The shirtwaist and skirt also matched women's growing interest in a more active lifestyle and athletic pursuits. During the last half of the nineteenth century, the number of women participating in gymnastics and bicycling expanded, and by the end of the century women were also playing tennis, golf, and field hockey. This active, health-conscious American woman became the fashionable ideal and was personified in the illustrations of Charles Dana Gibson for Life magazine. The Gibson girl with her tall, athletic figure and her shirtwaist and skirt was illustrated in innumerable pictures and postcards and was known in both the U.S. and Europe.(19)

Ready-made dresses took a bit longer to catch on with Anna's customers, and when they did, it was the younger clients who first accepted them. In May 1916, Miss Lola Robinson purchased a ready-made dress for $50. In June, Miss Maude Martin purchased a ready-made evening dress for $60. Until 1924, ready-mades represented only a small percentage of Anna's business, ranging from no sales to about six percent in any given year (see chart on p. 31). It appears that in fall 1923, Anna was forced to confront the fact that since the 1915 move to 514 Broadway, her business had steadily declined. Almost every year saw a decrease in the number of client transactions, from a total of 490 in 1916 to 281 in 1923. The increasing availabilty of high quality and stylish women's ready-to-wear had seriously affected her business.

Anna was not the only Providence dressmaker to feel the effects of the introduction of better quality women's ready-to-wear. A study of the dressmakers listed in the Providence City Directories indicates a rapid decline in the number of dressmakers between 1915, when 727 were listed, and 1920, when that total decreased to 466. Concurrently, the directories show an increase in the number of ready-to-wear establishments from two to twelve. This trend continues during the next five years with an increase in ready-to-wear stores to sixteen and in department stores to four from seven.

INSERT CHART of Providence Clothing Suppliers

The chart above is a comparison between the total number of ladies'-wear and menswear retailers, dressmakers, and tailors taken from the Providence City Directories. The explosion in the number of retailers of ladies' ready-to-wear is marked, as is the decrease in the number of dressmakers and ladies' tailors.

In 1923, the New York Times reported on the decline of the dressmaking business brought about by the increasing popularity of women's ready-to-wear. David N. Mosessohn, Executive Chairman of the Associated Dress Industries of America, was interviewed, and he spelled out the change in women's buying habits. According to Mosessohn, it was no wonder that women preferred shopping for ready-made clothing. For a custom-made garment, women had to acquire the fabrics, trims, and notions used to make it; then find the time to work out the design of the garment with the dressmaker and to attend several fittings and alteration sessions; and she might still end up with a garment that "just screams ‘home-made,' and does not bear that chic, natty air of a garment designed, cut and tailored by experienced craftsmen and artists." A woman buying a ready-made dress had her choice of hundreds of garments in a variety of colors and sizes. She could try the garment on before committing to it, and there was no waiting or delay. "The dress is either carried out by the customer or it is delivered the same day to her home. It is ready to wear."(20) Anna's clients were not immune to the appeal of this growing trade. Manufacturers, primarily located in New York, invested heavily in turning out fashionable garments based on the latest styles from Paris. The simpler chemise dress, introduced as early as 1918, was relatively easy to size and produce, and by 1919, New York was home to more than eight thousand firms providing women's ready-to-wear.(21)