"Domestic" and Grover & Baker sewing machines, and "Domestic" Fashion Rooms, 1111 Chestnut St., Phila. [graphic] / Photo. by R. Newell & Son, 626 Arch St.

Title

"Domestic" and Grover & Baker sewing machines, and "Domestic" Fashion Rooms, 1111 Chestnut St., Phila. [graphic] / Photo. by R. Newell & Son, 626 Arch St.

Subject

Domestic labor

Commerical photography

Gender and labor

Class and labor

Archival framing

Representation and bias

Institutional power

Archival silence

Late 19th century

Industrial expansion era

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

United States, Northeast

Chestnut Street commercial district

Description

This 1879 stereograph by R. Newell & Son depicts the interior of Francis M. Johnson's sewing-machine showroom at 111 Chestnut Street in Philadelphia. Rows of Domestic and Grover & Baker sewing machines fill the space, surrounded by mannequins in finished dresses and children's clothes. Thread displays, patriotic bunting, and small signs reading "Please do not handle" all signal that this is a curated commercial stage rather than a site of actual labor. The showroom sells sewing machines as modern household technologies and emblems of national progress.

Interpretation Note
This stereograph does something sly, which is taking the back-breaking, poorly paid labor of sewing and turning it into something almost magical to look at. Every garment is draped perfectly, every machine is polished to a shine, and the patriotic bunting overhead is turning the room into a shrine of progress. The whole scene is arranged for middle-class shoppers to admire, not for anyone to imagine actually sitting down and working. Classification does heavy ideological work here. By ordering the space this way, the photograph sells a marketable story about women's work while leaving out the long hours, dim rooms, aching fingers, and low wages most seamstresses lived with. The mannequins drive the point home. They wear the finished dresses, but no tired, living woman is allowed in the picture. That absence is exactly the kind of archival silence where the lived conditions of working women are replaced by an illusion of effortless domestic modernity. In the end, commercial photography, like any genre, gets to choose whose labor counts as visible. Here, the machines and the pretty clothes stay on display, while the women who made them possible simply disappear.

Creator

R. Newell & Son

Source

Library Company of Philadelphia, Print Department, Stereograph Collection

Publisher

Library Company of Philadelphia

Date

circa 1879

Contributor

Francis M. Johnson (showroom owner)

Rights

All use must credit Library Company of Philadelphia. Additional information on Rights and Reproductions – The Library Company of Philadelphia.

Relation

Advertising label on verso: F. M. Johnson, dealer in Domestic and Grover and Baker sewing machines and "Domestic" paper fashions, 1111 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Digitization funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (PW-506-19-10), 2010–2012

The Library Company of Philadelphia record: https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/digitool:101959?solr_nav[id]=733411679267bbffa86a&&solr_nav[page]=0

Format

Albumen print

Stereograph

10 × 18 cm

Language

English

Type

Still Image

Identifier

P.9212.11 (Library Company of Philadelphia)

digitool:101959

Coverage

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States

Alternative Title

Interior View of Sewing Machine Showroom, 1111 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia

Extent

1 stereograph; albumen print; 10 × 18 cm

Medium

Albumen print on stereograph mount

Bibliographic Citation

Library Company of Philadelphia, Print Department, Stereograph Collection, P.9212.11.

Spatial Coverage

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States

Temporal Coverage

circa 1879

Provenance

Part of the Library Company of Philadelphia stereograph holdings; photographer’s imprint printed on verso; advertising label for F. M. Johnson pasted on verso.

Original Format

Albumen print on stereograph mount

Physical Dimensions

10 × 18 cm (4 × 7 in.)