history .
"The textile industry was brought to America in the 19th century from England. But the apparel industry is an American creation at the turn of the 20th century in the Greater Boston area by Jewish tailors. The apparel industry grew from these tailors/businessmen, as they built manufacturing factories for production. Pattern making was taught to “apprentices” who were called “designers” in the Boston area. Creative designers of styles in America didn't exist in the early 20th century. Americans were “copyists” or interpreters of the creative ideas coming from Paris ever since the 18th century. Some of these designers created booklets for teaching these systems mathematically - that came to be called “pattern drafting”. In the 1940s, when 16, I was old enough to work in these factories as a stitcher on sportswear, and met some of these pattern designers, whose information was passed to them by the old apprenticeship system. I also learned first hand about mass production systems that made America, and Boston area specifically, so famous for quality/quantity production - a system that in the second half of the century we taught to the rest of the world.