Paper Sewing Patterns, Part 2

Ellen Curtis Demorest and Ebeneezer Butterick are the two names most often invoked as the start of multi-sized patterns printed for home sewists. Once they proved it was a viable business, a lot of other offerings appeared. 

Research:

• Alcega, Joan de. “Libro de geometria, practica y traça.” Madrid.1580. Accessed online:https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_07333/
• Aldarondo, Abner. “A Master Tailor’s Manual.” Folger Shakespeare Library. Jan. 10, 2023. https://www.folger.edu/blogs/collation/a-master-tailors-manual/
• Bertrand, J.E. “Descriptions des arts et métiers faites ou approuvées.”  l'Imprimerie de la Société Typographique. 1780. Accessed online: https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=SAWFeeXzMgYC&rdid=book-SAWFeeXzMgYC&rdot=1
• Boullay, Benoit. “Le Tailleur Sincère, Contenant Ce Qu'il Faut Observer Pour Bien Tracer, Couper.” (Reproduction.) Hachette Livre Bnf. 2012.
• Buckley, Cheryl. “On the Margins: Theorizing the History and Significance of Making and Designing Clothes at Home.” Journal of Design History, vol. 11, no. 2, 1998, pp. 157–71. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1316192
• Crane, Ellen Bicknell. “Historic Homes and Institutions and Genealogical and Personal memoirs of Worcester County, Massachusetts.” Lewis Publishing Company. 1907. Accessed online: https://books.google.com/books?id=nfhSZxL8bTEC&source=gbs_navlinks_s
• Crossland, Samantha R. “Made in Minneapolis, sewn all over the world.” Hennepin History. 2021, Vol. 80, No. 2. https://hennepinhistory.org/from-the-magazine-made-in-minneapolis/
• Demorest, Ellen. “The Question of Labor. Women’s Work and Wages.” New York Times. Nov. 18, 1863. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1863/11/18/78710875.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
• “The Educational Legacy of Simplicity Pattern Company.” Simplicity Patterns. September 2024. https://simplicity.com/blog/the-educational-legacy-of-simplicity-pattern-company
• Emery, Joy Spanabel. “A History of the Paper Pattern Industry: The Home Dressmaking Fashion Revolution.” Bloomsbury Visual Arts. 2020.
• Freyle, Diego de. “Geometria Y Traça Para El Oficio De Los Sastres.” Sevilla, Spain. 1588. Accessed online: https://archive.org/details/1588-geometria-y-traca-para-el-oficio-de-los-sastres/page/n1/mode/2up
• Johnson, Susan. “’Madame’ Demorest—The Woman at the Top of a 19-Century Fashion Empire.” Museum of the City of New York. April 15, 2020. https://www.mcny.org/story/madame-demorest-woman-top-19-century-fashion-empire
• The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. "Ebenezer Butterick". Encyclopedia Britannica, 25 May. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ebenezer-Butterick
• Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Ellen Louise Curtis Demorest." Encyclopedia Britannica, 11 Nov. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/money/Ellen-Louise-Curtis-Demorest
• “Demorest’s Illustrated Monthly and Mme. Demorest’s Mirror of Fashions.” April 1865. https://ia802801.us.archive.org/8/items/demorestsillustr00newy/demorestsillustr00newy_bw.pdf
• “Design Group Americas Voluntarily Files for Chapter 11 Protection, Initiates Sale Process Aimed at Maximizing Value Through Going Concern Transactions.” BusinessWire. July 3, 2025. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250703734892/en/Design-Group-Americas-Voluntarily-Files-for-Chapter-11-Protection-Initiates-Sale-Process-Aimed-at-Maximizing-Value-Through-Going-Concern-Transactions
• “Joseph M. Shapiro of Simplicity, 79.” New York Times. July 31, 1968. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/ti

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson, and we are still
talking about paper sewing patterns this week. Little did you
know this could possibly be two episodes worth of information. Honestly,

(00:25):
this could be a whole podcast series. Yeah, I was
gonna say, I bet it could be a whole series
if we wanted. Yeah, easily. I felt bad every time
I cut something. And there's one in particular that we
don't mention it all, and I will explain why I'm
behind the scenes. Yeah. And we sat in part one
that this is really a focus on like Europe and
North America, and it became a global thing. It could

(00:47):
be like ten podcasts series forget it, see you next year,
and people would be like, I don't sew, I'm not
in for this. But here we are. At the end
of part one, we had mentioned, after talking about various
tailoring and some sewing books that had come out, that
there were two people that really kicked off the industry

(01:08):
of printed patterns in the US and made them super popular,
and those were Ellen Curtis Demorist and Ebenezer Butterick. So
today we are going to talk about those two people
as well as the development of the other companies that
make up the so called Big four pattern companies, Butterick, McCall's,
Vogue and Simplicity. Ellen Louise Curtis was born on November fifteenth,

(01:30):
eighteen twenty four, in Skylerville, New York. She went to
Skylerville Academy as a teenager, and when she graduated at
the age of eighteen, she immediately went into business as
a milliner with her own shop. She worked in millinery
for about fifteen years and then got married in her
mid thirties to a man named William Demorist. So Ellen's

(01:52):
entree into pattern printing is often described as her envisioning
a product that could fill the gap in the home
sewing market series of patterns that were offered in multiple
sizes and were mass produced, not custom measured for each client,
and that her husband, William was on board, and that
they launched this new business venture together. That doesn't seem

(02:13):
to be entirely accurate, though there was another Missus Demrist
before Ellen, and that was Margaret Demorist. William's first wife,
and she was billed as Missus Demorist in pattern ads
and women's magazines in the mid eighteen fifties. One from
eighteen fifty three that ran in The New York Times
touted sewing lessons as well as quote patterns of plane

(02:36):
and basque wastes cut to fit the form with unfailing accuracy,
and elegant dress patterns cut at eighteen and a half cents.
William had hired Ellen and her sister Kate to actually
design and produce the patterns, while Margaret was the public
face of the brand. Initially. Margaret Demors died in eighteen

(02:58):
fifty nine, the year before Ellie and William married, and
once Ellen assumed the role of Missus Demrist both domestically
and professionally, the pattern company, which pad and modest success
in the eighteen fifties, really started to take off. In
eighteen sixty, the two of them opened a shop on
Broadway in Manhattan called Madam Demorest's Emporium of Fashions. The

(03:23):
patterns that they sold were not just functional for sewing,
they were also works of art. Dressmakers shops that used
the patterns could also assemble the pattern itself with pins,
and have a display piece for their window. Because the
Demorists printed their patterns on colored paper, customers could even
get trims for their assembled paper patterns. But the Demorists

(03:47):
had a much bigger vision than just opening a shop
from which to sell patterns. They envisioned an entire brand
that people would associate with style and dressmaking. To expand
their business identity, they also started a periodical, Madam Demorrist's
Mirror of Fashions, which William basically ran in terms of
the editorial while Ellen managed the shop and the new

(04:09):
designs and The magazine, which ran for nearly thirty years,
published color plates of the latest fashion trends, and it
also included full sized patterns. These were not part of
the page content of the magazine. They were a separate
insert that was stapled into the magazine itself for easy
removal and use. The Demorists also still offered the patterns

(04:31):
as separate products. Customers didn't need to purchase the magazine
if they didn't want to, they could just select from
the various pattern offerings. This was the first of many
products the Demorists eventually offered through both mail order and
via retailer distribution. Over time, their products included branded sewing
notions like pins, scissors, and measuring implements, and even foundation

(04:55):
garments to get the perfect base layer for the new
dresses customers were stitches. The Demorrists also expanded into cosmetics
to offer a full fashion and beauty brand. Yeah, they
also kind of franchised, like there were multiple Demorist shops
that opened up that were run by other people, and
they were very successful in all of this. By eighteen

(05:17):
sixty four, just four years into their venture together, they
had to expand their quarterly magazine to a monthly which
was called Demorists Illustrated Monthly Magazine and Madame demeris Mirror
of Fashions. It was kind of two magazines, but they
were all put together into one and that was all
one title for him, and the magazine, of course touted

(05:37):
their patterns on the first page in a huge ad.
For example, the April eighteen sixty five ad read life
sized paper models of all the reliable and latest Paris
designs for ladies and children's dress, arranged and elegantly trimmed
so as to present the most perfect resemblance to the
original articles, including Evening Home Bridle or fancy dresses, also cloaks, mantles, waists, jackets, sleeves,

(06:03):
apron sacks, capes, robes de chambre, undergarments, etc. And every
style of garment adapted to boys and misses and infants
that has any claim for either novelty or utility, all
accurately reproduced in tissue paper as soon as they are
offered in either Paris or London to secure which we
have completed ample and costly arrangements. Patterns sent by mail

(06:26):
or express to all parts of the Union. In Canada,
Madame Demorrist's excelsior and always first premium system of dress cutting.
The rest of the magazine included articles about the latest
fashions and accessories, such as Paisley Shawl's being a good investment,
small pieces of sheet music so readers could learn a
new song, sequential art stories, fiction stories and essays, and

(06:51):
commentary on fashion related news that included the ball for
President Lincoln's second inauguration, of which the magazine noted quote
the arrangements for a brilliant opening of mister Lincoln's second
term were made with great liberality and were entirely successful.
Nothing could exceed the imposing grandeur of the spectacle which

(07:12):
the Great Hall of the Patent Office presented when the
Auguste assemblage composed of the President and his lady, the
foreign ministers with their wives, the heads of departments, and
five thousand of the most distinguished people from different parts
of the country was complete. The clothes were, of course,
also noted in this ride up quote. The toilettes were,

(07:34):
many of them magnificent. Missus Lincoln's consisted of white satin
with an elegant white lace flounce festooned at the side
with heavy white silk cord and tassels. A bertha of
point lace ornamented the low neck, and a costly point
lace shawl covered her shoulders. Her hair was worn in
curls and adorned with white and purple flowers, pearl necklace,

(07:56):
and ornaments, bouquet and violets. In the early eighties teen seventies,
the magazine began touting the latest demorist innovation patterns in
sizes other than an average slash medium, and it also
developed really smart ways to integrate pattern sales with fashion
and society news and information. An editorial package about cruises,

(08:19):
for example, would include information on how to book them
and where types of excursions that one might go on,
and then suggest the patterns that would enable the reader
to prepare the perfect wardrobe for such a trip. The
Demorst brand assured women who stitched their own garments that
their patterns would enable them to create clothing as stylish
as people in higher income brackets. Not entirely germane to

(08:44):
the topic of patterns, but worth mentioning the way that
Ellen Demerist ran her business was quite progressive. She made
working women one of her personal causes, and she walked
that walk. Her business employed a lot of women, and
that included black women. She also reportedly hired black employees
under the same employment terms and pay rates as white employees.

(09:06):
She talked about the importance of recognizing women as part
of the workforce publicly. In November of eighteen sixty three,
she wrote a long and rather sharp reply to the
editor of The New York Times for an article that
had been published about women in the workforce. Her reply
began quote, inasmuch as you are not a woman and
do not to any extent employ women, allow one who

(09:29):
is and who does to reply to yesterday's article headed
Women's work and their Struggle for better compensation. The whole article,
because of being based on false premises, will bear an
absolute reversion. She then picks apart the entire article point
by point, noting, among other things, that the original article
failed to take into account, the fact that women are

(09:52):
expected to raise children and that it's one of the
reasons women weren't often seen in careers. Demerist was involved
over the years and a lot of women's causes, and
the magazine often gave space to women writers to share
opinions on women's issues. Yeah, people like Luisa may Alcott
contributed to the magazine all the time. The eighteen seventy

(10:16):
six Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia featured two paper dress pattern exhibits.
One of those was set up by the Madame Demerist Company.
The other display was the work of Ebenezer Butterick. And
we're going to talk about Butterick and his company after
we pause for a sponsor break. Ebenezer Butterick was born

(10:44):
in Sterling, Massachusetts, on May twenty ninth, eighteen twenty six.
He apprenticed as a tailor starting at an early age,
and then he opened his own business as a merchant tailor.
So that's a tailor who makes clothes but also manages
an inventory of fabric that is used for the clothes
but is also offered at retail. He is frequently described

(11:04):
as having been kind of a mediocre as a tailor
and not having a lot of success in that business.
But then, in eighteen sixty three, Butterick, working with his
wife Ellen Augusta Butterick, Yes there are two Ellens in
this story, he did two things. He started offering standardized
tissue paper patterns in multiple sizes, and he established a

(11:26):
factory to print them in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. This was a
lot more lucrative than his tailoring business had been, and
he saw its potential. Butterick also had the foresight to
do something the demorists had not. He patented his patterns. Initially,
most of his patterns were for men and boys clothes,
and he also started a periodical, although his was not

(11:48):
a frequent one. That was the Semi Annual Report of
Gents Fashions, which debuted in eighteen sixty five. He offered
individual patterns for twenty five to fifty cents, but you
could also make a bulk purchase of fifty patterns for
five dollars. The next year he added graded size designs
for women and girls, and that was when things really

(12:10):
took off. He also started another periodical, Ladies, quarterly report
of Broadway fashions. His women's patterns were usually four component
pieces of a garment and not a full dress, for example,
so rather than an entire dress, a customer could purchase
a bodice and a skirt separately and then combine them

(12:30):
into a dress. One of the reasons his offerings became
so popular so quickly was that he offered what was
at the time an extremely wide size range. It was
graded to fit bus lines from twenty eight inches to
forty six inches. Butterick also innovated in the way that
patterns were packaged. The Butterick Company folded the tissue patterns

(12:52):
so they would fit snugly into a packet envelope that
had that envelope flap closure, and soon that became the
industry standard. By the end of the eighteen sixties, Butterick
moved his pattern printing operation to a new factory location
in Brooklyn, New York, and he revamped his magazine of
women's fashions, calling it Metropolitan and publishing it monthly like

(13:16):
Demorist's magazine. This was part style information and part self advertising,
but Butterick also used it to bolster his reputation through
what was almost certainly false reporting of his company's success.
For example, he claimed that he sold more than fifteen
hundred patterns every day, which historians have dismissed as highly unlikely. Yeah,

(13:40):
that's a lot. In that same nineteen seventy nine paper
we mentioned in the first part of this two parter
by historian Margaret Walsh, titled the Democratization of Fashion The
Emergence of the Women's Dress pattern Industry, Walsh notes how
this exhibit at the Exposition was a touchstone of a
massive change in a way that it changed fashion for

(14:01):
a wider array of people than would have had access
to such things prior quote. At mid century, fashion both
as an indicator of financial strength and social rank and
as an expression of femininity had been the prerogative of
the rich. Only the wealthy could afford to change their
styles of dress frequently. But now, thanks to the mass

(14:21):
production of paper patterns, American women in their European counterparts
were able to participate in a new social experience of
making stylish clothes at will. Eighteen seventy six was a
big year for the Demorists. Their company had the biggest
year it would ever have on the books. They sold
three million patterns that year, but after that things leveled

(14:43):
off for them, even though they won several awards at
the expo. Conversely, Butterick saw growth. In eighteen eighty one,
Ebenezer Butterick founded the Butterick Publishing Company, an international iteration
of his already very busy business. Already between the two companies'
trajectories is sometimes attributed to the fact that the Demorists

(15:05):
didn't copyright their designs, so soon the same products were
available elsewhere whereas Butterick had his protected. But the market
had also had a lot of newcomers who saw the
success of the Demorists and Butterick brands and also wanted
to offer patterns to home soists. Another big factor that

(15:26):
differentiated the two was that the Demorists, in trying to
create an entire brand, had kind of over diversified. They
weren't associated just with patterns, Butterick was. Butterick's patterns also
offered more instructions than Demorists. But the big big thing
was that Butterick had started his own printing facility to

(15:47):
turn out patterns. He could do it fast, and he
could do it in large quantities. The Demorists and other
competitors on the market just didn't have that level of
ownership of the manufacturing and that hurt them. One of
the other competitors who started offering patterns as Butterick and
Demorist were showing that it was a very viable business

(16:10):
was James McCall. This one is a little bit frustrating
in terms of the history because information on McCall is
actually pretty sparse. We know he was a Scottish born
tailor who moved to New York from Glasgow in eighteen
sixty nine, and he worked in the sewing trade in
New York, first for a British company called Royal Chart

(16:31):
that sold a pattern drafting system, and then he worked
for a sewing machine company. When he went into the
pattern business for himself, he too had an accompanying periodical
that was called Catalog of the Bizarre Paper Patterns. He
was purposely trying to gain momentum by making people think
this might be an offering affiliated with Harper's Bizarre magazine,

(16:53):
which had grown popular as a fashion publication. By then
he next moved on to a new name, The Queen,
though it was subtitled once again with the word bizarre
as illustrating McCall's bizarre glove fitting patterns. He was, to
be clear, absolutely not the only person doing this. There
were a lot of magazines and pattern catalogs with the

(17:14):
word bizar somewhere in the title, trying to trade on
the Harper's Bizarre popularity. But then finally in eighteen ninety seven,
it just became McCall's magazine. We mentioned in the first
part of this episode that most of these patterns being
distributed were actually blocks or slopers. They didn't include a
seam allowance. In nineteen nineteen, McCall's took the step to

(17:37):
start printing all of the company's patterns with seam allowance included.
The stitching line was denoted with a dotted line on
the pattern, and the cutting line was a solid line.
McCall died sometime at the end of the nineteenth century.
The details are a little unclear, and at that point
his wife, who was only named in accounts as Missus McCall,

(18:01):
ran the company until she sold it to a banking group.
Next up, was Vogue Patterns, which started in eighteen ninety nine.
Unlike other pattern companies who offered magazines to grow their
names in businesses, Vogue Magazine predated the Pattern company that
started in eighteen ninety three, and the pattern branch of

(18:21):
Vogue's business began as a mail away service that was
part of Vogue Magazine. A mail in coupon was printed
in the magazine that readers could fill out and mail
in along with fifty cents, and then they would get
a pattern back so that they could make one of
the latest fashions featured in that magazine. But in eighteen
ninety nine, the Patterns became its own division, with a

(18:43):
range of patterns available for direct order. The year that
Vogue Pattern Service launched, Ebenezer Butterick stepped away from his
work in the company that bore his name. His health
had declined, and he returned home to Stirling, Massachusetts to
live out the remaining years of his life. He died
in March of nineteen oh three, but the company continued.

(19:05):
Vogue was purchased by Conde Nast that's the person, not
the company. The company is named after him in nineteen
oh nine, and five years after that. In nineteen fourteen,
the company sort of relaunched Vogue Patterns, this time as
a standalone business which was Vogue Pattern Company. Vogue Patterns
saw rapid success, and it was the first company that

(19:28):
had widespread department store distribution. In the mail away version
of the company. Vogue had been the first to license
designs from European designers, so women everywhere could make their
own versions of designer clothes using designer patterns, and this
is actually something that has continued through the current times.
Other pattern companies have done this, but Vogue has been

(19:50):
associated with it throughout. We'll talk about a newcomer to
the pattern game after we hear from some of our sponsors.
The nineteen twenties were very busy for pattern companies. It

(20:12):
was in the nineteen twenties that pattern envelopes started getting
full color illustrations of the fashions that you could make
with the contents. This was another innovation that McCall's spearheaded,
but within a decade all pattern companies had adopted the practice.
As designer fashion became more and more prominent in the
Roaring twenties, McCall's embraced it by working with high profile

(20:33):
designers like Elsa Scaparelli and Jean Levan to create licensed patterns,
and the last of the Big Four, Simplicity Patterns, was
founded in nineteen twenty seven. Joseph M. Shapiro was born
in eighteen eighty eight in Borisov, Russia, and had moved
to the United States in nineteen twelve. He had a

(20:54):
number of jobs over the years, but he was working
for a fashion trade magazine when he decided to launch
the company based on his opinion that dress patterns cost
too much. At the time, the cost of a sewing
pattern ranged from forty five cents to two dollars. Simplicity
came into the market with a goal of aiming for

(21:14):
the business of lower income soists Simplicity patterns were only
fifteen cents. This idea of making sewing as economical as
possible would drive a lot of the company's initiatives after this,
Shapiro later told an interview quote, what's the tendency of
the American people in everything and architecture and eating and living.

(21:36):
I asked myself, it's simplicity. So I was pretty sure
cheap patterns would go. But I made one mistake. Ten
cents was too cheap. No one would believe they could
be any good at that price, so I raised it
to fifteen cents, and they began selling like hotcakes. Simplicity's
timing entering into the market was fortuitous. When the Great

(21:57):
Depression hit in the United States, more people than ever
turned to swing their own clothing, and because Simplicity's price
point was the lowest, the popularity really soared. Joseph's wife,
Caroline Hutchins Shapiro, is super important to this story. She
was a home economist and she had a tremendous influence

(22:18):
on the company's offerings and ethics. Because she specialized in
home ech and Simplicity had been founded with the vision
to empower stitchers at all economic levels. She spearheaded a
new division of the company, the Education Department. This department
worked with the public school system to assist with home
economics curricula, and even had company reps who would travel

(22:40):
to visit schools regularly. This was great in terms of
helping educators, but it was also really savvy and that
it meant that the next generation of soists and thus
customers was always getting support from Simplicity. So if you're
one of those people who took homech in school and
had a sewing project like an apron or a basic
garment as well part of your school work. That is

(23:01):
thanks in part to the materials that the Simplicity Education
Department provided schools with in its early years, setting the
tone for home at curricula for decades. Caroline Shapiro stayed
with the company until the late nineteen sixties, when she
retired after working for Simplicity for more than thirty years.
In the nineteen forties, Simplicity started offering patterns that had

(23:24):
been designed to use as little fabric as possible. There
were also tips included for using the fabric from existing
garments to make something new. According to a stat on
Simplicity's website, the war years were a boon for home
sewing as everybody was trying to economize. Before the start
of World War II, an estimated fifty percent of women

(23:46):
in the US sewed, but by the end of the
war it was more than eighty percent. Simplicity was not
the only patterned company to meet the country's economic challenges
with simpler designs that required less fabric. Vogue also shifted
its design as slimmer silhouettes became more realistic for the
finances of soists when the country's financial picture grew brighter

(24:09):
in the nineteen fifties, though, Vogue was quick to launch
new couture campaigns, including a line developed in collaboration with
Christian Dior. Yeah, that's the point where you get that
so called new look that he was coming up with,
which was like a very fitted, nipped in waiste with
a huge skirt that was very voluminous to create a
really sharp silhouette. And those skirts take a lot of

(24:34):
yardage to make that beauty. So they quickly shifted gears.
But that ongoing effort to appeal to a wider audience
of economic levels really paid off for Simplicity. By the
late nineteen fifties, the company had offices around the world
and patterns were sold in five dozen countries. The company
built on that success in the early nineteen sixties by

(24:57):
launching the Jiffy line of patterns, and this line was
designed to be approachable in every way. It was inexpensive,
relatively easy to sew, with few pieces to cut out,
and generally Jiffy patterns had low yardage requirements. With Simplicity's
star on the rise, Butterick made a move to stay
relevant in nineteen sixty one when it purchased the Vogue

(25:19):
Patterns license. Vogue was and still is the pattern company
most associated with high fashion designs, so this was an
interesting move for Butterick to make. It sent a message
that the company wasn't competing with simplicity, but was going
after different soists, that being the ones with more money.

(25:39):
This was emphasized when the company launched pattern lines like
Vogue Paris Original, Vogue Designer Original, and Vogue Couturier Design
and its continued efforts to establish and maintain relationships with
fashion designers like Dan von Furstenberg, Donna Karen and Issimiaki.
Another pattern company and he emerged in the nineteen sixties

(26:01):
that was Quixo, which was launched by Kirsten Martinsen McMaster
in nineteen sixty seven. She was born in Sweden in
nineteen thirty eight, and she had studied fashion and patterned
drafting in Europe before moving to the US when she
was in her twenties. That was a move she made
for her job working for Viking Sewing Machines, and one
of her jobs with Viking was designing patterns for a

(26:23):
newly growing sewing trend. Working with knit fabrics. She eventually
branched out on her own to create the So Knit
and Stretch Company in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and then seven years
after it launched, it became Quickso in nineteen seventy four.
Kirston was the driving force behind Quixo until her death
in two thousand and two. The company was purchased by

(26:45):
McCall's in twenty eleven and continued until twenty twenty one,
when McCall stopped producing all of the garment patterns under
the brand to focus just on crafts, and it has
since been sunset completely. By the time Quickso had been
sun set, all of the Big four were part of
one company. In two thousand and one, Butterick and McCall's merged,

(27:07):
which meant that Vogue was also part of that deal.
This had been something of a survival necessity following the
sewing boom of the nineteen fifties and sixties. Things had
really dropped off as more and more women had entered
the workforce, so there was just less sewing being done
in most US homes. Butterick was close to going out

(27:28):
of business when the McCall's merger happened at the time,
soists were kind of suspicious of the deal, with some
concern that there would be fewer choices in the designs
available if there was no competition. But each company established
and maintained its own clear brand. Then things happened pretty
quickly in twenty sixteen and twenty seventeen. First, in twenty sixteen,

(27:50):
CSS Industries, which was largely a gift wrap and holiday
items brand, bought McCall Pattern Company for a reported fourteen
million dollars. The following year, CSS bought Simplicity Creative Group
for sixty four million dollars. It seems kind of like
a monopoly, but the Federal Trade Commission didn't think so.

(28:11):
CSS was then acquired by IG Design Group and twenty
twenty for a reported eighty eight million dollars. Hey, you
know we started part one. It was because the Big
Four were being sold off from IG Design Group as
IG Design Group Americas to Hilco, a liquidation company. Well,
while I was working on this, DGA filed for Chapter

(28:33):
eleven relief. In a July third write up on the
filing that appeared in Business Wire, it was reported quote
the company intends to pursue a value maximization strategy by
engaging with buyers who were interested in purchasing certain of
the company's business segments as a going concern, while concurrently
winding down its domestically manufactured woven ribbon products business and

(28:55):
supporting assets. So this seems and it's all so neus
like it might be hinting that there could be some
entity at least in discussions about possibly purchasing the pattern
companies and keeping them going, but that is unclear and
the future remains very murky. I as I said before,

(29:16):
one percent expect for all of this to change in
the gap between when we record and when we publish.
If there's an actual development, maybe we'll do a pickup.
We'll see what happens. Maybe. So one of the things
that's troubling for alsoists is that these pattern companies are
the only ones that print large scale tissue patterns. So

(29:38):
if they're completely shuttered, smaller pattern companies that ran print
jobs with them will no longer have any options. Yeah,
you know, I just want to say, if in the
time between when we record this and when stuff comes
out or shortly thereafter or whenever, if you see articles

(29:59):
allege that all of the pattern companies mismanage their money
and made silly decisions. Uh, just like think about the
fact that they were acquired by private equity. Yeah. I
mean when businesses that you love go out of business
and you're like, man, what happened, and then you suddenly
read articles about how they sold too many lobster dinners

(30:21):
or whatever. A lot of times that wasn't the problem, right,
And I mean we could talk more about this on
behind the scenes, but there is also that thing that
happens in a lot of industries where some business interest
will have a surge in popularity and there will be
a huge effort to move capital behind it to expand

(30:43):
that part of your business. Yep, and then that business
falls off and you're like, uh, oh, Spaghettios, that's not
really mismanaging money. I mean, there can be money mismanagement
in there, but it's also like moving to meet the
needs of a market, and then when that market vanishes
or dis pates for whatever reason, Yeah, you have to
have an exit strategy. And sometimes, unfortunately, the exit strategy

(31:06):
is we gotta sell list we got a fold or yeah,
be acquired by someone. Yeah, do you have listener mail?
On a better note than any of that. Uh, I mean,
I think it's on a better note. It's about Edwen
Howard Armstrong. Okay, great. This is from our listener, ed
who writes high Holly and Tracy. I have to say
that I absolutely loved your podcast on Edwin Armstrong. I

(31:26):
have a BS and electrical engineering, and when I took
my first course in radio for my undergrad the instructor
described a super heterodine concept as the Armstrong superheterodine. I've
always wanted to know more about Armstrong, and now I
have a great idea as to who Armstrong was. I'm
retired from engineering now I'm a veteran. Thank you for
your service, but I still love learning about the history

(31:47):
of engineering. My graduate diploma is in aeronautical engineering, so
I'm waiting with baited breath to hear a story about
a woman aeronautical engineer or three. For our other listeners,
Tracy sent a reply to ed with some suggestions of
things that we've recorded. I got addicted to your show
several years ago, and I love the detail that you
bring to each subject. I especially love your female focused episode.

(32:10):
I am the father of two daughters and even more wonderful.
I agree with your views on our current state of
political affairs. Please keep up the incredible work and know
that my two grown daughters and I love to listen
and discuss your shows and spread the word to anyone
who we feel would be interested in your show, which
is damn near anyone. For now, I'm enclosing pictures of
my three fur daughters, who are grown but live with
their father, unlike their sisters on two legs. Take care

(32:33):
and thanks again. These cats are so cute. There is
a very very fluffy kind of buff with darker tone
color elements that looks like she might be Sassafras. I
love everything about it. That is Sydney, who is also

(32:56):
known as Bubbles after the Powerpuff Girls. It's always getting
her sister's into trouble. Listen, I love the Powerpuff Girls.
You give me all the PPG references you want, because
I'm here for it. And then there is a beautiful
black tuxedo kitty named Pepper who is the eldest and
the biggest troublemaker and instigator of all that is mischievous.

(33:17):
And then Sterling who is called Linky. She was Sterling
Silver when she was born and apparently briefly resembled a
sausage link when she was filling out as a kitten,
which is how she got the name Linky Linky. I
hope this isn't the case. Linky looks like one of
those cats that is a little bit emo. She's a

(33:39):
little in her feelings. This is what it looks like
based on this phono, but she could also just be
having a moment of curious focus. Your babies are so beautiful,
ed thank you for sharing them with us, and I'm
so glad that our Edwin Howard Armstrong episode was enjoyable
for you. I always worry anytime I'm talking about someone
or something in a field that is not one I'm

(33:59):
super hype a knowledgeable about. Like I try to read
as much as I can and get as much foundation
under my feet before I start running, but I always
worry I'd miss something and someone in that field will
be like you are a ding dong, which is possible,
could always happen. If you would like to write to
us and share your kiddies or your opinions on whether
or not I'm a ding dong answers, Yes, I'm good

(34:20):
with it. You can do that at History podcast at
iHeartRadio dot com. You can also subscribe to the show
on the iHeartRadio app or anywhere you listen to your
favorite podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a
production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the

(34:41):
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.