machine that had very different impacts in different social classes. The research behind this episode: Ager, Philipp, and Davide Coluccia. 2026. "Liberation Technology? The Impact of the Sewing Machine on Women." CEPR Discussion Paper No. 21496. CEPR Press…

People in this episode

Host: Tim Phillips

Guests: Philipp Ager, Davide Coluccia

Topics covered

• sewing machine
• women's liberation
• 19th century
• social class
• gender roles

Keywords

• sewing machine
• women's work
• 19th century
• social class
• marriage
• labor
• gender roles

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: New York Times, CEPR, VoxTalks Economics

Books & works: Liberation Technology? The Impact of the Sewing Machine on Women

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