This comes up periodically, and since all my previous research at the SA
collaborative thread has since been lost, I decided to compile a new version.
Research Questions:
- What purposes were wool aprons intended to serve in the period 1840-1865?
- Were wool aprons intentionally used to protect against burns?
- How common were wool aprons compared to other materials (as cottons, linens, silks)?
Place: United States and Great Britain (English-language sources)
My search terms were "apron" along with "worsted", "wool", "woolen", "stuff", "cloth", and "linsey" (for "linsey-woolsey"). Except for The Workwoman's Guide (1838/40), I confined my searches to artifacts and publications dated between the years 1840-1865.
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Google N-Gram showing relative prevalence of wool apron terms between 1840-1865.
Click link for larger image.
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Wool Aprons in General
The Workwoman's Guide (1838/40) begins its instructions for aprons with a list of materials:
"If for common use, aprons are made of white, brown, blue black or checked linen, of black stuff, calico, Holland, leather, nankeen, print, or long cloth; if for better purposes, of cambric muslin, clear, mulled, or jaconet muslin, silk, satinette, satin &c."
Note that that's 1/8 materials in the ordinary aprons are wool, and none in the finer category. This is a working material, and not the most common one either.
The Ladies' Worktable Book (1845) copies the Workwoman's Guide text on common aprons. None of its five other apron projects use wool material.
The Magazine of Domestic Economy (1840) advises aprons of silk or French merino be worn over linsey-woolen dresses.
Wool Aprons as Fire Protection
The Cook and Housewife's Manual (Edinburgh, 1840) advises that "every cook, while by an open fire, should wear a very wide thick worsted apron." It implies that this custom is less widely practiced than the author would hope, as she goes on to observe of the average cook that "while swaying her body, lifting off and on heavy stew-pots, it is surprising that her inflammable cotton apron so often escapes the flames."
Eliza Leslie's The House Book: Or, A Manual of Domestic Economy (Philadelphia, 1840) advises that children be dressed "entirely in wool or worsted" during the winter as a fire safety measure, and that "even their aprons should be of worsted", with merino and bombazette recommended as suitable fabrics.
In a fictional example from Fireside Tales for Little Ones, the narrator catches her cap on fire and is saved by the nursemaid smothering the flames with a stuff apron. (London, 1864)
[The guide for working with explosives and the fictional blacksmith's daughter mentioned below do not explicitly associate wool aprons with fire-suppression, but may be related.]
Other Nonfiction References
A Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English (London, 1857) offers one definition of "mantle" as "a blue worsted apron by female servants when employed in rough dirty work." This definition also appears in A General Dictionary of Provincialisms (London, 1840). [Term used in a 1850 historic account set in the 18th century.]
Nursemaids are advised to have a woolen apron to keep their clothing dry if scrubbing the nursery is part of their duties and a flannel apron to wear when bathing the infant (as well as four common aprons and two finer ones). The Careful Nursemaid, 1844
Wool aprons and gowns should not be worn when attending a sick person (lest the fabric absorb contagion). 1857.
Bee-keepers are advised to wear woolen aprons in an 1856 monograph. [Fiction: red or blue linsey aprons sometimes used to cover hives.]
Leather or woolen aprons are recommended for men working with explosive chemicals, 1845.
A man working with bleaching/laundry machinery wears a woolen apron, 1855.
A cotton weaver (male) wore a linen or woolen apron. 1856-7
A maid-of-all-work in Wales is described as wearing a blue woolen apron in 1841. This is brought up in describing the poverty of her employer (a clergyman). [See below for associations between woolen aprons and rural poverty.]
A girl crossing-sweeper in London wears a black stuff apron, as described in Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor (1864).
The maids at George Heriot's Hospital (a boys' residential school in Edinburgh) are allowed two linen aprons and one worsted apron each year.
Linsey (linsey-woolsey?) aprons were among the woolens displayed at the Great Exhibition, 1851.
Cloth aprons are among the plain-sewing articles made by a London girls' charity school, 1841.
Shepherds wear thick cloth aprons, apparently for weather protection, 1845.
A Florentine farmer's daughter's trousseau includes a merino apron, 1841.
A merino apron is among the items donated to fund an orphanage, 1845.
A Catholic girls' school in Ghent has silk and merino aprons as part of the uniform, 1840.
A checked linsey apron is part of a type description for the destitute, yet respectably attired, widow. 1862.
A 70-year-old housekeeper (earning 35 shillings/year) is plainly dressed, including a green linsey apron. 1848.
Wool Aprons in Fiction
Most often described as blue and/or striped, woolen and worsted aprons frequently appear in pastoral, historic, and/or foreign settings. They seem to carry a strong, though not exclusive, association with rural poverty, and are mentioned for both men and women. Wool aprons frequently appear in descriptions of foreign costume (whether in Chile, Guatemala, the Amazon, Russia, Germany, France, Hungary, Transylvania, Italy or the Alps). In contrast, "stuff" aprons are primarily described as black, and figure prominently (though not exclusively) in descriptions of gentlewomen engaged in household work or fallen on hard times.
A "highland lass" wears a blue and white striped worsted apron. A grandmother in a poem by Burns wears a "new worsted apron."
A poor, illegitimate boy who grows up to work as a butcher wears a blue and white worsted apron with a black tape. A London butcher's boy wears a blue worsted apron.
A Scottish lady (of not-great fortune) wears a blue worsted apron to protect her quilted silk petticoat while plucking chickens with her servants.
An elderly Quaker wears "a worsted apron tied over her drab gown." An extremely poor grandmother (to whom 6 pence/week is a live-changing sum) wears a woolen apron.
Historical reference to blue-dyed "linsey" used in apron.
A rural weaver (male) is described as wearing a woolen apron. 1850. Another has a flannel apron. 1853.
A poor girl of 10 years old, who works part-time painting earthenware dishes, wears a woolen apron.
A servant wears a linsey apron, 1863. "Woolen apron, muslin cap, and pattens' are used to describe the former attire of a cook, who has since risen in social rank.
An 1863 story set in Kentucky describes one of the characters, an elderly enslaved woman, as wearing a woolen apron. An enslaved woman working as a cook/household servant has a coarse linsey apron, 1860.
A poor shepherd's daughter wears a clean (but badly worn through) wool apron. A shepherd's daughter wears a "clean, but scanty and ragged woolen apron" in one of Hannah More's 'improving' stories. 1843.
A formerly-wealthy woman who has fallen on hard times and no longer cares about her clothes wears a long, wide woolen apron over a calico dress, having previously worn a black silk apron over a well-fitted delaine dress, 1864.
A blacksmith's daughter (who hates mending stockings and wants to become a barmaid), wears a blue woolen apron, 1840
A man selling oysters wears a blue woolen apron.
An old maid traded her checked woolen apron for a homespun linen apron when she married and became mistress of a respectable, old-fashioned rural home in New England. Story in the Lowell Offering, 1845.
In Elizabeth Gaskell's novel Sylvia's Lovers (1863), Sylvia wears a blue woolen apron. She is a farmer's daughter in northeastern England c.1796.
In Charlotte Bronte's Villette (1857), a drunken woman incongruously pairs a black stuff apron with a showy striped silk dress.
A kind cottager uses her woolen apron to warm childrens' cold hands.
A German peasant-woman has a crimson stuff apron. 1853
At home, a well-to-do English girl wears a black stuff apron over her common morning dress. 1864
A "grogram [sic] gown and stuff apron" is suggested as an unbecoming outfit. 1858.
A "rusty black stuff apron" is suitable for moving furniture, not for receiving guests, 1855. An unmarried shopkeeper's daughter, age 35, wears a black stuff apron to do housework before a relative comes to visit, 1862.
A simply-dressed young lady wears a "plain dark dress", black stuff apron, and un-embroidered collar, which are contrasted with her spiritual beauty. 1855
A country tradesman's wife wears a black stuff apron as part of her Sunday clothes (over a maroon linsey-woolsey dress, with a shawl and close bonnet). 1860
A farmer's widow wears a stuff apron, 1860. Linsey or checked aprons are worn by gleaners (poor people allowed to pick up fallen grain), 1840.
A poor Irish girl wears a black stuff apron with an old mended cotton dress and pelerine (but no socks or shoes), 1854. A Welsh baronet's daughter disguising herself as a country girl borrows a linsey apron, among other items, 1852. In Eugene Sue's Mysteries of Paris, a French country-girl wears a brown stuff apron with a large bib. (English translation, 1845)
A poorly-behaved girl (daughter of a washerwoman) is incongruously dressed in a faded print dress and black stuff apron, with curl papers in her hair, a yellow glass necklace and small hoop earrings. 1849
Linsey aprons evoke old-fashion school-teachers, 1859.
A neat print gown and a linsey apron with a large bib make a woman look like the "pattern of housewifely industry," 1854. An actress who dresses moderately outside of work wears a white morning gown with a purple merino apron at home, 1858. A refined factory girl wears a black merino apron to work, 1844.
Linsey-wolsey apron worn for washing breakfast dishes, 1854. [From a satirical letter.]
A woman wears a linsey apron in a story about "old settlers" of the western US, 1852. A bed-gown and linsey apron is used (hyperbolically) as an example of old-fashioned clothing, 1856.
A miserly farmwife wears a checked linsey apron, 1857. An elderly country woman (farm-hand's wife?) wears a blue linsey apron, and uses it to carry scraps for feeding the birds, 1859. A poor widowed farm-laborer wants to purchase wool that she can spin to make an apron, 1854.
Decorative Aprons of Wool
Anthony Trollop's description of Rhode Island includes an unusual mention of women in carriages, each with "a worked worsted apron of brilliant colors" in her lap. This, along with a Godey's story which mentions "a set of those worsted apron from the Repository" may be using the term "worsted" to indicated "worsted work", or embroidery using colorful wool thread. [Like these originals.]
The Album of Fancy Needlework (1847) gives instructions for an apron knitted of Berlin (very fine) wool. The Comprehensive Knitting Book (1849) has instructions for making an apron in brioche stitch "or in any light open stripe" including flounces, a pocket, and contrasting colored trim.
Sharpe'e London Magazine (1860) gives instructions for a child's apron (more like a fully-body pinafore) crocheted in Shetland Wool.
Wool Versus Other Fibers
This got a bit long, so I'll hold the statistical analysis of wool versus non-wool aprons for later. Even a quick N-gram, however, shows that wool aprons are far from a majority of aprons. Only the term "cloth" comes close to the prevalence of cotton, with silk, linen and check predominating. [Though some of the cotton and worsted hits will be for industrial machinery.]
I also went looking for original wool aprons in all my usual online museum collecions (VAM, Met, MFA, LACMA, UK National Trust, Williamsburg, Kent State, Henry Ford, Europeana Fashion Project). The VAM has a doll in Welsh costume dated 1840 which has a checked wool apron. None had a human-sized wool apron from this period and geographic area. While the relative prevalence of wool aprons in the time period may be a factor, preservation is also an issue: garments which survive and find their way into museum collections tend not to be working garments. The aprons present in these museum collections are overwhelmingly decorated silk garments, with a few fine cotton aprons, including the embroidered examples linked above.
Conclusion
Various wool materials were used to make aprons during the mid-19th century, though they are mentioned less often than silk, cotton, or linen aprons. Both men and women used wool aprons as suited their work.
While fire protection was one known reason for using wool aprons, such concerns are only present in a small number of references--and wool aprons were just as frequently invoked for protection from water/weather as from fire. Instead, wool aprons have a stronger correlation to housework itself, as well as country life, and certain occupations (such as shepherds).
Specific fabrics and colors further characterize wool aprons. Worsted aprons described by color are overwhelmingly blue and/or striped, and worn by working class women such as farmers, shepherdesses, and servants. Linsey aprons are likewise used by women undertaking active work. In contrast, stuff aprons (most commonly black) are worn by smartly-dressed working class women and by middle class women doing light housework. Merino aprons sit at the top of the hierarchy; they are associated with tidiness apart from physical work, and are mentioned alongside silk aprons.
