Domestic Skills
in the nineteenth century could reasonably look. Doll stories offered casual
training in childcare, but other — mostly nonfiction — books and magazines
covered plain sewing, dress making, fancy work, knitting, interior decoration
and design, and cookery. The skills were made attractive with promises of future expertise,
patterns for pretty things for everyday use, and careful and cheerful instructions.
The Dolls’ Wash, meant for very young readers, introduces the
technologies of washing, starching, and ironing clothes, but the
real takeaways are that laundry is hard work for the servant
and that little girls should take care not to get dirty. May’s Doll
is a short course on fashion textiles, from the production of silk,
wool, linen, and cotton, through manufacturing techniques for
stockings, shoes, gloves, and lace. It ends with thirty pages of
review questions and answers.
Practical books provided opportunities for girls to rehearse
domestic arts, and announced the importance of doing so.
The Girls’ Own Toy-Maker explains: “This is not only pleasant
employment, but it is extremely useful; to be able to make
your doll’s clothes you will acquire the knowledge of making
your own dresses when you are older.” The Mary Frances
Sewing Book includes both permanent and “flimsy” patterns
for doll clothes, working up from handkerchiefs and capes to
a wedding dress with a veil. The growth of home economics
as a school subject is reflected in the textbook Food and Home
Cookery, written by child welfare reformer Catherine Buckton.
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Ewing, Juliana Horatia, and R. André, illustrator. The Dolls’ Wash. London: Society for
Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1883.
May’s Doll: Where Its Dress Came From: A Book for Little Girls. London: John and Charles
Mozley, 6, Paternoster Row, 1851.
Landells, Ebenezer and Alice. The Girl’s Own Toy-Maker: And Book of Recreation. London:
Griffith and Farran, Corner of St. Paul’s Churchyard, 1860.
Fryer, Jane Eayre, and Jane Allen Boyer. The Mary Frances Sewing Book, or, Adventures
Among the Thimble People. London: George G. Harrap and Company, c. 1914.
Buckton, Catherine M. Food and Home Cookery. A Course of Instruction in Practical
Cookery and Cleaning, for Children in Elementary Schools. London, 1883.