A Century of American Sewing Patterns, 1860-1959 by Lori Hughes (1998, Paperback, Illustrated)

This book is really helpful to the pattern collector and comes in a smaller take along size. It addresses patterns from 1860 to 1959 and is a wealth of info on patterns and helps in the dating of your collection. There is info about the patterns and the companies and some fun observations about the envelope design as well. It has many smaller, color pictures of pattern envelopes and list of dates of pattern. Some are exact and others are ball park. I have had this book for years and refer to it several times a month.
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