Happy New Year

This chromolithographed plate appeared in the January 1877 issue of Demorest's Monthly Magazine, accompanied by a long rhyming New Year's greeting. The final stanza reads:

And now, dear friends, the prospects are so bright
For the incoming year, that with delight
We hint of novelties we have in store,
And bright surprises, never shown before.
Your favors, still, we modestly would crave,
And in return we'll help you all to save.
And now, may health and happiness and cheer
Be yours, dear friends, throughout this, now, New Year.

Mrs. Demorest (1824-1898) was the inventor of mass-produced dressmaking patterns, which she and her husband started manufacturing in the late 1850s. The feasibility of such an operation was a direct result of the invention of the sewing machine (with Elias Howe's design patented in 1846, Isaac Singer's in 1852, and numerous others' designs around the same time). Demorest's Monthly Magazine, from its earliest issue in fall 1860, was a vehicle for popularizing the Demorests' patterns. Each issue came with a sample pattern. The Demorests' pattern publishing business peaked in the mid-1870s; in 1876, for example, they produced three million patterns. As the above verse suggests, saving money was the chief appeal for those who used the Demorest patterns to sew their clothing on their home sewing machines. But the Demorests themselves did not maximize their earning potential because they failed to patent Mrs. Demorest's invention, and Ebenezer Butterick successfully crowded them out of the market in the 1880s.

 

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