Sewing Machines and Southern Quilts
The sewing machine was perfected for home use in the late 1850s. For some time I had thought that the more prosperous industrial north had sewing machines long before the rural agrarian southern homes. However quilt historian Barbara Brackman in her reading of many diaries of Southern women noted that they were using sewing machines before the Civil War in order to help them clothe the many people on their plantations.
Marian Ann J. Montgomery, Ph.D.
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