bushelman

English edit

bushelman (plural bushelmen)

(US, archaic, dialect) A tailor's assistant for repairing garments.
- 1900, Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie, Chapter 35:
  The day was before him—a long day in which to discover something—and this was how he must begin to discover. He scanned the long column, which mostly concerned bakers, bushelmen, cooks, compositors, drivers, and the like, finding two things only which arrested his eye.
- 2024 April 25, Nellie Mason Auten, “Sweating System in the Garment Trades in Chicago”, in The American Journal of Sociology:
  A merchant tailor has in the same shop with himself one or more "bushelmen," who repair garments, and one cutter who cuts all the garments. Besides these, there are usually several "journeymen" tailors in his employ, who come to the shops for garments and make them up in their own homes, unless a "back- shop" is provided a room near by where the tailors work together, although on separate garments.