Textile Note: Installment IV from the 1793 Montgomery Store Daybook

Installment IV : "A bowl of grog, a gill of rum, a stick of twist and a yard of shalloon: The 1793 Montgomery Store Daybook" 

Courtesy, historicaltextiles.com

The Textiles *

The list of textiles found below are all listed in the Montgomery Store Daybook. The largest yardages mentioned thus far are for chintz, shalloon, mode and muslin. While there is a diversity of types of textiles mentioned throughout the Daybook, what is clear is that they were of a common, average variety, with only the occasional hard to find or expensive fabric.

Compiled by Angelina Grippen, Costume Historian

Baize  a heavy woolen cloth.  Well felted and napped on both sides.  Usually died brown or green and used for covering tables and writing surfaces for desks. [Montgomery, p. 152]

Calamanco  (calimanco)  worsted stuff that was glazed (for a glossy surface).  Came in many colors and was sometimes striped , with floral patterns (woven), or watered.   Sometimes used for furnishings but more often for clothing. [Montgomery, p. 185]

Cambric  fine white linen cloth in a plain weave.  Definitely used for furnishings (especially curtains), although superfine grades were used for the finest white work. [Montgomery, p. 187]  Finer than holland, it was bleached white and used for sleeve ruffles, aprons, caps, neckerchiefs, and gown ruffles.  [Queen, p. 25]

Chintz  Originally from the word “chitta” which meant spotted cloth.  In 17-th century India referred to a specially designed painted or printed cotton which was sometimes glazed.  Used in the colonies for both clothing and furnishings.  By 1676  the English had adapted the Indian madder-mordant  technique to block printing on cloth and by mid 18^th century a wide range of color were being printed.  The English colonists imported both Indian and English cotton chintzes in the 18^th century—the Indian being more expensive.  [Montgomery, p. 200]

Cloth  was the 18th-century term for woolen.  So, for example, a “broadcloth” literally meant a woolen woven on a broad loom.  A plain-weave fabric . [Queen, p. 13]

Drab cloth   usually referred to as just “drab,” it was a thick, heavy, closely woven (woolen) outercoating.  Heavy and expensive.  It also referred to an undyed cloth of gray-beige color  (I'm more familiar with this meaning) [Montgomery, p. 224]

                       

Linen  cloth of many grades and weaves made from flax fibers.  Usually referred to by a more specific type name, such as as those designating geographic origin (Flemish cloth, Brabant cloth, etc.), weave (diaper), or fineness of weave (lawns).  [Montgomery, p. 277]

Mode possibly an abbreviation for “modena” (Fr. Modesne), a lightweight Italian dress good made of a mixture of silk waste, cotton, and wool.  [Montgomery, p.

Muslin  fine cotton first made in India.  Not until 1779  with the invention of the mule-jenny were fine cotton yarns suitable for successful muslin weaving spun in England and Scotland.  In the 17^th century used for bed and curtain hangings.  Later on, more commonly used as a clothing fabric.  [Montgomery. p. 304]

Quality  a binding tape of worsted, silk, or cotton in several grades.  In the 19^th century used for carpet binding.  Earlier than that appears to have been used also for shoemaking, according to a 1769 order placed to Bristol by James Beekman.  [Montgomery, p.330]

Sattenet  (satinet, satinette, sattinade) a thin sort of satin, in the lat 18^th century used by ladies for summer night gowns and usually striped.   An 1786 manuscript includes a swatch of twilled cotton satinet that resembles demin.  In Massachusetts by about 1810, satinet was made of cotton-mill warps with a woolen filling that overlaid the warp in a way that produced a cloth that could be finished like an all wool fabric.  These goods quickly displaced serges and cheap cassimeres for outer garments of medium grade.  Satinet has also been described as an inferior type of satin, sometimes a stout cotton satin with a napped and shorn face and a napped back.  Some satinet was also made of wool (swatches in a Norwich pattern book of 1794 at Winterthur); it resembled lasting and poplin.   [Montgomery, p. 342]

Seargedenim  (sergedenim) a worsted wool [Queen, p. 12]  The term probably derives from Serge de Nismes, which was a twilled woolen cloth made in France.  By the late 18^th century,  it was also made of wool and cotton.   There were advertisements in both Boston and Hartford newspapers in the 1770s for “sergedenim” and “searge de-nim.”  [Montgomery, p. 216, entry for “denim”, which she defines as a stout, twilled cotton cloth made of a single yarn and either dyed in the piece or woven of dark brown or blue warp and white filling—used for overalls, skirts, etc.]  In her entry for “serge,” [p.344] Montgomery defines the material as a twilled cloth with worsted warp and woolen weft woven on a four-treadle loom.  It was lighter and narrower than broadcloth and of better quality than kersey.  In the 17^th century it was middleweight, cheap, and hard wearing.  Apparently there were many different types of serge made, most of them being named for the place of their manufacture (hence, sergedenim).  So, the fabric could be either of wool, wool and cotton, or possibly all cotton—but in any case, it was definitely twilled.

Shalloon  a cheap twilled worsted.  Shalloons could be finished either hot-pressed or unglazed.  Shalloons were one of the most commonly imported fabrics to America and were used primarily for the lining of clothing. 

Shawl  in the Daybook, the reference is not to a specific type of material, so perhaps it is simply referring to a woven, length of cloth to be worn around the shoulders.  Shawls first came into fashion at the end of the 18th-early 19^th century with the narrow lines and short sleeves of classical revival gowns.

Tafte  presumably taffeta or taffety .  Most European taffetas were plain woven silks with weft threads slightly thicker than the warp—related to tabby, alamode, Persian, sarcenet, and lustring.  They came in all colors and could be glossy, changeable, striped with metallic threads, flamed, checked, flowered, or in other patterns.  Most were used for women's summer dresses, linings, scarves/headdresses, as well as bed canopies, easy chairs, window curtains, and other household furnishing. [Montgomery, p. 358]

Sources:

Florence Montgomery, Textiles in America 1650-1870.

Sally A. Queen, Textiles for Colonial Clothing, a Workbook  of Swatches and Information.

Images courtesy the textile collections at Historic Deerfield, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the University of New Hampshire Museum

* With generous assistance from Jane Nylander, Astrida Schaeffer, Tara Vose and Ned Lazaro

Courtesy, Historic Deerfield

Pair of lady's shoes, England, c.1765, calamanco (reddish-pink wool)

Worn for January 24, 1765 wedding of Mary Flint (1742-1832) to Eleazer Spofford (1739-1828) in South Danvers, MA., according to family tradition. For additional information, contact Historic Deerfield (Accession Number HD 2004.26) 

Courtesy, Historic Deerfield
Pair of lady’s shoes, England, c. 1730, calamanco upper, lined with linen; edged with wool binding.
Wool was both durable and easy to dye in a variety of rich and fashionable colors. Elaborately woven patterns, such as the ones
used for this pair of elegant shoes, were the specialty of Norwich in England. Its woven and glazed calamancos were shipped throughout Europe and to the Americas during the 18th century. The owner’s foot expanded (perhaps following a pregnancy) and small vertical inserts were stitched into the instep for comfort by the owner.
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Kendall Bancroft.

Recent auction item: Rare Baltimore, MD. calamanco whole cloth quilt, 1790. Former Maryland museum collection.

English chintz, c. 1790

Courtesy, Victoria and Albert Museum
Chintz Coromandel Coast, India, c. 1710-1725

Courtesy, University of New Hampshire Museum
c.1740-1760

Additional sources used in the preparation of this post:

An exceptionally well-done site with details of many of the textiles mentioned above:
historicaltextiles.com

For additional information on chintz, see

http://www.threadsmagazine.com/item/4987/bold-bright-chintz