Dr. Meaghan Walker, Ewan A. Pratt Postdoctoral Fellow, will give a talk on Thursday 3 November, 1 p.m., in the seminar room, entitled "Clouds and Sparrowbills: Clothing Consumption in Bonavista, 1863 & 1873." All those interested welcome! 

In the late nineteenth century, Robert Brown, the Scottish-born accountant for the Ryan merchant family in Bonavista, Newfoundland, diligently recorded the transactions from the Ryan’s premises store to a series of journals. His records allow a look into the consumption preferences, habits, and necessities of outport families in Bonavista and the surrounding communities, directly selling to fishers as far away as Greenspond and Sandy Cove, and supplying at least one independent merchant in Dundara (Broad Cove). While this includes information about household, shipbuilding, and fisheries purchases, this research focuses narrowly on the purchases of clothing and clothing-related items consisting of ready-made garments and accessories, footwear, fabric, and notions.

This study looks at two very different years, 1863 and 1873 (and will include an additional year, 1883). The 1860s were a period of low fish catches and the effect this had on clothing consumption is evident. According to this preliminary work, consumption in 1863 did not simply reduce in volume, Bonavistans also restructured their buying habits in the face of the austerity caused by the reduction of fish stocks. While many patterns remained the same between the decade, such as a preference for purchasing warm, hardworking fabrics and reserving ready-made purchases for menswear predominantly, 1863 presents clothing consumption that closely mirrors patterns of labour for outport men and women. This work underscores particularly how important the labour of women and girls was to fisher families and the fishery broadly, as domestic needleworkers in outports but also as the unseen and distant industrial seamstresses producing increasingly available ready-made menswear that was becoming an important component of the outport economy.