The custom trades: milliners, dressmakers, and tailors

1883 and 1921, as the directories count them

Women's trades, counted at two dates: Before ready-to-wear finished its conquest, a city dressed through custom trades, and in South Bend those trades were largely women's. Farr's directory of 1883 — the city's ninth — lists eight milliners in its classified pages, every one a woman trading under her own name: Mrs. A. Barrett & Co., at 110 East Washington; Mrs. A. E. Berkley, at 124 North Michigan, advertising "millinery, hair goods, etc."; Miss May Bronner; Mrs. William Fox; Mrs. M. A. Fralick; Mrs. Lavina Hunt; Mrs. Mary Owens; and Mrs. L. V. Stephens, who kept two addresses, on West Washington and at 312 South Chapin. The directory's own business review gives the trade its period voice: "What would the ladies be without their hats and bonnets which make them look so beautiful, and where would they get them if it were not for such millinery stores" as the four it names. The same classified pages list seven clothiers — Simon Green; John Hay; Kempner & Greenberg; Meyer Livingston & Son; Moses Livingston & Co.; P. S. Peek; and John Rush & Co. — and the directory's alphabetical pages show the Livingston houses, the city's merchant-tailor establishments, employing tailors and tailoresses by name: Charles Fritz, Joseph Guntensberger, and John P. Hasenstab at Moses Livingston & Co.'s, with Miss Elliott, Miss Josie Jurek, and Miss Lizzie Kotz entered as tailoresses. The named merchant tailors of the alpha pages include John C. Canty, William J. Crouch, and the firm of Beekman & Renfranz.

Thirty-eight years later the custom trades still stood, counted in Polk's directory of 1921 at a scale the ready-to-wear age had not yet erased. The classified "Dressmakers" heading runs to forty-seven names — every one a woman, working from street addresses across the city, among them R. C. Morrow's Gown and Tailoring Parlors at 505 Carroll, which the directory also carries under "Modistes" and "Ladies Tailors." The "Milliners" heading lists eleven houses — the DeFrees Millinery Co. at 131 North Main, R. L. Renwick & Co. at 408 South Michigan (with sister stores in Mishawaka and Niles, Michigan), Mrs. Stella Kwilinski at 302 Chapin and Mrs. Pelagia J. Szalewiski at 233 Chapin on the Polish west side, and eight more — beside the millinery departments of Robertson's, Sax, Wyman's, and the Ellsworth Store. The "Tailors" heading lists thirty-five: downtown shops such as Raab Bros. at 121 North Michigan, Renfranz Jr. Inc. at 123 West Washington, the Gordon Co., and a shop trading as the English Woolen Mills at 115 East Jefferson Boulevard; and west-side shops in the immigrant neighborhoods — Michael F. Nowak at 1242 West Division, Bert Radecki at 1024 West Division, Peter Szalewski at 508 West Division, Stephen J. Gyenge at 411 West Division, Ernest Draganits at 323 Chapin, John Schmidt at 716 Chapin. Harry Lapides, at 1012 West Washington Avenue, is one of the two names under "Ladies Tailors." The counts are the classified lists' own, for the years sampled; they are not a series, and this record does not make them one.

Sources:

1. Farr's South Bend City Directory, Vol. IX (Tribune Printing Co., 1883) — classified business directory ("Milliners," eight names; "Clothiers," seven names), the business-review section's millinery passage, and the alphabetical directory's tailor and tailoress entries at the Livingston houses and elsewhere.
2. R. L. Polk & Co., South Bend City Directory (1921), classified business directory — "Dressmakers" (pp. 813–814; forty-seven names), "Milliners" (eleven names, with the starred department entries), "Tailors" (p. 863; thirty-five names), "Ladies Tailors" (two names), "Modistes" (Morrow), counted from the printed lists.