a field trip in textile history

Last week, I paid a visit to the American Textile History Museum in Lowell, Massachusetts, which houses one of the largest collections of its kind. After three hours (and only because the museum was closing), I had spent most of that time soaking in the comprehensive permanent exhibition, which includes everything from clothing, samples and household textiles to the full gamut of tools and machinery, as well as a wealth of information regarding the development of individual materials, factory architecture, and labor.

This is a selection of some of the objects that I was drawn to (no flash photography, of course). As an excellent online resource, the collection can also be accessed through The Chase Catalogue.

Pennsylvania floor looms with heavy timber framing of German and Flemish traditions.  Men were professional weavers in Pennsylvania, while women were responsible for spinning.  When women began to learn the craft during the 19th century, it was only for producing work for their families.

Womens' linen pockets from the late 18th/early 19th century, a separate garment tied around the waist under, and accessed by slits in the side of, the skirt.

Mid-19th century student sample notebook from England, noting the results of solutions, times and temperatures on the printing process.

Mens wool cap, mid-19th century

This 1844 bed cover from New Hampshire represents a unique body of work in this same color palette whose provenance was unknown until recently.

An 1848 cotton ginghams sample book from Lancaster Mills, Massachusetts, one of the early factories where cotton lent itself to the invention of power spinning and weaving.

A variety of undergarments became available in stores or in catalogs like this one from New York, 'Chemises,' for the Spring and Summer collection of 1887.

Hand sewn linen and silk sewing bag, 1917-1925, representative of the Arts and Crafts movement aesthetic.

An 1873 lithograph of Harmony Mills in Cohoes, New York which shows the belting system used to transfer power between floors. 

"An anaemic little spinner in a New England cotton mill," a 1910 photograph by Lewis Hine who documented child labor for the National Child Labor Commitee, which advocated for laws ending employment of underage children and shortening work days to eight hours.

Also from 1910, The Royal Tailors (New York and Chicago) sample book.  A bit difficult not to think of the little girl in the proceeding photograph and consider the workforce that made at least the dress shirt in this look possible.

A room including power looms and bobbin machines dating from the 1920s to the 1940s. A video explained how they individually operate and showed them in action.