Episode
S9 Ep33: Did the sewing machine liberate women?
- Podcast
- VoxTalks Economics
- Published
- Jun 12, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 1149
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://audioboom.com/posts/8915831
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Summary
In January 1860 the New York Times gave its blessing to a new machine: the sewing machine. These "iron needle-women", it wrote, were the only invention that could be claimed “chiefly for women's benefit”. Sewing was women's work in the nineteenth century, rich or poor, and a machine could now do it in a fraction of the time. So did it set women free? Philipp Ager and Davide Coluccia have traced the adoption of the sewing machine in Massachusetts between 1850 and 1900, using census records and digitised business directories to work out who was exposed to it, in the factory and in the home. For poorer women the machine meant work, in garment factories and in boot and shoe production; they married later, had fewer children, and many never married at all. For wealthier women, who had few acceptable jobs open to them, the hours it saved went into earlier marriage and earlier motherhood. Philipp tells Tim Phillips the story of a machine that had very different impacts in different social classes. The research behind this episode: Ager, Philipp, and Davide Coluccia. 2026. "Liberation Technology? The Impact of the Sewing Machine on Women." CEPR Discussion Paper No. 21496. CEPR Press, Paris and London. CEPR Discussion Papers are gated; CEPR members and subscribing institutions can download the paper at the link. To cite this episode: Phillips, Tim, and Philipp Ager. 2026. "Did the Sewing Machine Liberate Women?" VoxTalks Economics (podcast). Assign this as extra listening. The citation above is formatted and ready for a reading list or VLE. About the guests Philipp Ager is professor of economics at the University of Mannheim, a Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research, and an editorial board member at Explorations in Economic History. His research spans the ec…