Medal

Description

This commemorative silver medal was most likely created for the June 1911 Cotton Centennial Carnival, held in Fall River, Massachusetts. The Cotton Centennial Carnival was a week-long fair celebrating the 100th anniversary of Fall River’s cotton industry, marked by when the city’s first cotton mill was built in 1811. The fair included parades, tours of the city’s cotton mills, and a visit from President William Taft. The obverse side of this medal contains two scenes celebrating the growth of Fall River’s cotton industry, and, by extension, the growth of the city itself. At the top, a scene shows the city’s first cotton mill, a single building by a river. The scene below shows the same location in 1911, now a modern city with a factory-filled skyline. The factories are shown with prominent smokestacks billowing smoke into the air – a symbol, at the time, of industrial prowess. The reverse side of the medal contains an advertisement for a local Fall River business, “Clary’s Hat Shop.” This object is one of a large group transferred to Winterthur from the American Textile History Museum when it closed in 2017.