Investigates the design history of women's household sewing patterns as that history is recorded in United States Patent Records. Finds that the history of home sewing patterns illustrates a key aspect of usable design: the interrelationship between a device and its documentation and the way changes to both enhance overall product usability. (RS)

Before 1944, when Great Britain's local education agencies were empowered to ensure that students were adequately clothed and fed, the Boots for the Bairns Fund sponsored by the Yorkshire Evening Post provided shoes for poor children in Leeds. This article reviews the fund's history from 1921 to 1939. (PGD)

Presents a study of historical documents focusing on the complex relationship between dress, gender, and power in North America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Examines social rules governing dress and appearance, providing examples of how people dressed to comply with social expectations. Loosely based on a Smithsonian…