Skein of dyed Tussah or wild silk. "Cardinal" red. Mfrs' tag reads: "Tussah or Wild silk." Wild silk is from cocoons that the silk moth has emerged from - the silk filament is no longer unbroken; it is therefore processed differently than cultivated, unbroken silk filament. One of 66 examples of silk yarns of various types, dyed in the skein.. Original sample # 44. From a group of 145 samples of silk fabrics and yarns of various types, weaves, uses, and origins donated in 1913 by the National Silk Dyeing Co., of Paterson, New Jersey (America's "Silk City"), which was one of the largest and most comprehensive silk dyeing and printing firms in the U.S.,
Cheney Brothers Printed "Samara Silk", "Falling Bird" design, 1917. A plain weave fabric with a subdued satiny sheen. Design No. 82457, Color No. 342/1. "Falling Bird" in blues, browns, black and red on a white ground. A scattered spaced design of peacocks, wings outstretched and bodies and tails curved as if falling, representational drawing style.
Length of Cheney Brothers printed silk frisons fabric. Plain weave with thick, irregular, slubbed spun silk weft. Printed with modernist design of irregular, multi-color spots in saturated Fauve colors: purple, red, yellow, blue, and green on light blue background. 6"x 8" sample cut from corner of sample. (W. 30 in., L. 36 in.) Com. 3755; No. 77365; Color 3724/4.
Length of Cheney Brothers silk fabric. Jacquard-woven, continuous supplementary weft patterned all-silk fabric composed of spun silk warp with 12 shuttles of different colors of silk producing the figures. Patterned with a 17th century (Baroque) Flemish-style medallion and meander design of urns of flowers and wreaths of flowers, wheat, and grapes in blue, green, purple, and pink on narrow striped yellow ground. Style 4584/4. Wholesaled for $18.75 per yd. (W. 50 in., L. 3 1/3 yds.)
These furnishing silks were, along with the patterned velvets, represent the most expensive and exclusive textiles that Cheney Brothers produced.
The first H.R. Mallinson & Co. La Victoire series, designed just before the Armistice to end World War I in Fall, 1918, comprised 6 designs. The first series of La Victoire prints celebrated different aspects of the French military forces. The "Scouts" design is "a clever stripe design in which the French poilu is featured on a scouting expedition." (description taken from a Mallinson marketing booklet). Infantry scouts often operated alone, ahead of their units, trying to find out the size and placement of the opposing forces. In this striped design, the seated and standing figures of the scouts appear to melt into the trees. The design is machine-printed on a lightweight semi-sheer silk crepe that the Mallinson firm trademarked as "Indestructible Crepe."
Length of Cheney Brothers "Printed Satin Brocade". Lightweight silk compound satin weave with a weft float pattern of abstract swirls and whorls (almost wood-grain-like) . Printed floral design of small scattered sprigs of various sizes in blues and pinks with green leaves and brown stems.. "Champagne" (pinkish-beige) ground. (W. 24 in., L. 36 in.) This is not an actual brocade, in the technical meaning of discontinuous weft patterning. It is a jacquard-woven figure, with weft-float patterning against the satin weave ground. This fabric, called "Jouy Broche" by the company, is woven at 24" wide. There is a page from a Cheney sample book with swatches of two additional colorways of this pattern in the study card file.
William Skinner and Sons silk and rayon crepe fabric length, in green; 1934. Medium weight, reversible, harsh, lusterless novelty crepe fabric, in armure effect. Same construction as sand crepe (6 shaft harness) and 66 end harness repear -- 40 harness chain repeat. Reed 24/2/1. woven with warp and weft onde crepe yarns (2 right and 2 left), consisting of 1 end 150 denier dull Celanese 40 filaments 3 turns spiraled with 10 turns twist-on-twist around 1 end 63 denier 3-thread 20/22 lustrous silk 65 turns; 2310/1. Commercial name "Mossy Crepe." Color is "spring green."
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.
One skein of thrown silk: eight thread Japan tram in the raw. Part of a donation of 63 samples representing the processes of silk skein-dyeing, and silk piece-dyeing and printing, given by the National Silk Dyeing Co of Paterson, New Jersey, in 1915. National Silk Dyeing Co., headquartered at 140 Market St., Paterson, NJ was formed from five silk dyeing firms in Peterson, NJ (Auger & Simon Silk Dyeing Company; Emil Geering Silk Dyeing Co., Knipscher & Maas Silk Dyeing Company, Kearns Brothers, and Gaede Silk Dyeing Co.) and a fifth company from Allentown, Pa. (Lotte Brothers under the leadership of Charles I. Auger. National Silk Dyeing immediately became one of the large silk dyeing conglomerates in the nation. It operated into the Great Depression but was eventually broken up and sold off.
A sample cut with colorways of printed 'Pussy Willow' silk. a fine soft plain weave fabric, Mallinson's longest-lasting trade-name. One of the 1929 "American State Flowers" series: scattered allover design of white carnation: Indiana; scarlet carnation: Ohio; apple blossom: Michigan. One large sample (18" x 40") of the design in various colors on a black ground; smaller samples (6" x 8") of 9 different colorways attached. Ground colors: black (#5, #25), white (#15), blue (#4), green (#7), gray (#9), dark blue (#10, #20), tan (#12). Selvage inscription gives company name, state names and associated flowers.
Doherty & Wadsworth Co floral printed silk dress fabric sample, "Mikado Crepe"; 1914. A pompadour (small detached sprigs and flower heads in an offset repeat) design printed on off-white. Silk dress goods. Some of the dyes appear to have faded. The floral is pink and green and yellow on an off-white ground.
Henry Doherty and Joseph Wadsworth came to Paterson, New Jersey from England and began working together in 1879. They rented space in other mills until 1882 when they purchased their own mill in Paterson, NJ, the premier silk manufacturing location in the United States at the time. In 1910 the firm, then Paterson's largest silk manufacturer, opened new mills in Allentown, and Wilkes-Barre, PA.. By 1938, the silk mills had closed down due to pressure from the Great Depression, changes in the wholesaling of textiles, and labor issues.
Skein of twisted white silk yarns; Cheney Bros., Connecticut; 1913. "Cheney Brothers. Size 8/4 Stock Reg Quality D Twist 5" on object tag. Part of gift illustrating all the steps in making silk textiles at the Cheney Brothers mill in South Manchester, CT. Sales offices: 4th Ave. and 18th St., New York City
25 skeins of skein dyed silk; A white to deep blue ombre, in 25 shades. National Silk Dyeing Co., 1913
One of 66 examples of silk yarns of various types, dyed in the skein.. Original sample # 3. From a group of 145 samples of silk fabrics and yarns of various types, weaves, uses, and origins donated in 1913 by the National Silk Dyeing Co., of Paterson, New Jersey (America's "Silk City"), which was one of the largest and most comprehensive silk dyeing and printing firms in the U.S.
A length of Mallinson's pure dye silk crepe--soft lustrous plain weave fabric #7102 (same construction as T-6943) pattern #3967 "Martha Washington," one of the George Washington Bicentennial Prints, in multi-colors on a soft coral-pink ground. The bee and tiny flower garlands were inspired by hand-painted motifs on the original dress, worn by Martha Washington during the administration of George Washington, in the collection at NMAH.
Sample length of Cheney Brothers printed "Shikii" silk fabric. A lightweight, drapey plain weave fabric; rough surfaced, with silk warp and silk frisons weft. Printed with an allover pattern of Persian or Indian-inspired vases, flowers, and feathers in vases (#25546) in brown, orange, tan, black, and white on natural pongee-colored (beige) ground. Style #6562/2. Wholesaled for $1.50 per yd. (W. 30 in., L. 36 in.)
Length of Cheney Brothers Novelty Velvet, "Fancy Velours Chiffon",1913. A medium weight silk novelty velvet. Horizontal lines of cut pile in black, voided to rows of blue ground in between. At intervals there are bands of lines with more distance between the pile lines, and more blue showing through.Black pile on blue ground Construction; pile weave, cut velvet. Yarns - all silk: warp – black, weft – blue, pile – black. (W. 42 in., L. 1 yard.) [NB: The linked image is the correct one, it just has a brown cast, instead of black.] Blue selvage. A swatch card in the study file with this sample describes it as "Used for dress goods. Spun silk pile, silk back, yarn dyed."
Duplan Silk Corporation figured crepe satin dress silk; 1921. Figured novelty crepe. Woven at Hazelton, Pa. A silk crepe fabric with a lustrous, broken surface in an ondulee or waved effect produced by interlacing of extra weft artificial silk yarns on the back of the fabric. These floating yarns form a detached flower motif, combined with a satin warp figure.
Jean Leopold Duplan, a French businessman, founded Duplan Silk Company in New York in 1898 as an extension of his silk weaving plant in Lyons, France. The 1897 American tariff spurred Duplan to supply the American silk market with domestically made cloth. Duplan Silk began producing artificial silk (now known as rayon) as early as 1911. The lustrous artificial silk was spun from cellulose and a gelatin extracted from seaweed. Duplan himself was quite secretive about the artificial silk production process, keeping the looms in a separate, boarded section of the mill. Eventually, Duplan Silk produced silk velvets, formulated its own dyes, and printed fabrics in its own mill.
Displayed at the top of a staircase in the Louvre Museum in Paris since 1884, the Greek statue called “The Winged Victory of Samothrace” depicts the goddess Nike, or Victory. The statue’s symbolism served as the basis for this design of stripes containing "Winged Victory" motifs, printed in 4 colors on a tan ground of the manufacturer’s popular "Pussy Willow" fabrication. It is one of the second series of La Victoire prints, produced by H.R. Mallinson & Co. in conjunction with the Peace Conference that followed the signing of the Armistice ending the fighting in World War I.
William Skinner and Sons black silk faille fabric length; 1932. Fabric known as faille or grosgrain. Soft, close, plain weave fabric, but with flat ribs produced by a coarse cotton filling yarn which is entirely covered by the very fine silk warp yarn. Used for women's shoes. Yard-dyed black. Selvedge says "Skinner's" woven in black.
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.