Description:
Pieced, whole cloth cotton quilt featuring a face fabric decorated with a blue and white resist-printed (roller?) cotton pattern dating to about 1830. The quilt is composed of 5 separate panels of varying width. The pattern consists of a repeating vertical design featuring a column or pillar overlaid with an American eagle and shield. Huge amounts of yardage of these so-called “pillar prints” were produced for export to America in the early 19th century, with designs like the bald eagle that would appeal to the inhabitants of the new nation. The design is done in a vertical repeat with a floral border between the columns of the repeat. The entirety of a single design motif is 13 inches long. The monochromatic color is achieved through the use of Prussian blue dye, created using horse hoof filings. It was first created in 1706 and on the market by 1710. The quilt is stuffed with an undyed cotton batting between the face and the backing. The backing has a completely different printed design than the front, consisting of small brown and white flowers against a gridded brown ground. The backing design is a tan, rust, and brown floral design, composed of two different flowers, which alternately repeats horizontally.4 ½ in and repeated vertically throughout the backing. The piecing on the back also does not match up to the piecing on the front, suggesting the two fabrics were seamed first separately before being joined together. There is a crescent shaped quilting motif done throughout the entire quilt, supporting an early 19th-century date as well. This is important because it shows a fabric being designed specifically for the American market due to the American eagle, stars and stripes motif on the face of the fabric. This quilt may have been made by Mary R. Goodrich (1815-1902) who married Calvin Whiting (1812-1884) in 1840; Calvin Whiting became the manager of the Massassoit Paper Mill in Holyoke. Mary Goodrich Whiting and her two daughters, Margaret C. Whiting (1860-1946) and Julia Draper Whiting (1843-1916), moved to Main St., Deerfield, in 1895. Their brother, Charles Goodrich Whiting (1842-1922) of Springfield, Massachusetts, worked for the "Springfield Republican." Margaret Whiting and Ellen Miller (1854-1929) were the co-founders of the Deerfield Society of Blue and White Needlework in 1896.
Label Text:
Printed Textiles by Linda Eaton Page 291; Quilts in a Material World Eaton Page 89; Printed Textiles by Linda Eaton Page 137/138; Wearable Prints by Susan Greene Pages 212-214, 319
Gift from Mrs. Giles Whiting, date unknown.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+F.197 |
