Ebenezer Butterick
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Ebenezer Butterick (29 May 1826 – 31 March 1903) was an American
tailor A tailor is a person who makes or alters clothing, particularly in men's clothing. The Oxford English Dictionary dates the term to the thirteenth century. History Although clothing construction goes back to prehistory, there is evidence of ...
,
inventor An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...
,
manufacturer Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to a ran ...
, and
fashion Fashion is a form of self-expression and autonomy at a particular period and place and in a specific context, of clothing, footwear, lifestyle, accessories, makeup, hairstyle, and body posture. The term implies a look defined by the fashion in ...
business
executive Executive ( exe., exec., execu.) may refer to: Role or title * Executive, a senior management role in an organization ** Chief executive officer (CEO), one of the highest-ranking corporate officers (executives) or administrators ** Executive dire ...
, born in
Sterling, Massachusetts Sterling is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, USA. The population was 7,985 at the 2020 census. History Sterling was first settled by Europeans in 1720 and was officially incorporated in 1781. Previous to its incorporation it was "t ...
.


Life and work

He is regarded as the inventor, together with his wife Ellen Augusta Pollard Butterick, of tissue paper dress patterns offered in multiple standard sizes, also known as graded sewing patterns, which the couple began selling in 1863. The product revolutionized home
sewing Sewing is the craft of fastening or attaching objects using stitches made with a sewing needle and thread. Sewing is one of the oldest of the textile arts, arising in the Paleolithic era. Before the invention of spinning yarn or weaving fabr ...
. The premise of graded sewing patterns reportedly came from Mrs. Butterick's frustration with contemporary sewing patterns offered in only one size (frequently a different size for each pattern). Unless the intended wearer happened to match the size of the pattern, this necessitated manual resizing of the pieces (using paper, or directly on the fabric with wax
chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Chalk ...
) before sewing could commence - a laborious and frustrating process. Offering each design in a graded series of standard-sized patterns would eliminate the need for such extensive pre-work. As a
bespoke The word ''bespoke'' () has evolved from a verb meaning 'to speak for something', to its contemporary usage as an adjective. Originally, the adjective ''bespoke'' described tailor-made suits and shoes. Later, it described anything commissioned t ...
tailor, Mr Butterick was familiar with drafting custom patterns to fit different individuals, as well as the process of grading a "stock" pattern to a custom size. He began work on the templates, ultimately settling for the same thin
tissue paper Tissue paper or simply tissue is a lightweight paper or, light crêpe paper. Tissue can be made from recycled pulp (paper), paper pulp on a paper machine. Tissue paper is very versatile, and different kinds of tissue are made to best serve these ...
used by several pattern firms of the era for the patterns themselves, which had the advantages that it was thin enough to cut several dozen layers simultaneously (facilitating mass production) and could be easily folded and shipped across the country. The Buttericks' graded patterns for home sewers became massively popular, as they made modern fashions and styles accessible to the rapidly expanding lower middle class; people that could not afford to purchase custom-made clothing in the latest style each season, but still wished to be fashionably dressed. The patterns were priced at 25 to 75 cents each, depending on complexity, making them an expensive indulgence for the working classes (who typically earned $1–2 per day in 1870 ) and out of reach for the truly poor. The Butterick family began selling their patterns from their Sterling, Massachusetts, home in 1863, and the business expanded so quickly that, in one year, they had a factory at 192 Broadway Street in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. At first producing only boy's and men's clothing patterns, the Buttericks expanded to dresses and women's clothes in 1866. Eventually, women's patterns would be offered in 13 sizes for dresses, coats and blouses, and five sizes for skirts. In 1867 Butterick began publishing a magazine to promote their patterns, the ''Ladies Quarterly of Broadway Fashions'', which was followed, in 1868, with the monthly ''Metropolitan''. Both magazines offered fashion news and advice, as well as mail order services for Butterick's designs. In 1873, E. Butterick & Co. began publishing ''
The Delineator ''The Delineator'' was an American women's magazine of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, founded by the Butterick Publishing Company in 1869 under the name ''The Metropolitan Monthly.'' Its name was changed in 1875. The magazine was publis ...
'', which, by the turn of the century, became the premiere women's fashion magazine in the US. Mrs. Butterick died in 1871. By 1876, E. Butterick & Co. had 100 branch offices and 1,000 agencies throughout the United States and Canada, and was becoming steadily more popular internationally, especially in Europe. In 1881, the company reorganized as
Butterick Publishing Company The Butterick Publishing Company was founded by Ebenezer Butterick to distribute the first graded pattern (sewing), sewing patterns. By 1867, it had released its first magazine, ''Ladies Quarterly of Broadway Fashions,'' followed by ''The Metropoli ...
, and Ebenezer became its secretary, serving in this role until 1894. In 1903, the Butterick building was designed and constructed on
Spring Street Spring Street may refer to: * Spring Street (Los Angeles), USA * Spring Street (Manhattan), New York City, USA * Spring Street, Melbourne, Australia * Spring Street, Singapore * Spring St (website), a US based lifestyle website Subway and trolle ...
and MacDougal Street in downtown Manhattan. The same year, Ebenezer Butterick died in
Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
, aged 76. On June 30, 1907, ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' published a story concerning the electric sign on the western side of the Butterick Building: " e Butterick Company has been moved to announce that the sign really is the largest in the world and to give some interesting facts about it. The initial B is high, about the height of an ordinary five-story building. The smaller letters are high and wide. About 1,400 electric lights are used for the illumination. It practically requires all the time of the one man to watch the sign and replace burned out lights."


Processes and patents

The process that the Buttericks eventually settled on called for the corrected, graded master patterns to be made into thin cardboard templates. These were placed on a stack of tissue paper and cut around with a sharp knife; after all the pieces of each pattern were cut out, the tissue paper pieces were sorted, folded together and labeled with an image of the garment and brief instructions. Butterick offered precut patterns of this type until the late 1940s, when they began to produce uncut, printed patterns (as sold today). The patterns were offered one size to a package until the 1980s, when slower sales made "multisized" patterns (which had several different sizes in the same package) more cost effective. At first, the pieces were not marked and no pattern layout was provided, leaving it up to the sewer to decide which piece was the collar, which the sleeve, etc. In the late 1890s, the company invented a method of identifying each piece (by means of a letter marked on it in a pattern of small holes), which was patented in 1899. Around 1905, the packaging of the patterns was changed to an envelope rather than a pasted label, which gave more room for description and sewing instructions, including the first layout charts. As the 1910s wore on it became clear that home sewers wanted more detailed instructions than the envelope surface could accommodate, so a separate instruction sheet was included (named the " Deltor", a contraction of DELineaTOR, after Butterick's popular magazine), which was patented in 1919., issued August 19, 1919


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Butterick, Ebenezer 1826 births 1903 deaths American magazine founders 19th-century American businesspeople People from Brooklyn People from Sterling, Massachusetts