Ebenezer Butterick

Inventor and fashion business executive, born in Sterling, Massachusetts, USA. Working as a tailor, with his wife, Ellen Augusta Pollard Butterick (d.1871), he invented paper clothing patterns for home sewers. They began selling patterns (1863) and he formed E Butterick & Company, New York (1867–81), established European branches, and founded fashion magazines. He was later secretary of the reorganized Butterick Publishing Co (1881–94).

Regarded as the inventor, together with his wife Ellen Augusta Pollard Butterick, of tissue paper dress patterns, also known as graded sewing patterns, which the couple began selling in 1863.

The premise of graded sewing patterns reportedly came from Mrs.Butterick's frustration with design which came in only one size, which almost always necessitated manual grading of the design using wax chalk on the fabric before sewing could commence - this was a laborious and frustrating process.

The Buttericks' graded templates for home sewers became massively popular, as they made accessible modern fashions and styles to people that were too poor to buy pre-made new clothing, but could afford fabrics or modified old clothes to fit the templates. The Butterick family began selling their patterns from their Sterling, Massachusetts home, in 1863, and the business expanded so quickly that, in one year, they had a factory at 192 Broadway Street in New York City.

In the 1867, Butterick began publishing with the magazine, Ladies Quarterly of Broadway Fashions, and followed with the introduction, in 1868, of the monthly Metropolitan.

Both magazines offered fashion news and advice, as well as mail order services for Butterick's designs.

In 1881, the company reorganized as Butterick Publishing Company, and Ebenezer became its secretary, serving in this role until 1894.

In 1903, the Butterick building was designed and constructed on Spring Street and MacDougal Street in downtown Manhattan, and is still the home of the company.