ABSTRACT
In 1895, Hannah Webster, a dressmaker, married Gibbon Mitchell, a tailor’s cutter. She was twenty-four years old, and her wedding arrangements reflected the standing she had achieved as an independent, self-supporting woman over the past ten years. Hannah Webster refused to marry from her parents’ home, as her mother wished her to do. Instead, she chose to marry from the home of the married sister where she had lodged from time to time. Subsequently, she remembered the contribution of neighbouring women to marking the day as
One of the loveliest things I have ever known…when I rose early on my wedding day I found that every neighbour had risen earlier still, cleaned her windows, and whitened her flags back and front, thus giving the whole street quite a festive appearance on that glorious September morning.1
