Embodying 19th-Century Seamstresses in “Ladies and Monsters”

by Ahlaam Abdulwali ’25

This semester, in Professor Tange’s 19th-century British Literature course, I tapped into my inner Victorian girl and sewed two mourning dresses with everyone in my course. Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell, the book we read during this sewing project, had a number of seamstresses as main characters and a number of deaths, and so this project lined up perfectly with our readings. 

I initially felt horrified at the prospect of sewing in class, especially since I have no sewing experience beyond sewing a pocket square in kindergarten. Even more horrifying was when Professor Tange asked the class “who knows how to sew,” and nearly everyone raised their hands except for me.

Despite my initial hesitation, the sewing itself was not as difficult as it seemed. Professor Tange gave us a live tutorial on the basics of sewing and provided us with a written manual on how to sew each part of the mourning dresses. At the start of the class period, Professor Tange delegated a task to each of us so that we all could sew a part of each dress. 

In all honesty, I don’t know the technical terms for the sewing that I did, but I think I sewed together a petticoat, added a lace trim to one of the skirts,  sewed together the sleeves for one of the dresses, and added a trim to said sleeves. Each one of these projects took me the full ninety minute class period to complete, and I honestly enjoyed every second of it. It felt serene and joyful to sit in class discussing a book whilst also sewing with everyone else. I felt more connected to the characters who would sit and sew together by the fireplace, and I had greater empathy for the seamstresses in the novels we read. 

Sewing two doll-sized mini dresses took our class of 20 people (with some heavy lifting from Professor Tange) roughly nine hours, yet some of the characters in our novels were tasked with sewing all of their own clothing with a shared needle and thread or tasked with sewing a dress for someone else in two days time. 

This sewing project had me more excited than ever to come to class, and is my favorite Mac moment thus far. It’s been a long-time goal of mine to learn how to sew my own clothing, and I never expected an English class to be the catalyst for this journey. If anyone is looking for a class to take next semester, I highly recommend any course that Professor Tange is teaching.