Textile fragment

Description

The Hill Manufacturing Company, located in Lewiston, Maine, produced this white cotton sheeting in the late 19th or early 20th century. This section of yardage includes the bolt end with the manufacturer labels still attached. Textile manufacturers used labels like these both to identify their products and proclaim their quality. The label at the center of this sheeting shows a woman holding a scale, which rests at an even balance with a bolt of fabric on one side and a pile of coins on the other. At the bottom of the label is the Latin phrase “Semper Idem” – “always the same” – communicating that the company’s products are reliable and their prices are fair. This object is one of a large group transferred to Winterthur from the American Textile History Museum when it closed in 2017.