Daily AncestorMantua maker
A mantua maker was a dressmaker; the name comes from the mantua, a loose gown fashionable in the late 1600s and 1700s.
The mantua was a woman's gown worn from the late seventeenth century. Women who sewed these gowns for customers became known as mantua makers, and the name stuck to the dressmaking trade long after the garment went out of style.
You meet it in colonial and early American records, city directories and the 1850 and 1860 census. By the later 1800s the plain word dressmaker had largely replaced it.
As seen in a recordOccupation column of the 1850 and 1860 census; early city directories
Mary Ann Fisk, 34, Mantua maker, Mass.
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Daily Ancestor. "Mantua maker." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/occupations/mantua-maker. Last checked 2026-10-01.