American Coverlets

1
American Coverlets

• CTD 415 History of Textile Design
• Dr. Virginia S. Wimberley

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Definition of a Coverlet

• Woven Bedspread
• Usually made of wool and cotton

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Woven Fabric

• Composed of warp and weft yarns
• Warp yarns remains stationary and run vertically
• Weft yarns are woven horizontally, back and forth
  through the warp

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Looms

• Simplest - one harness device through which the
  warp yarns are threaded
• Colonial home loom - two to four harnesses
• Harnesses connected to treadles which raise or
  lower them

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Earliest Coverlets

• Woven on two harness hand looms
• Four harness hand looms soon replaced the two
  harness
• Loom set up in common room of the home or in a
  loom shed, separate from the main dwelling
  usually women were weavers
• Woven in two sections, each 30 to 50 inches in
  length, then sewn together

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Professional male weavers gradually put an end to
home weaving industry for coverlets.
Professional Weavers
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Origins of Professional Weavers in U.S.

• Attracted by
• promise of ample employment
• political stability
• Country of origin
• England
• Ireland
• Scotland
• France
• Germany

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Professional Weavers

• Many settled in the Northeast and Midwest
• Many led an itinerant life, traveling from town
  to town in quest of clients in need of his
  services

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Professional Weavers

• Used 6 to 8 harness looms
• Usually assisted by two apprentices or assistants
• Most weavers used patterns that showed how to
  thread the loom
• Most patterns resulted in geometric designs

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Professional Weavers

• Upon arrival in a new location, he would
  advertise in the local newspaper
• Set up loom wherever he could find lodging
• Client would select a pattern from the weavers
  book
• Weaver would weave the coverlet with slight
  variations

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Professional Weavers

• Some weavers would establish themselves in a
  permanent location where the population was
  sufficient size to support a weaver on a regular
  basis
• Often permanent shop weavers would also weave
  custom order carpets

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Jacquard Attachment

• 1820s saw the introduction of the Jacquard
  attachment which made curvilinear designs
  possible
• Attachment controlled the movements of the
  harnesses
• Consisted of punched cards
• Accomplished weavers create own designs by
  punching new cards

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Jacquard Attachment

• Allowed the more efficient use of large numbers
  of harnesses
• Most looms were fully or partially mechanized
• As many as 40 harnesses

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Coverlet Types
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Overshot Coverlets

• Four harness loom
• Among earliest American woven bedcovers
• Warp yarns of natural, undyed cotton-strength
• Weft of dyed wool-warmth

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Overshot Coverlets

• Name comes from the weaving technique
• Horizontal/weft yarns are allowed to skip or
  overshoot three or more vertical/warp yarns at
  a time
• Thick but loosely woven appearance

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Overshot Coverlets

• Surface floats tend to abrade and wear out easily
• Patterns usually combine stripes, squares and
  diamonds, using a floating weft of colored yarn
  over plain background

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Overshot Coverlets

• Coverlets were always made of two pieces and
  seamed through the middle
• In the South, the belief was that an uneven seam
  would turn away evils spirits and insure good
  luck for the user of the coverlet

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Double Weave Coverlets

• Made on Handlooms
• Made on fully or partially mechanized looms
• As early as 1725
• Surviving examples from 1800-1900

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Double Weave

• Name - the use of two sets of warp and two sets
  of wefts, simultaneously
• Produces two separate layers of cloth that are
  interwoven at pre-determined intervals
• layers can be pulled apart within design

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Double Weave

• Pattern is repeated on the other side, usually in
  a lighter color
• This type is confused with Summer and Winter
  coverlets due to reversability but they are a
  single layer

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Summer and Winter

• Originated in PA
• Early 1800s
• Created by professional weavers from Germany
• Five or more harnesses

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Summer and Winter

• Similar to Overshot coverlets
• Differs in that supplementary weft never goes
  over more than 3 warp threads at a time

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Summer and Winter

• Name refers to the fact that the pattern is
  reversed on the other side
• Lighter side - summer darker -winter

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Jacquard Coverlets

• Loom with special mechanical devise
• Introduced by French weaver Joseph Jacquard in
  1801
• Brought to America in the 1820s
• Attachment speeded production

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Jacquard Attachment

• Attachment organized warp and weft threads
  according to holes on a series of cards
• Cards activated the loom and dictated the pattern
• Could be added to existing looms to make Double
  Weave coverlets

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Jacquard Attachment and Design

• Possible to create unseamed coverlets
• Coverlets with complicated curvilinear patterns
  and elaborate borders
• Border designs with trains, eagles, buildings,
  urns
• Weaver in one corner included his name, name of
  destined owner, and town, state and date of
  weaving

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Jacquard Coverlets

• Complicated curvilinear patterns
• Elaborate borders
• Borders so distinctive that collectors specialize
• Eagles, urns, rosettes, buildings, trains

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Jacquard Coverlet Signature Block

• Allowed for more precise information about
  origins
• Handweavers could weave names but very
  time-consuming and rarely attempted

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Colors and Dyes

• All four types used limited color range
• limited to natural dyes available for wool
• limited to dyes available locally or by import
• Most popular indigo
• imported from India
• derived from wild plant in Southern states
• Red also popular
• imported from Asian madder root
• South American cochineal

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Typical Coloration with Red and Blue
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Dyes

• Imported dyes sold by itinerant peddlers in
  Northeast
• Later general stores throughout country
• Homemade vegetable dyes
• brown - bark of red oak or hickory
• yellow - peach leaves, golden rod, black-eye
  susans

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Weaving Mills

• By mid 19th C. coverlets produced in weaving
  mills on fully mechanized looms
• Most located in industrial Northeast and parts of
  Midwest
• Size varied but usually several weavers banding
  together
• Initially factories specialized in textile
  materials and carpets

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Weaving Mills

• Popularity of woven bedcovers encouraged them to
  move into coverlet production

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Example Mills

• Cockfair Mills
• Indiana
• 1916
• carding and fulling cotton
• converted to weaving
• seven employees
• water powered looms

• Franklin Woolen Factory
• Ohio
• three employees
• In 1850 -500 coverlets
• and 1500 yards of carpet
• valued at 3700

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Mill Signature Blocks

• Devised their own signature block or trademark
• Blocks included
• name of factory
• maker
• date
• Trademark linear design or picture motif

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Demise of the Industry

• During the Civil War, most factories converted to
  blankets
• Hand weaving never recovered from the war era
• Parts of Appalachia, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois
  kept the tradition to limited extent
• 1876 Philadelphia Centennial inspired brief
  revival