Textiles - Overview
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.
"Textiles - Overview" showing 20 items.
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Hester Ann Posey's Sampler
- Description
- Below family record, pyramidal monument (memorial to deceased sister) flanked by rosebushes and butterflies, under weeping willow tree, on ground-line worked in "crinkled" silk. To left of monument, verse in square outline, all lettering black. Border of geometric flowering vine on all four sides. Silk embroidery thread on linen ground. STITCHES: cross, crosslet, satin, stem. THREAD COUNT: warp 28, weft 31/in.
- Inscriptions:
- "A Family Reccord
Nathaniel and Margaret Pof[s]ey
The Parent's of thof[s]e Children
SoPhia Maria Pof[s]ey born Oct 8th 1813
Fredrick Jerome Pof[s]ey born Feb 28 1815
Margaret Pof[s]ey born Dec 19th 1816
John Pittf[s] Pof[s]ey born Oct 12 1818
Mary Jane Pof[s]ey born Dec 3d 1820
Hester Ann Pof[s]ey born Dec 28 1822
Nathaniel Boliver Pof[s]ey born April 11 1827
Henry Clay Pof[s]ey born Aug 14 1829"
- To left of monument in square:
- "Weep not my frien
df[s]. af[s] you paff[ss] by.
af[s] you are now. f[s]o
once Waf[s] I. af[s] i
am now. So you
muf[s]t be. prepare
to meet me in
Eternity."
- Embroidered on the monument are the following words:
- "sacred
to The -
Memory of
Margaret Posey
Who died Feb 2
A.D. 1824 aged 8 YS
1 Month and 14 days
- Below monument:
"Hester. Ann. Poseyf[s] Sampler Finished in the 15.th
year of her age. A.D. 1837."
- Background:
- Hester was born on December 28, 1822, to Nathaniel and Margaret Posey. Nathaniel and Margaret Kemp were married on October 9, 1812, in Frederick, Maryland. Hester was a teacher and did not marry.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1837
- maker
- Posey, Hester Ann
- ID Number
- TE*E365238
- catalog number
- E365238.000
- accession number
- 124238
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Jane Winter Price's Sampler
- Description
- This sampler features a footed bowl on a square base, holding a large bouquet of flowers. One flower has been shaded with dark red and orange-red paint over the stitches. Jane included the inscription:
“These violets scent the distant gale;
They grew in lowly bed,
So real worth new merit gains,
By diffidence o’erspread:
Jane Winter Price
But as the fragrant myrtle wreath,
Will all the rest survive:
So shall the mental graces still,
Through endless ages live.”
- To accompany her large bouquet of flowers, Jane Price used stanzas 2 and 9 from a verse accompanying a nosegay found in an English reader published in 1816. A small bouquet of flowers often given as a gift was known as a nosegay. The sampler is stitched with silk embroidery thread on a linen ground with a thread count of warp 25, weft 28/ in. The stitches used are chain, stem, surface satin, cross, outline, herringbone, crosslet, and French knot.
- Jane Winter was born on March 17, 1818, to Richard and Catherine Winter Dunnington Price in Charles County, Maryland. She married Josiah Woods McHenry (b. May 14, 1815 in Christianburg, Virginia) on February 27, 1849, in Shelby, Alabama. They moved to Union Springs, Arkansas and had four children - Catherine Price (1850-), Barnabas Middleton (1852-), George Richard (1854-), and Jane Cornelia (1856-). By the 1870 census they were living in Homer, Claiborne Parish, Louisiana, and she died there on January 11, 1899.
- date made
- 1828-1835
- maker
- Price, Jane Winter
- ID Number
- TE*T12732
- catalog number
- T12732
- accession number
- 241104
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
1820 - 1840 Achsah Goodwin Wilkins's Appliqued Counterpane
- Description
- Achsah Goodwin Wilkins designed this appliquéd counterpane, which is similar to several that have been attributed to her skills. Written in ink in one corner of the lining is: “A. G. Wilkins 1820 / M. D. Davis 1890.” She gave many quilts and counterpanes to her daughters. These were later inherited by descendents. “M. D. Davis” is most likely Mary Dorsey Davis (1845-1939), daughter of Hester Ann Wilkins Davis, and granddaughter of Achsah Goodwin Wilkins.
- A bouquet of appliquéd water lilies and roses, cut from different chintz fabrics, is the focus of this counterpane. It is surrounded by two undulating wreaths. Eight floral sprays, cut from another chintz fabric, are between the two wreaths. The ground for the appliqué resembles quilting, but is a fancy weaving of a white cotton double cloth called Marseilles. A wide 7¾-inch roller-printed floral strip borders three sides of the counterpane. It is the only area that is lined.
- Achsah Goodwin, daughter of a wealthy merchant, William Goodwin of Lyde, was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1775. Achsah became a member of the Methodist Church at eighteen, although it caused difficulties with her Episcopal family. On August 5, 1794, she married William Wilkins Jr. (1767-1832), also a Methodist. In addition to rearing a family, she was active in mission work and the establishment of a Methodist church in Baltimore. Achsah died in 1854.
- In William Rush Dunton’s Old Quilts, 1947, one of her granddaughters, Mary Dorsey Davis, provided notes from her mother, Hester Anne (Mrs. Allen Bowie Davis), detailing Achsah’s life. “My mother [Achsah] was a very superior woman, possessing strong sense, sound judgment, great dignity, remarkably self-possessed . . . . She suffered from cutaneous disease . . . most frequently [she] beguiled her weary hours of sickness by designing and laying out fancy spreads in which she displayed beautiful taste . . . . I, as well as many of her descendants, have choice specimens of her handiwork which we prize highly.” Achsah’s access to fine imported fabrics, attention to needlework details, and her design innovations are evident in this quilt, as well as others that are attributed to her. Her quilts are treasured additions to several quilt collections.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1820-1840
- maker
- Wilkins, Achsah Goodwin
- ID Number
- 1995.0011.01
- accession number
- 1995.0011
- catalog number
- 1995.0011.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
1845 Mary Jane Moran's Bride's Quilt
- Description
- This silk quilt, delicately appliquéd and embroidered with baskets and sprays of fruit and flowers, was made by Mary Jane Green Moran when she was a young bride in Baltimore, Maryland. The blocks are set diagonally and separated by a white silk sashing appliquéd and embroidered with bud-and-leaf vines, echoed by the undulating leafy vine in the border. The silk top is closely quilted, 12 to 15 stitches per inch, to a muslin backing. It was said that 1,001 skeins of silk thread were used in the quilting. A woven and knotted golden-colored silk fringe is stitched to three sides of this example of mid-nineteenth- century needlework.
- At the time of Mary Jane Green’s marriage in 1846 to Dr. Jonathan J. Moran, he was a resident physician at Washington University College Hospital in Baltimore. It was in that capacity that he attended the dying Edgar Allan Poe in October 1849. Dr. Moran in later years wrote several versions of those last hours that he spent with Edgar Allan Poe, and lectured on the topic as well. From the accounts, it appears that Mary Moran also nursed the dying Poe, reading to him as well as preparing his shroud.
- After the closing of the hospital in 1851, the Morans moved to Falls Church, Virginia, where they were both active in the community and the Dulin Methodist Episcopal Church. Dr. Jonathan Moran became the first mayor of Falls Church in 1875 and served until 1877. He died in 1888, and Mary Jane died the following year.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1845
- quilter
- Moran, Mary Jane Green
- ID Number
- TE*T07140
- accession number
- 123393
- catalog number
- T07140
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
1825 - 1850 Jane Winter Price's "Carpenter's Wheel" Quilt
- Description
- Jane Winter Price pieced this example of the “Carpenter’s Wheel” pattern in the second quarter of the nineteenth century and quilted her initials, “JWP,” into a white triangle at the lower edge of the quilt. According to family information, she may have made this quilt during a previous engagement when she lived in Maryland, before the death of her fiancé. “Keate Price McHenry from her Mother” is written in a corner of the lining. Catherine (Kate) Price McHenry was Jane’s daughter, born in 1856 in Arkansas.
- Thirty “Carpenter’s Wheel” pieced blocks are set diagonally with alternate white blocks on this elaborately quilted example of mid-nineteenth-century needlework. The blocks are 11½ inches square, and the blue-ground chintz border is 7½ inches wide. The white squares are quilted, 15 stitches per inch, with sprays of flowers and grapes against a background of diagonal lines 1/8 inch apart. Double clamshell quilting is found in the white triangles inside the border. Both the pieced blocks and the border are quilted 9 stitches per inch. The wide border effectively frames the artistic placement of pieced blocks and finely quilted white blocks and triangles.
- Jane Winter Price, born in 1818 in Maryland, was the daughter of Catherine Winter Dunnington II (1790 -1863) and Richard Price (b 1771). Catherine was married in 1813, but widowed in 1823. In 1838 she, along with her two living children, Jane and George Richard Price, left with others for Alabama. Jane married Josiah W. McHenry (b.1815) in 1849. In 1860 they lived in La Pile, Union County, Arkansas, with their four children, Catherine (b. 1850), Barnabas (b. 1852), George (b. 1854) and Jane C. (b. 1856) and Jane’s mother, Catherine, then aged 70. By 1870, they were living in Homer, Louisiana, where Jane died in January 1899.
- This quilt is among several items that G. Ruth McHenry donated to the Smithsonian in 1961. It had been given to her by her aunt, Kate (Catherine) Price McHenry. Catherine Price McHenry was the daughter of Jane Winter Price, who probably made this quilt before her marriage to Josiah W. McHenry in 1849.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1825-1850
- maker
- Price, Jane Winter
- ID Number
- TE*T12697
- accession number
- 238478
- catalog number
- T12697
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
1880 - 1890 Martha Thomas's "Fan" Parlor Throw
- Description
- The fan motif, often found on crazy-patchwork, is the dominant pattern for the twenty-five, 10-inch blocks composed of a variety of silk, satin, velvet, and taffeta fabrics. Both machine and hand-stitched blocks are joined with a chain stitch by machine. The original binding or border was removed before it was donated to the Museum in 1963, by the Sewing Group, Emmanuel Episcopal Church.
- Martha Ada Mumma was born July 7, 1859. She married Jacob Emmanuel Thomas (1852-1908) in 1879. They were both born and married in Washington County, Md., and later lived in Baltimore, where their two sons were born. Martha died in Maryland in 1943. Her parlor throw is an example of late 19th-century needlework, exhibiting both hand and machine stitching.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1880-1890
- maker
- Thomas, Martha Ada
- ID Number
- TE*T12914
- accession number
- 245859
- catalog number
- T12914
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Ann Louisa Ghequiere's Sampler
- Description
- Five block alphabets of 26 letters, numbers to 14. Each row of alphabets and numbers different color. All these rows separated by narrow geometric crossbands. Border of geometric strawberry vine and single row of herringbone stitch on all four sides. Silk embroidery thread on linen ground. STITCHES: cross, crosslet, long-armed cross, satin, herringbone, eyelet, four-sided, rice, queen, hem. THREAD COUNT: warp 28, weft 28/in.
- Inscriptions:
- "EDUCATION
- Youth like f[s]oftened Wax, with Eaf[s]e will take
Thof[s]e Images that firf[s]t impref[s]sions make.
If thof[s]e are fair, their Actions will be bright,
If foul, they'll clouded be with Shades of Night.
- Ann Louisa Ghequiere [f]inished in her 9th year."
- Background:
- Ann Louisa was born about 1792 to Charles and Harriet Halley Ghequiere in Baltimore, Maryland. She married Dr. Martin Fenwick of West River, Maryland, on August 21, 1815, at St. Peter Pro-Cathedral in Baltimore, Maryland. The marriage was performed by Archbishop John Carroll, with whom her father had been friendly for many years. They had four children—;Harriet, Louisa Claire, Chloe, and Henry. Ann Louisa died on February 22, 1864 in West River.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1799
- maker
- Chequiere, Ann Louisa
- ID Number
- TE*T14210
- catalog number
- T14210
- accession number
- 59228
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
1860 - 1900 Long Family Hexagon Pieced Quilt
- Description
- This vividly colored quilt was made sometime after 1860 by the sisters of Joseph Long of Washington County, Md. Red, yellow, blue and white 3-3/4-inch hexagons are set in concentric rings.
- The pieced hexagons on some of the rings are quilted with hexagons, others with floral motifs. The concentric rings are framed by a 9-inch border consisting of three bands, one white and two red. The red bands are quilted in a chevron pattern and the white band in a feathered vine.
- The quilting is 9 stitches per inch. The quilt has a cotton filling and the lining is brought to the front and machine-stitched to form the binding. While family information indicates an 1847 date, the 3x2-ply S-twist cabled cotton thread that is used for the machine piecing and hand quilting suggests a later date.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1860-1900
- maker
- unknown
- ID Number
- TE*T15695
- accession number
- 296914
- catalog number
- T15695
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
1840 - 1860 Clarissa Penn's Silk Quilt
- Description
- Attached to this quilt when it was donated in 1975 was a note: “Made of Wedding and ‘Second Day’ dresses belonging to Mrs. William Penn (nee Clarissa Tarleton,) of St. Mary’s County, Maryland. (Circa 1800).” While many of the fabrics in this quilt are from the mid-19th century, the pale yellow and pearl-grey silks are possibly of an earlier date. They show wear and darning. Clara Tarlton married William Penn on March 7, 1809, in St Mary’s County, Maryland. Perhaps years later she fashioned this quilt using some of her wedding trousseau.
- The pale yellow eight-pointed star in the center is set off by a purple ground and peach border. Seven more colorful borders frame the center. Meandering and feathered vines, bowknots, and flowers, as well as diagonal grid and parallel line patterns used for the quilting, further delineate the borders. The quilt has been relined with glazed cotton, replacing the original lining of grey-green wool. The quilting was originally done in yellow and ivory silk. Later quilting utilized various colors of silk thread, and was quilted through both linings. The adept use of color enhances the geometric balance of this quilt which preserved the fabric mementoes of a special event.
- While it is not known that Clarissa was a Quaker, the quilt is typical of Quaker silk quilts of the early 19th century. These were made of solid colors, often expensive silks and/or remnants of wedding dresses. Quilts such as Clarissa’s were treasured as decorative and commemorative items and subsequently well cared for.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1840-1860
- maker
- unknown
- ID Number
- TE*T17738
- accession number
- 319017
- catalog number
- T17738
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Sarah A. Skillin's Sampler
- Description
- Family genealogy is centered above pair of weeping willow trees. At sides of sampler, vines with roses and buds twist around columns and continue upward forming an arch at top. One death record and worker's name at bottom, below weeping willow trees. Brown guidelines under all free embroidery. Silk embroidery thread on linen ground. STITCHES: four-sided, crosslet, cross, satin, straight, chain, stem. THREAD COUNT: warp 28, weft 31/in.
- Inscriptions:
- "GENEALOGY
- Simeon Skillin born Cape Elizabeth, Me May 31 1787.
Nancy Adams born Castine, Me Aug 26, 1789.
Married Aug 16 1812.
OFFSPRING
Edward P Skillin born Portland Me April. 28 1813.
Charles P Skillin born Portland Me Aug 18 1814.
George W Skillin born Portland Me Dec 18 1816.
Simeon Skillin born Portland Me May 12 1818.
Robert Skillin born Portland Me Oct 31 1819.
Sarah A Skillin born Portland Me Jun 29 1821.
Silas B Skillin born Portland Me Oct 29 1822.
Oliver P Skillin born Portland Me May 19 1824.
Eliza M Skillin born Portland Me Dec 25 1826.
Nancy P Skillin born Portland Me Feb 25 1829.
Silas B Skillin born Portland Me Aug 26 1830.
Mary Skillin born Portland Me July 17 1831.
Deaths
- Silas B Skillin died
APr. 25, 1826.
- By Sarah A Skillin
1835."
- Background:
- Sarah Adams was born on June 29, 1821, to Simeon and Nancy Adams Skillin in Portland, Maine. Sarah married Smith C. Hadlock, a fisherman, on July 14, 1843, and died in Maine on January 8, 1889. They had eight children—Harriet A., Emma C., Nancy A., Samuel, Oliver E., Cyrena A., Henry B., and Sarah G.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1835
- associated dates
- 1982-12-02
- maker
- Skillin, Sarah A.
- ID Number
- 1983.0617.03
- catalog number
- 1983.0617.03
- accession number
- 1983.0617
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
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