Rebecca Dickinson

Rebecca Dickinson (July 25, 1738 – December 31, 1815) was an English gownmaker. She is significant as the author of a journal in which she writes about her life as an artisan and a Calvinist in New England in the years following the Revolutionary War (1787-1802). Throughout her life, Dickinson chose to live as a single woman in Hatfield, Massachusetts sustaining herself through her trade. Her surviving journal documents her struggle to understand her singlehood in the context of her faith.

Rebecca Dickinson (sometimes spelled as Rebekah or Rebeca) was born in Hatfield, Massachusetts, as the oldest daughter of six children born to farmers Moses Dickinson and Anna Smith. Named after her grandmother, Rebecca Barrett Wright, Dickinson entered a world of political and religious concerns. The relatively small town of Hatfield (which held a population of 803 in 1765) had a history of “political, military, and religious upheaval” for more than half of a century before Dickinson was born. Surrounded by both Native American enemies and their French allies in Canada, the people of Hatfield from its founding through the mid eighteenth century worried about the possibility of war, as well as the state of their souls.

Around the age of twelve, Dickinson “went to learn the trade of gownmaking”. Her parents sent her to an apprenticeship at mantua making, also known as gownmaking. While ornamental needlework reflected a “degree of gentility” among young girls in elite families, artisanal work in clothing production for Dickinson and other women was a way to earn money for her family at a young age. Though many women had some knowledge of clothing construction and maintenance, given the expense of fabric, many women hired gownmakers to cut the pieces required to create a garment, since they could properly handle cutting and sewing the garment without ruining costly materials. As an unmarried adult, Dickinson became a well-known gownmaker in Massachusetts. One of her more important clients, Elizabeth Porter Phelps, gave her business through her large estate, Forty Acres. Whenever Dickinson came to visit, some women “made it a point to come up to the Phelps house while [she] was there”. Fixing wardrobes for local families, however, made up most of her business.

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