Textiles

The 50,000 objects in the textile collections fall into two main categories: raw fibers, yarns, and fabrics, and machines, tools, and other textile technology. Shawls, coverlets, samplers, laces, linens, synthetics, and other fabrics are part of the first group, along with the 400 quilts in the National Quilt Collection. Some of the Museum's most popular artifacts, such as the Star-Spangled Banner and the gowns of the first ladies, have an obvious textile connection.

The machinery and tools include spinning wheels, sewing machines, thimbles, needlework tools, looms, and an invention that changed the course of American agriculture and society. A model of Eli Whitney's cotton gin, made by the inventor in the early 1800s, shows the workings of a machine that helped make cotton plantations profitable in the South and encouraged the spread of slavery.

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Location
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ID Number
2013.0121.45
accession number
2013.0121
catalog number
2013.0121.45
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Location
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ID Number
2013.0121.09
accession number
2013.0121
catalog number
2013.0121.09
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Location
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ID Number
2013.0121.30
accession number
2013.0121
catalog number
2013.0121.30
The entire text on this sampler is worked in black silk, using color only for the border and one crossband. The top center contains a 3 x 3 ½” space that is outlined with basting stitches in tan silk, but is completely empty.
Description
The entire text on this sampler is worked in black silk, using color only for the border and one crossband. The top center contains a 3 x 3 ½” space that is outlined with basting stitches in tan silk, but is completely empty. It probably was intended to contain a memorial monument or urn. Working the sampler in black indicated death and including a Bible passage on a sampler was common as most families owned that book. The sampler is stitched with silk embroidery thread on a linen ground with a thread count of warp 27, weft 28/in. The stitches used are cross and crosslet.
The sampler maker did not include her name, but was honoring a well respected minister. Samuel Hopkins was born on October 31, 1729, and married Sarah Porter on February 17, 1756. She was a widow with five children, and they had nine more children. After Sarah died, Samuel married Margaret Stoddard on October 16, 1776, and they had one child. He was ordained as the fourth minister of the church in Hadley, Massachusetts on February 26, 1755, and served until February of 1809, when he was struck with a paralysis which impaired his mental faculties. He died on March 8, 1811.
Location
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maker
unknown
ID Number
TE.E388183
catalog number
E388183
accession number
182022
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Location
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date made
1775-1800
ID Number
2013.0121.49
accession number
2013.0121
catalog number
2013.0121.49
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Location
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date made
1790-1815
ID Number
TE.T14490.00C
catalog number
T14490.00C
accession number
277490
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Location
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date made
17th century
ID Number
2013.0121.44
accession number
2013.0121
catalog number
2013.0121.44
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Location
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date made
Late 19th to early 20th c
Mid to late 19th c
ID Number
2013.0121.47
accession number
2013.0121
catalog number
2013.0121.47
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Location
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ID Number
2013.0121.46
accession number
2013.0121
catalog number
2013.0121.46
After a young lady learned to embroider a sampler, she might attend a female academy to make a silk embroidered picture. This was a more challenging technique that became popular in the early 1800s.
Description
After a young lady learned to embroider a sampler, she might attend a female academy to make a silk embroidered picture. This was a more challenging technique that became popular in the early 1800s. Subjects included classical, biblical, and historical scenes, as well as mourning pictures. The death of George Washington gave impetus to this new fad of the mourning picture, which came to include an assortment of plinth, urn, mourners, and trees in a garden setting.
This mourning picture was expertly embroidered by Mary Parker. In the center is a plinth with an urn on top. The inscription reads: "Sacred / To / The Memory of / Mrs. Hannah Parker. Obt / April 14th 1813. Aged 50. / Mrs. Sarah Bullard. Obt. / July 13th 1813. Aged 27."
To the right side of the plinth is a weeping woman, leaning with her right elbow on the plinth. She is dressed in a gown of the period, and a braid encircles her softly curled hair. Two large willow trees overhang the plinth and the woman, and dominate the picture. The ground fabric is silk satin. The stitches are French knots, long and short, encroaching satin, split, lazy daisy, and chain.
This embroidery includes the typical objects found in mourning embroideries: a garden, weeping willow trees, a mourning woman, and an urn on a plinth. The willow tree is a symbol of mourning and sorrow, as well as a tree that drains the ground of water, thereby keeping the site dry.
Hannah Gilson was born May 26, 1764, to Samuel and Elizabeth Shed Gilson in Pepperell, MA. She married Lemuel Parker November 13, 1783, and died April 13, 1813. Daughter Sarah (Sally) Parker, born 1786, married John Bullard in 1808 in Pepperell, Massachusetts. Daughter Mary (Polly) Parker was born March 18, 1792.
Location
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maker
Parker, Mary
ID Number
TE.E388174
catalog number
E388174
accession number
182022
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Location
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ID Number
2013.0121.07
accession number
2013.0121
catalog number
2013.0121.07
After a young lady learned to embroider a sampler, she might attend a female academy to make a silk embroidered picture. This was a more challenging technique that became popular in the early 1800s.
Description
After a young lady learned to embroider a sampler, she might attend a female academy to make a silk embroidered picture. This was a more challenging technique that became popular in the early 1800s. Subjects included classical, biblical, and historical scenes, as well as mourning pictures.
This rectangular piece features an oval picture entitled, "Plenty." A female figure, dressed in a Federal period gown, carries an upright cornucopia filled with flowers, cradled in her left arm and hand. Her right hand displays a bouquet of flowers. A reverse-painted black glass mat displays the word "Plenty” in a scroll at the bottom. In another scroll are the words "Done by Sally Baxter, Jan 1, 1802." The picture is worked on an ivory silk satin ground fabric with silk thread. The stitches used are encroaching satin, straight, French knots, laid, back, and split.
A cornucopia is defined as a horn of plenty and thus the title “Plenty.”
Sally Baxter was born March 26, 1789, to Taylor and Sarah Crowell Baxter of Yarmouth, Massachusetts. She married Obadiah Abbey on February 27, 1808. He died in 1822 and she died on February 5, 1872.
Location
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date made
1802
maker
Baxter, Sally
ID Number
TE.E392913
catalog number
E392913
accession number
214358
After a young lady learned to embroider a sampler, she might attend a female academy to make a silk embroidered picture. This was a more challenging technique that became popular in the early 1800s.
Description
After a young lady learned to embroider a sampler, she might attend a female academy to make a silk embroidered picture. This was a more challenging technique that became popular in the early 1800s. Subjects included classical, biblical, and historical scenes, as well as mourning pictures.
This oval picture of Liberty is a watercolor on silk. (Not embroidered.) The only needlework involved was the attaching of the purl and spangles. Liberty's dress and hairdo are Empire style. In her right hand is a staff on which flies the American flag, with 18 stripes, nine blue and nine white and sixteen stars. A hat-like object atop of the flag staff possibly represents the “liberty cap.” In her left hand Liberty holds a cornucopia upside down with pears, cherries, grapes, apples, peaches, and melons spilling out. To the left in the background is the town of South Hadley, Massachusetts, with churches, houses, and trees. In the right background are clouds and mountains that may be symbolic of the vastness of the country. The oval picture of Liberty is framed by two rows of purl with two rows of spangles in between. The outer border is of flowers, vines, and ribbon bows. An outside border is the same purl and spangles as the inner border, between which is the flower border. It is worked on ivory silk faille.
A cap was awarded to ancient Roman freed slaves and it became the symbol of liberty to Americans during the Revolutionary War period. The upended cornucopia means prosperity, or in America, the land of plenty. The depiction of the town is found on other embroideries stitched at Abby Wright’s school in South Hadley, Massachusetts.
Location
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date made
ca. 1800
ID Number
TE.T19322
catalog number
T19322
accession number
256396
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Location
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ID Number
2013.0121.33
accession number
2013.0121
catalog number
2013.0121.33
William Skinner and Sons pink silk satin fabric length; 1914. Length of pink silk satin, with a red woven selvage. The selvage has a woven-in inscription, reading Skinner's 404. William Skinner & Sons was an important American manufacturer of silk satins.
Description
William Skinner and Sons pink silk satin fabric length; 1914. Length of pink silk satin, with a red woven selvage. The selvage has a woven-in inscription, reading Skinner's 404. William Skinner & Sons was an important American manufacturer of silk satins. The number 404 probably referred to a particular weight or quality classification. This particular sample is a fine soft satin but not as soft as charmeuse. Fabric length is cut and has frayed edges. Some discoloration and dirt throughout.
William Skinner emigrated from England to Massachusetts in 1843, finding work as silk dyer. He eventually opened his own silk manufacturing company, the Unquomonk Silk Co., making silk threads and yarns for weaving and sewing. In 1874, the mill was destroyed when the Mill River Dam gave way. Skinner moved his company a few miles away, to Holyoke, Massachusetts, and rebuilt the mill, expanding production to include woven fabrics (Skinner satins were nationally famous) and silk braids. He ran the company until his death in 1902, and the firm stayed in the family, and remained in operation in Holyoke, until 1961, when his heirs sold it to Indian head Mills, which immediately closed the Holyoke operation.
Location
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date made
c.1914
1914
c. 1914
manufacturer
William Skinner and Sons
ID Number
TE.T01231.000
catalog number
T01231.000
accession number
56703
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Location
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date made
1790-1815
ID Number
TE.T14490.00D
catalog number
T14490.00D
accession number
277490
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Location
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date made
1790-1815
ID Number
TE.T14490.00A
catalog number
T14490.00A
accession number
277490
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Location
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ID Number
2013.0121.05
accession number
2013.0121
catalog number
2013.0121.05
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ID Number
2013.0121.32
accession number
2013.0121
catalog number
2013.0121.32
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Location
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date made
1824-1830
ID Number
TE.T08118
catalog number
T08118
accession number
145752
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Location
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ID Number
2013.0121.10
accession number
2013.0121
catalog number
2013.0121.10
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Location
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ID Number
2013.0121.31
accession number
2013.0121
catalog number
2013.0121.31
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Location
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date made
1790-1815
ID Number
TE.T14490.00E
catalog number
T14490.00E
accession number
277490
A sample length of William Skinner & Sons nylon parachute cloth from World War II.
Description
A sample length of William Skinner & Sons nylon parachute cloth from World War II. A smooth, close, semi-transparent plain weave nylon fabric.; Camouflage design in two tones of green (medium and dark) on a lighter green ground with irregular shaped blotch patterns simulating foliage and according to the original paperwork from the manufacturer, designed as protective coloring for army parachutes.
William Skinner emigrated from England to Massachusetts in 1843, finding work as silk dyer. He eventually opened his own silk manufacturing company, the Unquomonk Silk Co., making silk threads and yarns for weaving and sewing. In 1874, the mill was destroyed when the Mill River Dam gave way. Skinner moved his company a few miles away, to Holyoke, Massachusetts, and rebuilt the mill, expanding production to include woven fabrics (Skinner satins were nationally famous) and silk braids. He ran the company until his death in 1902, and the firm stayed in the family, and remained in operation in Holyoke, until 1961, when his heirs sold it to Indian head Mills, which immediately closed the Holyoke operation.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1945
ID Number
TE.T09146.000
accession number
170051
catalog number
T09146.000

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