Textiles in America 1650-1870

back to short view

Review

This new edition of a book first published in 1984 describes textiles in the homes of the early American settlers: clothing, household textiles, and home furnishings. The author, formerly a textile curator at Winterthur Museum & Country Estate, a former manor house in the State of Delaware, researched textiles on the basis of original documents, drawings, trade contracts, dealers' estates, advertisements, pattern books, and naturally also original period pieces.
Her work is rightly considered a treasure trove for fabric researchers and enthusiasts, not only in the USA but also in Europe. Many of the fabrics are even named after their places of origin, such as cambric and challoon for Cambrai and Chalons, France, osnaburg for Osnabrück, Germany, and holland for two Dutch provinces. An alphabetic fabric dictionary occupies two thirds of the book, making it an indispensable standard reference work of the North American genre. In addition, it offers a brilliantly researched bibliography covering 33 closely printed pages.

back to short view