Sample

Description

This sample of cotton fabric, manufactured in the first half of the 20th century, features a printed paper label and manufacturer information stamped in blue ink. Textile manufacturers would put information like this on bolt ends to identify their products, as well as communicate their uses, to both retailers and consumers. The label on this sample contains a color lithograph depicting a young woman mending a dress in a bedroom. Several elements in the scene – the sheets on the bed, the tablecloth on the vanity behind her, and the dress the woman is sewing – are the kind of household textiles homemakers would have created with cotton cloth such as this. The word “Colonial,” printed in the upper center of the label, may be the brand name this fabric was sold as. This object is one of a large group transferred to Winterthur from the American Textile History Museum when it closed in 2017.