Handkerchief

Description

This red cotton handkerchief features a leaf border surrounding a field of geometric motifs. S. H. Greene & Sons, located in River Point, Rhode Island, printed this handkerchief around the late 19th or early 20th century. S.H. Greene & Sons are credited as the first company in the United States to print handkerchiefs in this striking “turkey red” color, a shade that was both popular and notoriously complicated to produce. A small rectangle in one corner, outside of the frame, contains the company’s name as well as “Martha Washington,” a name Greene & Sons used as a trademark. Mrs. Washington was believed to be the commissioner of a famous handkerchief depicting George Washington on horseback, and Greene’s use of her name is likely an allusion to her role in the history of printed kerchiefs in America. This object is one of a large group transferred to Winterthur from the American Textile History Museum when it closed in 2017.