Textile fragment, printed

Description

Mystic Print and Dye Works, located in Medford, Massachusetts, printed these red floral handkerchiefs around 1880. This textile fragment contains two full design repeats, and would have been cut along the dotted lines into individual handkerchiefs to be sold. The vibrant red color of these handkerchiefs is known as “turkey red,” a shade which was both popular and notoriously complicated to produce. Turkey red handkerchiefs had to be imported from Europe until the 1860s, when domestic U.S. manufacturers first successfully produced the color. This object is one of a large group transferred to Winterthur from the American Textile History Museum when it closed in 2017.