Earlier this summer I put together a small exhibit at Compass Inn Museum in Laughlintown, PA about historical textile production. It was recently featured in the Tribune Review:
Compass Inn Museum exhibit in Laughlintown explores 'Fabric of Our Lives' | TribLIVE.com
The exhibit is a combination of items from the Ligonier Valley Historical Society's archives, including tools & equipment for domestic fiber processing and a wide variety of finished textiles from handwoven coverlets (both domestic and professional) and linen bedsheets to gowns (cotton, wool, and silk), shawls, "crazy quilts," and a Venetian Carpet.
Rug in the collection of Ligonier Valley Historical Society
You can tell that it's actually a rag rug at the frayed hem; note the printed cotton fabric used for weft filler!
It was this carpet that drew me in in the first place and eventually inspired the whole exhibit. Back in March, I attended a workshop on 18th century domestic weaving. One of the examples we handled was another Venetian Carpet, very similar to the one in the historical society's collections. It also happens to be a style of weaving that I find very attractive both to look at and to weave. I plan to weave some Venetian-Carpet-inspired placemats as one of my upcoming projects.
Rug in the collection of Melissa Weaver Dunning
The other component of the exhibit is a wrap-around wall timeline spanning from about AD 1000 (when the spinning wheel was first invented) through the incremental advances of the Industrial Revolution and into the 20th century with modern innovations like synthetics and open-end spinning.
The gowns in the historical society's collections are, of course, all far too small to fit on our modern mannequins. I had to resort to creative hanging instead. This dress (below) is dated to 1832.
I was tickled to find it, because it very closely resembles my own 1830's dress both in the style and in the very light weight of the cotton fabric. The biggest difference - and still a minor one - is the sleeves. While mine started out as leg-of-mutton gigot sleeves, I banded them down as became popular in the later 1830's with the changing fashions. It's a little hard to tell what's going on with my sleeves in the picture below, because I've rolled them up in the hot summer weather. Apologies if that amounts to an historical inaccuracy ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Compass Inn Museum boasts an impressive set of woven coverlets. Many are on regular display in the historic inn's bedrooms, but there are a number that don't see the light of day quite as often. That's definitely preferable for the purposes of textile preservation, but at the same time it's a shame that they don't get to be seen and appreciated.
This pair, both comprised of blue wool and white cotton threads, makes a great visual comparison between professionally woven (left) and domestically woven (right). While the geometric overshot pattern of the righthand coverlet could be made on a simple four-shaft counterbalance loom -- the most common loom of early American household weavers -- the doubleweave coverlet on the left would require a Jacquard machine to "program" the complex pattern of floral motifs and scrollwork.
Domestic overshot (left), 20-shaft twill (center), beiderwand Jacquard (right)
I like to think of thrift and household economy as a "common thread" (if you'll pardon the pun) that ties together many of the items in the exhibit. The gowns show clear evidence of being remade and refitted. The hems of the wool blankets have been restitched, sometimes more than once. The scrapbooks of the Armor family are also on display, where they saved all sorts of precious keepsakes from fashion plates to commemorative silk ribbons. The Venetian Carpet is technically a rag rug, in which old fabrics were repurposed for weft. And then of course there are the Crazy Quilts.
As I understand it, quilts (including crazies) replaced handwoven coverlets in popularity in the latter 1800's, coinciding both with industrial improvements in textile manufacture and with the advent of the railroad, which could ship those fabrics to customers faster and at lower cost. Crazy Quilts apparently became a booming fad, though they were not without their detractors. I was particularly amused by this poem, whose author does not seem particularly impressed with the style:
Oh the crazy quilt mania triumphantly raves
And maid, wife, and widow are bound as its slaves.
On that quilt dimly seen as you rouse from your sleep
Your long-missing necktie in silence reposes.
And the filoselle insects that over it creep,
A piece of your vest half-conceals, half-discloses…
Your breakfasts are spoiled,
And your dinners half-boiled,
And your efforts to get a square supper are foiled
By the crazy quilt mania that fiendishly raves,
And to which all women are absolute slaves…
But make it she must,
She will do it or bust,
Beg, swap, and buy pieces, or get them on trust.
Oh, the crazy quilt mania, may it soon cease to rave
in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
The exhibit is scheduled to run through the end of October 2022.
If you get the chance, please do come out to see it!
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