This was the development of the ready-made clothing industry. In
the earlier days of the nation, though nearly all the clothing
was of domestic manufacture, there were tailors and seamstresses
in all the towns and many of the villages, who made clothing to
order. Sailors coming ashore sometimes needed clothes at once,
and apparently a merchant of New Bedford was the first to keep a
stock on hand. About 1831, George Opdyke, later Mayor of New
York, began the manufacture of clothing on Hudson Street, which
he sold largely through a store in New Orleans. Other firms began
to reach out for this Southern trade, and it became important.
Southern planters bought clothes not only for their slaves but
for their families. The development of California furnished
another large market. A shirt factory was established, in 1832,
on Cherry and Market Streets, New York. But not until the coming
of the power-driven sewing machine could there be any factory
production of clothes on a large scale. Since then the clothing
industry has become one of the most important in the country. The
factories have steadily improved their models and materials, and
at the present day only a negligible fraction of the people of
the United States wear clothes made to their order.
The sewing machine today does many things besides sewing a seam.
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