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Global goods and local usages: the small world of the Indian sewing machine, 1875–1952*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 October 2011

David Arnold
David Arnold
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK E-mail: d.arnold@warwick.ac.uk
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Abstract

Sewing machines, one of the first mechanical consumer goods to be mass produced and sold worldwide, provide an important case study for the understanding of global history in terms of the global diffusion of goods. However, as the case of colonial India demonstrates, it is what happens to such goods on their arrival in the recipient society – their emergent social history and growing indigeneity – that then demands analytical consideration. By tracing the changing nature of India’s sewing culture and sewing-machine use, linking it to occupational shifts, racial identities, and gender roles, to changing marketing techniques and advertising strategies, this article shows how closely the relative success of the sewing machine was bound up with local artisanal practices, commercial agency, and the transformative forces present in Indian society. It further indicates how Indian production of sewing machines by the 1950s built on several decades of acculturation and local experience of their sale and use.

Keywords

everyday technologyindigenizationsewing machinesSingertailors
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Global History , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , November 2011 , pp. 407 - 429
Copyright
Copyright © London School of Economics and Political Science 2011

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