Featured Tintype: What are these women doing?

It is not unusual to find 19th century photographs of men posing in the clothes and tools of their trade. They wanted to be photographed in a way that demonstrated who they were. I still think that is the most likely explanation for what is going on here - women who worked together in the mill, were friends with each other, and wanted a photo. The stockings, latchhooks(?), and aprons are the tools of their trade.

 

In addition to finishing, there's a similar hook type tool used in the making process:

 

What then is the woman at top right holding? It does not look to me like either a completed sock or one that is partially finished.

An interesting Pinterest collection, with many posts from the Met Museum:

https://www.pinterest.com/thefaerie/late-19th-century-stockings/?lp=true

 

So I did a quick google search on "occupational tintypes women" -- most of the results were men, but I did find a couple. Including this group shop which seems most similar to what I have. Somewhat useless without a detailed description, but it's on pinterest and I have my doubts about the accuracy. Still.

 

Louisa May Alcott: An Old-Fashioned Girl. The chapter where Polly attends one of her friend, Fanny's, sewing circles with all her rich friends. They are sewing (not always well) for the poor.

 

On the subject of aprons: most women (except the quite rich) owned a day dress, a Sunday dress, a wash-the-kitchen-floor outfit, and possibly a dress to wear to parties. It is for this reason that closets, if there were closets, were often in a corner triangle of a room. Aprons, did not neessariy need to be hung, and could be made much more quickly and easily than a proper dress. (LMA: picture Amy in her apron standing in front of her class in humilation.

 

Why that thar machine makes it look positively EASY!!!! We'll send you one, Jivvy, and you can show us when you've completed a pair of socks, WITH Selvedge!!!! Do you need the Swift too???!!!
Good Lord.....watched that video on making the socks on that back & forth crank loom......who the heck could keep count?????I don't think anyone would wear the socks I would manage on that machine!!!!!!

 

I'm in the sock-making camp about this photo.

The women may be using that tool to "knit" together the heel/toe area of the stocking. Knitted tubes were produced by hand-cranked machines and the heel/toe areas were then joined together by hand.

There were small "family knitting machines" available with which people would start their in-home sock-making business. (Or a business owner would provide a family with the machine and pay them to make the goods.) It produced knitted tubes which women and children would then fashion into socks. The tools the women are holding in your photo look like latch hooks. Using a latch hook was one of the methods to make the joins in the toe/heel area. More advanced machines (and presumably, they were more expensive), were able to form the heels/toes. The stockings in your photo look rather crude.



A latch hook:


I've found reference stating that as late as WW1, families were given these machines and put to work making socks for the war effort.

Editing to add an interesting website with lots of antique sock-making machines for sale: https://thelegacyfarm.com/Welcome.html

 

Sound like mine/my mother's... wooden with a handle.

 

I still have my mother's as well, painted green, with a handle.

 

My paternal grandmother was a seamstress. I'm not all that good at sewing myself.

 

Made a hearth rug with readicut wool with one of those hooks.

Nothing compared to my father, who made ladies stockings for Kayser Bondor post WWII

 

I wonder why they would wear protective coverings to assemble socks?

 

They all look like stockings to me, in various stages of completion.


"Workers at their machines in a knitting mill, 1800s. Hand-colored woodcut"
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/knitting-mill.html



"The Seneca Knitting Mill. The imposing limestone structure, whose elegance lies in its simplicity and solid utility so characteristic of the country’s burgeoning Industrial Revolution, was built in 1844. It ran continuously for 155 years, employing mostly women (operating the knitting machines, sewing socks together, etc.) until it closed in 1999."
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/gerit-quealy/forgotten-women-knitters-_b_841759.html

 

To protect against dust from wool and cotton, and oil from machines, which they probably operated as well. They didn't have many dresses, and had to be careful with the ones they had.

 

See, that's the one I keep coming back to. Makes sense for factory workers. Less so for charity work done in the home.

 

That's what I was thinking, too.