What distinguished plain sewing and dressmaking? The simple patterns of underclothing and household linen did not require the extensive knowledge of cutting and fitting that dressmaking or tailoring did. As the century progressed, social and technological changes made home dressmaking more common. Entrepreneurs were always looking for ways to make the task easier: through instruction books, charts, measuring guides, systems, and even some elaborate contraptions that encased the female figure in a spider's web of straps and bands. By the end of the century, sewing machines, graded paper patterns and an enormous variety of affordable, readily available fabric and notions had made a fashionable wardrobe possible for every woman who wanted to sew for herself.

To begin with, a simple collection of tools for hand sewing was all that was required. A typical workbox held scissors, sewing silk and cotton, pin cushion, needle books, emery, tape measure, waxer, thimbles, stiletto, bodkin, an assortment of buttons, and perhaps a knife or buttonhole scissors.
Various "systems" for tailoring men's clothing had been around since the beginning of the nineteenth century, but it wasn't until the 1830s that a dressmaking system for women appeared. It was based on proportional design - something that works well when body shapes are exactly proportional. Unfortunately, biology is not so consistent or obliging. It was only the first of many such systems, as inventors were continually striving to find a method so simple that anyone could use it.
An 1848 edition of Fowler's A.B.C. Method (right), asserted that "the author has [since 1838] been engaged in inventing Rules and Teaching the Art of Dress Cutting." It shows how a woman need not even trouble herself with arithmetic (a hardship for women!); she only needed to match letters and numbers. According to Claudia Kidwell, Fowler may have been the inventor of the first system ever marketed.
Names were as important in marketing in the nineteenth century as they are in the twenty-first. Lombard's Common Sense System, 1869 (left), was designed to appeal to women who took pride in their intelligence, while modestly referring to it as "common" sense.
By claiming French origins, The Universal Guide, also dated 1869 (below), appealed to fashionable women. Although, judging by the illustrations, the Guide was sadly out of date.

The heavy cardboard Parisian Drafting System (left) was invented by Prof. Harry N. Plant to draft children's bodices.
What to do when faced with the diffiiculties of fitting a gown for yourself? Mirrors and contortions weren't enough. And what about the dressmaker who wanted the convenience of fitting her clients at any time? Hall's Bazar Form Company solved these problems with their collapsible dress form (right).
One of the most popular of all pattern making systems, judging by the numbers produced and patents that were updated, was the McDowell Garment Drafting Machine (below). It came with an instruction book, but customers could also take classes in using the apparatus.
It could be argued that the sewing machine had a greater effect on clothing manufacture than any other invention. However, according to The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine, "as soon as lovely woman discovers that she can make ten stitches in the time that one used to require, a desire seizes her to put in ten times as many stitches in every garment as she formerly did." The hand-crank Frister and Rossman (left), with its lovely inlaid wood and mother-of-pearl, sews as smoothly today as it did over one hundred years ago.