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.

Currently on loan
Location
Currently on loan
date made
1970
ID Number
TE.T15559.000
catalog number
T15559.000
accession number
295253
Gum-bichromate on cotton with stitchery. Four separate images of individuals with their arms held out. Printed into a rectangular form. Three young boys and a woman. Each person is outlined with a different color stitchery (orange, yellow, red and hot pink).
Description (Brief)
Gum-bichromate on cotton with stitchery. Four separate images of individuals with their arms held out. Printed into a rectangular form. Three young boys and a woman. Each person is outlined with a different color stitchery (orange, yellow, red and hot pink). Signed, dated, titled on matte backboard. Makers stamp on matte backboard in lower, right hand corner.
Description
The Betty Hahn collection at the National Museum of American History consists of five color gum bichromate photographs on paper and two color gum bichromate photographs on fabric with stitching, dates ranging between 1965 and 1970.
Betty Hahn’s photographs were collected by the Smithsonian as an example of alternative photographic processes. The Division of Photographic History included her images in Women, Cameras, and Images II: Betty Hahn and Gayle Smalley (1969). Hahn’s work was also included in the exhibits: The Camera and the Human Façade (1970) and New Images 1839-1973 (1973).
Betty Hahn neé Elizabeth Jean Okon was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1940. One of four children, the Okon’s moved to Indiana in 1950. In college at Indiana University (1958-1963), Hahn studied Fine Arts and Art History. While her initial interests were painting, drawing and graphic arts, in her junior year she took her first photography course from Henry Holmes Smith. (Smith also taught photographer Jerry Uelsmann. See COLL.PHOTOS.000061.) Smith mentored Hahn for much of the beginning of her career. While in her graduate studies (1963-1966), still at Indiana, Hahn worked as Smith’s graduate assistant and, upon his suggestion, began to experiment with the gum bichromate process. Hahn is thought of as one of the first important photographers to focus photographic training on multi-media works.
She also has continued to experiment with non-silver processes and other unconventional forms for creating fine art photography. In the early 1970s she added fabrics and stitchery to her gum bichromate images. In the early 1980s she completed a series of photographs utilizing a “Mick-A-Matic” toy camera and later in the decade began a series utilizing the themes of crime and intrigue for which she took a class in Evidence photography. Hahn has spent much of her career teaching photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology (1969-1975) and later at the University of New Mexico, where she is now professor emerita.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1970
maker
Hahn, Betty
ID Number
PG.77.26
accession number
2002.0341
catalog number
77.26
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1820
associated dates
1979 10 01 / 1979 10 01
ID Number
1979.0248.01
accession number
1979.0248
catalog number
1979.0248.01
A poster advertising the International Ladies Garment Workers Union.Currently not on view
Description
A poster advertising the International Ladies Garment Workers Union.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1978
associated date
1978
affiliated union
International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union
American Federation of Labor
Congress of Industrial Organizations
maker
International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union
ID Number
1986.1035.029
catalog number
1986.1035.029
accession number
1986.1035
A poster advertising the International Ladies Garment Workers Union.Currently not on view
Description
A poster advertising the International Ladies Garment Workers Union.
Location
Currently not on view
associated date
1972
maker
International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union
ID Number
1986.0710.0050
accession number
1986.0710
Gum-bichromate on cotton with stitchery. Image of woman wearing sunglasses. Printed on tan cotton. Silhouette outlined with stitchery in black, brown, red, orange and yellow. No signature, title or date.
Description (Brief)
Gum-bichromate on cotton with stitchery. Image of woman wearing sunglasses. Printed on tan cotton. Silhouette outlined with stitchery in black, brown, red, orange and yellow. No signature, title or date. Maker's stamp located on mat backboard.
Description
The Betty Hahn collection at the National Museum of American History consists of five color gum bichromate photographs on paper and two color gum bichromate photographs on fabric with stitching, dates ranging between 1965 and 1970.
Betty Hahn’s photographs were collected by the Smithsonian as an example of alternative photographic processes. The Division of Photographic History included her images in Women, Cameras, and Images II: Betty Hahn and Gayle Smalley (1969). Hahn’s work was also included in the exhibits: The Camera and the Human Façade (1970) and New Images 1839-1973 (1973).
Betty Hahn neé Elizabeth Jean Okon was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1940. One of four children, the Okon’s moved to Indiana in 1950. In college at Indiana University (1958-1963), Hahn studied Fine Arts and Art History. While her initial interests were painting, drawing and graphic arts, in her junior year she took her first photography course from Henry Holmes Smith. (Smith also taught photographer Jerry Uelsmann. See COLL.PHOTOS.000061.) Smith mentored Hahn for much of the beginning of her career. While in her graduate studies (1963-1966), still at Indiana, Hahn worked as Smith’s graduate assistant and, upon his suggestion, began to experiment with the gum bichromate process. Hahn is thought of as one of the first important photographers to focus photographic training on multi-media works.
She also has continued to experiment with non-silver processes and other unconventional forms for creating fine art photography. In the early 1970s she added fabrics and stitchery to her gum bichromate images. In the early 1980s she completed a series of photographs utilizing a “Mick-A-Matic” toy camera and later in the decade began a series utilizing the themes of crime and intrigue for which she took a class in Evidence photography. Hahn has spent much of her career teaching photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology (1969-1975) and later at the University of New Mexico, where she is now professor emerita.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1970
maker
Hahn, Betty
ID Number
PG.77.27
accession number
2002.0341
catalog number
77.27
In the early 1940s Welthea B. Thoday sent squares of white cotton fabric to friends, family members, and coworkers and asked that each make a block for a World War II quilt.
Description
In the early 1940s Welthea B. Thoday sent squares of white cotton fabric to friends, family members, and coworkers and asked that each make a block for a World War II quilt. Many of the blocks she collected contain significant dates and slogans that were popular during the period, such as “Keep em Flying” or “AMERICA IN THE AIR ON LAND ON SEA” or “Save Paper – Tin – Grease.” Other quilt blocks depict the Four Freedoms, flags, and other iconic symbols.
In a small booklet, “Record of World War II Historical Quilt,” Welthea Thoday identified and sketched each of the quilt square contributions and noted the significance and symbolism of the designs. The World War II Friendship Quilt was exhibited at several 1976 Bicentennial events.
The colors red, white, and blue dominate on this patriotic commemorative quilt. First planned in the early 1940s, the quilt was completed in the 1970s. Welthea made the central panel, copying the design from a three-cent postage stamp that was introduced on July 4, 1942. It depicts an American eagle with its wings outstretched to form a large “V” (for Victory). The eagle is surrounded by thirteen stars and a “Win the War” banner is unfurled across its breast. Around this central panel, Welthea arranged thirty-two of the pieced, appliquéd, and embroidered blocks that she had received from friends and family. Placement of the four red-and-white symbolic squares in the corners (the cross, feather, “V” and star) gives a sense of order to the other twenty-eight individually designed blocks.
Born in 1896 in Scituate, Massachusetts, Welthea B. Thoday began her career as a stenographer for a Boston automobile insurance company in 1914. In 1928 she entered the field of advertising and was one of the first women to do announcing and writing for a radio sales program. She retired at the age of 74, after twenty years as a textile editor for a Boston textile publishing company.
When Welthea was 100 years old, she was interviewed by her niece, Susan McKanna. In the taped interview, she discussed the original idea for the quilt, recalling the many government programs that were being promoted during World War II and the idea that it would be “nice to make a record of them.” In 1998, at the age of 102, Welthea Thoday died. Preserved in needle and thread, pen and ink, her World War II Friendship Quilt and the booklet “Record of World War II Historical Quilt,” together provide a vivid commentary on the period.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1965-1975
quilter
Thoday, Welthea B.
ID Number
1996.0148.01
accession number
1996.0148
catalog number
1996.0148.01
This pieced pieced quilt in the "Maple Leaf" or "Tea Leaves" pattern was made by Mandy Ary. Mandy Lula Madison was born in Alabama in 1886, she married George Daniel Ary and they had three children.
Description
This pieced pieced quilt in the "Maple Leaf" or "Tea Leaves" pattern was made by Mandy Ary. Mandy Lula Madison was born in Alabama in 1886, she married George Daniel Ary and they had three children. She died December 14, 1972 in New Milford, CT.
The quilt is pieced of cotton fabrics; solids, stripes and 2 florals were used for the pattern. Hand pieced and quilted. Four feed sack bags, a floral print on pink ground, were used for the lining. It has a cotton filling. Quilting pattern consists of straight lines, quilted 5 stitches/inch.
date made
1940 - 1960
1900-1930
1960 - 1970
maker
Ary, Mandy Lula Madison
Ary, Mandy Lula Madison
ID Number
2010.0009.01
accession number
2010.0009
Below the stuffed-work basket-of-flowers on this fine example of a quilted bureau cover is inked; “Minerva Gaylord Harpersfield 1822 Del Co. N York”. The pattern areas are stuffed with corded cotton in some areas and folded strips of cotton fabric in other areas.
Description
Below the stuffed-work basket-of-flowers on this fine example of a quilted bureau cover is inked; “Minerva Gaylord Harpersfield 1822 Del Co. N York”. The pattern areas are stuffed with corded cotton in some areas and folded strips of cotton fabric in other areas. It is quilted with a back stitch. The basket motif was popular in the early 19th century.
Minerva Gaylord was born February 7, 1806. Her parents, Joel Gaylord and Achsah Gibbs, settled in Harpersfield, Delaware Co., N.Y. where she was born. She was the second wife of Abiel Baldwin. They married in 1844. At some point they settled in Volney, N.Y. Later she lived in Eddytown, N.Y. where she died in 1875 and was buried in the Lakemont (Eddytown) Cemetery.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1822
associated dates
1979 91 29 / 1979 91 29
maker
Gaylord, Minerva
ID Number
1979.0168.01
catalog number
1979.0168.01
accession number
1979.0168

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