New Online Gallery Showcases Cloth Printings at AAS

While most library collections are printed or written on paper, hundreds of historic objects at the American Antiquarian Society — including broadsides, children’s books, and ribbon badges — were printed onto cloth. Often produced as keepsakes, souvenirs, commemorative objects, or teaching tools, cloth printings in the AAS collection include texts and images printed onto silk, cotton, muslin, or linen.  

In 2024, AAS staff completed a conservation survey of 150 broadsides and newspapers printed on textiles. Curators and conservators reviewed these objects to assess housing needs and to plan for immediate and future conservation treatments.  You can read more about that work in a Past is Present post by Library and Archives Conservator Marissa Maynard. As part of the project, every object was photographed. Those high-resolution images were then archived in GIGI, the Society’s digital asset system, making these textile printings freely available to researchers.

A gallery of more than twenty cloth printings is now available on the AAS website. This “sampler” provides images and brief descriptions of the objects, as well as links to catalog records. Some of the highlights of the resource include an 1806 membership certificate on silk designed and engraved by a woman in Newburyport, Massachusetts; a commemorative menu printed on silk in Saint Louis, Missouri; and a large advertising banner made in New York that promotes the work of poet Walt Whitman.   

(Image of textile printing promoting Walt Whitman’s books. Catalog Record)

There are multiple ways to print designs on textiles, including block printing by hand, stenciling, and machine printing. The cloth printings in the AAS collection were all machine printed. The cloth on which they are printed is closely related to the yard goods used for bed linens, clothing, and draperies then being produced at mills across the country. Calico printers were set up in the colonies as early as 1712, running small mills and dye houses near Boston and Philadelphia. After the invention of both the spinning jenny and cylindrical copper plates for printing onto cloth in 1770, the textile industry in Europe and in North America expanded rapidly. By 1836, 120 million yards of printed fabric were being produced in the United States annually.   

Unlike these mass-produced fabrics, most of the 150 cloth printings at AAS were created in small quantities in the newspaper shops and printing houses of urban areas from Boston to San Francisco.   Why did printers choose to make these objects on fabric when paper was the standard and easier to procure? Practicality was often a factor. A religious banner used by Millerites to predict the end of the world was likely printed on textiles to ensure easy transportation from one camp meeting to the next.

(Image of “A Chronological chart of the visions of Daniel & John,” 1842. Catalog Record)

“Indestructible” books for children printed on cotton or linen were also practical.  Although they frayed when over-manipulated by young readers, they did not tear into pieces the way a paper book would have. Printing on fabric, especially silk, also could enhance the status of an object — silk was recognized as a luxury good in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. A framed membership certificate or memorial piece printed on it would glisten in lamp light, showing off the richness of the object (Insert Decatur memorial)

(Image of “Sacred to the memory of the late Commodore Stephen Decatur,” 1820. Catalog Record)

The examples selected for the new gallery also illustrate how textile printing changed over time as synthetic dyes replaced natural dyes. Because most of the examples at AAS were made locally in job printers’ shops, standard printing inks were used.  These tended to fade or bleed more quickly than the dyes used in the textile industry.  Some printers used the term “Fast Colors” to indicate that their inks would hold up to wear and tear.

(Image of “The House that Jack Built,” 1844. Catalog Record)

The first synthetic dye in the textile industry (magenta) was introduced in 1864, followed in 1880 by a synthetic blue,  which replaced indigo. Because they did not run or bleed and retained their brightness, synthetics quickly made their way into printing inks used by publishers of cloth books for children. One company in Ohio featured a baby chewing on a cloth book as a testament to durability of its products.

(Image of “Mother Goose jingles,” 1900. Catalog Record)

Want to learn about how these cloth printings reveal the cultural and technological shifts of their time? Explore the gallery to find out more.  

Resources: 

The Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife: Textiles in Early New England: Design, Production, Consumption. Boston: Boston University Press, 1999. 

Herbert R. Collins, Threads of History, Americana Recorded on Cloth 1774 to the Present. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1979. 

Florence H. Pettit, America’s Printed & Painted Fabrics. NY: Hasting House, 1970.  

In Her Own Words: The Life and Death of Rachel Wall, Massachusetts’ Female Pirate

Rachel Wall (née Schmidt) was born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, on October 1, 1760. She was 29 years old on October 8, 1789, when she was executed by hanging on the Boston Common. According to some accounts, Wall may have been America’s first female pirate; it is certain that she was the last woman to be hanged by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.  

The American Antiquarian Society holds a copy of Wall’s last words and dying confession, dictated by Wall herself and printed as a broadside by the jailers at the Boston Goal [sic] on October 7, 1789. Wall’s life of piracy has expanded into mythology over the centuries since her death, so this remarkable broadside stands out as a sworn narrative directly from Wall.  

(Wall’s last words and confession. Catalog Record)

Wall recounts that she was born to “honest and reputable” parents, who gave her an education and raised her as a Presbyterian. Her father was a farmer, and she had three brothers and two sisters when she left home—without her parents’ consent or knowledge—to move to Philadelphia with her new husband, George Wall. The young couple later moved to New York City, then Boston, where George abandoned Rachel for some time. In Rachel’s words, she worked in servitude until George returned to her. “As soon as he came back,” George enticed Rachel to leave her servitude and “take to bad company,” a band of pirates whom she blames for her eventual ruin. George eventually abandoned Rachel in Boston again, leaving her alone with his whereabouts unknown. She notes in her statement that as a dying person, she forgives her husband. 

(Wall forgives her husband. Catalog Record)

Wall confesses to four specific crimes in her final statement. In spring of 1787, she sneaked aboard a vessel at Long Wharf under cover of darkness and stole a black silk handkerchief containing about 30 pounds in gold and small change from under the sleeping ship captain’s head. Around 1788, she broke into a sloop at Doane’s Wharf and stole a silver watch, silver shoe buckles, and a parcel of small change while the crew slept. In 1785, Rachel conspired with George (imprisoned in Boston at the time) to bake a cake containing a saw and a file and send it to his cell to aid in his escape attempt from the jail.

Wall also admits to a crime for which a woman named Dorothy Horn had already been punished (with a public whipping on the gallows). It is notable that Wall does not admit to piracy among these crimes, nor the crime for which she has been sentenced to hang. 

(Wall absolves Miss Dorothy Horn. Catalog Record)

Wall admits that she is guilty of “a great many” petty crimes, including theft, lying, and “almost every other sin a person could commit, except murder.” However, she denies her guilt in the robbery for which she would soon be executed.

(Wall professes her innocence. Catalog Record)

Alleged to have stolen a bonnet off a “Miss Bendar,” Wall claims to know nothing of the crime. Her alibi? That she had been at work all the preceding day and had simply been walking by when she heard a commotion in the street and was arrested for the robbery.  

In her final words to her jailers, Wall forgives the witnesses who testified against her in the bonnet robbery trial. She commits her soul to the “hands of Almighty God” and her fate is sealed. Wall and the two men hanged alongside her were the last three people in the Commonwealth to be executed for highway robbery. The details of Rachel’s short life remain mysterious, but her intriguing legacy persists almost 250 years later. 

(Wall’s last words. Catalog Record)

Letters from Freedom: New Digital Resource

Last year, the American Antiquarian Society received a grant from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation to support the reorganization, rehousing, and digitization of 655 pages of letters, notebooks, and photographs created by formerly enslaved people. The new digital resource Letters from Freedom provides additional context to the materials and to the stories of the people therein.

At the heart of this project is the Chase Family Papers collection. The Chase family were Massachusetts Quakers who valued education and championed abolition. The collection contains letters from formerly enslaved students of Lucy and Sarah Chase, sisters who traveled from Worcester to Virginia and other parts of the South to teach in freedmen’s schools. At the end of the Civil War, formerly enslaved adults and children sought education at newly founded freedmen’s schools. These schools received support and funding from the Freedmen’s Bureau, missionary associations, and formerly enslaved people themselves.

(Portrait of Lucy Chase. Catalog Record)
(Portrait of Sarah Chase. Catalog Record)

The Chase Family Collection includes  letters written to Lucy and Sarah written by the sisters’ students throughout the South between 1864 and 1870. Letters written home to Worcester by Sarah and Lucy Chase provide descriptions of their schools and students.

The students’ letters tell stories of adversity and achievement. At least two of the students, Julia Anna Rutledge Kitt (b. 1849) and Elias Fenwick Jefferson (1844-1904), continued their studies at the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (now Hampton University) in Virginia, and later became teachers themselves. Both were students of Lucy and Sarah Chase at the Morris Street School in Charleston, South Carolina, where the sisters taught during 1866-67.

(Image of Elias Jefferson’s letter to Lucy and Sarah Chase. Catalog Record)

Julia Rutledge wrote to Sarah Chase on December 2, 1867, from Charleston, with news of her sister’s illness and the steps she was taking toward pursuing her secondary education.  Less than a year later, in a letter dated October 4, 1868, Julia wrote again to Sarah, this time as a student at the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute. Julia described her daily routine and noted the presence of other students from Charleston, including Elias Jefferson. Although Julia wrote to Sarah, “if you get this letter I will send my picture as I prommise [sic] it and would like you to have one,” the collection does not contain a subsequent letter or photograph. Perhaps one day Julia’s photograph will be recovered!

(Image of Julia Rutledge’s letter to Sarah Chase. Catalog Record)

Julia graduated from Hampton in 1872 and taught at Princess Anne Court House in Virginia before returning to teach in her hometown of Charleston. She is listed in the 1895 Charleston city directory as living at 109 Smith Street with her husband, Wade Kitt, also a teacher.

Two websites had previously contained some of the content now featured on the new Delmas-sponsored webpage: “Through a Glass Darkly: Northern Visions of Race and Reform,”a website developed by Assumption University professor and AAS member Lucia Knoles almost 20 years ago; and “Manuscript Women’s Letters and Diaries,” a subscription-based project produced by commercial publisher Alexander Street Press in 1999. New digitization of the letters and diary and complete transcriptions have now made the content easily and freely downloadable to a wider audience.

To read the letters from Julia Rutledge, Elias Fenwick Jefferson, and others, please visit the Letters from Freedom resource at:

https://www.americanantiquarian.org/letters-from-freedom

The Infinities of Women’s Experiences: Cataloging Biographies at AAS, 1844-2024

As a cataloger at the American Antiquarian Society, one of my current projects involves updating bibliographic catalog records for American women of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. AAS prioritizes cataloging for marginalized groups through the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access (IDEA) initiative, and I find it rewarding to contribute to a more inclusive and diverse catalog. Over the course of this project, I have enhanced access to more than 500 items by supplying accurate imprint information and adding access points such as subject keywords, summaries, series titles, and additional notes.

In working with these materials, I have had the privilege of acquainting myself with many remarkable women whose lives are preserved in the AAS collection. These materials include formal biographies, literary studies, collections of letters, diaries, journals, memorial works, eulogies, articles, wills, and various addresses. Together, they paint a picture of women of the period and reveal how their stories were framed in the early 20th-century United States.  Continue reading The Infinities of Women’s Experiences: Cataloging Biographies at AAS, 1844-2024

Adventures in Amateur Newspaper Cataloging: Roasts

Publishers of amateur newspapers devoted a significant amount of their limited space to critiquing other amateur papers — sometimes constructively, but often not. Two amateur publishers from Dassel, Minnesota, Allison C. Brokaw and Reno L. Hayford, grew tired of the critical nature of amateur journalism and wanted publishers to focus their efforts on literary pursuits.  

In April 1897, they published the first issue of Roasts (Catalog Record), an amateur newspaper that promised to print only “honest criticisms.” They wrote, “‘roasts’ are becoming so numerous as to appear in nearly every single representative of the cause. This should not be so and our idea is to publish monthly this paper, wherein any and all amateurs may rid themselves of those noxious sentiments that they would otherwise present through the medium of papers perporting [sic] to be of a high literary standard.”  

(Image of the article from Roasts. Catalog Record)

Continue reading Adventures in Amateur Newspaper Cataloging: Roasts

Printing in the Hawaiian Language: New Digital Resource

Thanks to a generous grant from the Pine Tree Foundation of New York, newly digitized Hawaiian-language materials are now available through Printing in the Hawaiian Language, a digital resource on the American Antiquarian Society website.  The resource contains a digital library of 115 digitized Hawaiian materials, as well as background information on the Hawaiian collection at AAS, the history of printing on Hawai’i, and the stories of the people involved in the printing trade on the islands.  

(Appearance of the three hills formed by the late eruption, on the coast at Nanawale bearing east by north one mile distant: July 9th, 1840. Catalog Record)

Much of the work completed for this grant was done “behind the scenes” under the direction of Curator of Books and Digitized Collections Elizabeth Watts Pope. Through conservation by Chief Conservator Babette Gehnrich and Library and Archives Conservator Marissa Maynard, the materials have been stabilized for future preservation; through cataloging and digitization, accessibility has been greatly improved. Continue reading Printing in the Hawaiian Language: New Digital Resource

Exploring Manumissions in the AAS Collections: A Summer Page’s Experience

Recently, I had the privilege of making a display that is now exhibited in the American Antiquarian Society reading room, as you enter through the main glass doors of Antiquarian Hall. My exhibit focuses on manumissions in 1800s America. Originally, I planned to highlight the freedom suit as a legal means of resistance to slavery. I had a hard time finding enough primary-source materials for display, and I mostly found secondary sources covering the topic in the AAS catalog. So, I decided to broaden my search to look at the different ways that enslaved people could free themselves. Enslaved people had three main ways of obtaining their freedom: escape, manumission, and freedom suits. Since I was having a hard time finding material related to the latter, I decided to look for manumissions and related documents instead. I found that in AAS’s “Slavery in the United States Collection,” AAS has a few manumissions that have quite intriguing stories.  

(Amanda Holmes manumission from the Slavery in the United States Collection.)

One manumission involves a woman named Amanda Holmes, who was enslaved by William G. Elliot, Jr. in St. Louis, Missouri. The document states that she was manumitted for “good and sufficient reasons.”  This document, dated 7 July 1845, gave Holmes her freedom one year before Dred Scott first filed his freedom suit in 1846 in the state of Missouri. Scott’s case would not be decided until 1857, in the notorious Supreme Court decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford. Also of note about Holmes’s story is that five years after she gained freedom, she purchased her husband’s freedom for thirty dollars. The bill of sale for his purchase is dated 29 January 1850 — for the sale of “one negro named William Holmes” — and transfers ownership from Colonel Adam D. Stewart and wife Mary to Amanda Holmes, now a free woman of color. Continue reading Exploring Manumissions in the AAS Collections: A Summer Page’s Experience

New to AAS: William B. Sprague. The Tribute of a Mourning Husband, 1821.

Has bound with it: Alfred Ely, A Sermon, Occasioned by the Late Death of Mrs. Charlotte Sprague (Hartford, 1821) and Absalom Peters, Memoir of Mrs. Charlotte E. Sprague (New Haven, 1821).

(Cover of A Tribute. Catalog Record)

Although the original leather and gilt binding has been worn down by much handling over the years, this bespoke volume provides a physical tribute to the memory of Mrs. C. E. Sprague. It joins many other tribute volumes in the AAS collections that often memorialize people who would otherwise be forgotten today, and demonstrate how printing and books have been used over the centuries as part of the mourning process. In this instance, the volume was presented by one mourner to another, Mrs. Sprague’s husband to their daughter. It is inscribed: “For my beloved child, Charlotte Adeline Sprague, as a memorial of her departed mother. WBS.” Inside are three printed tributes. The gift of Tanya S. Tellman, 2024.

 

~ Elizabeth Pope, Curator of Books and Digital Collections

New to AAS: Bi-Metallic Mining Company album. Granite, Montana, between 1887 and 1893. Photograph album with 101 photographic prints.

Now a ghost town, Granite, Montana, was once  a thriving mining town after the discovery of  silver in the 1870s. The Bi-Metallic Mining Company operated there from 1887 until 1893, when the Sherman Silver Purchase Act made the price of silver so low that the mines were abandoned.

(Image from the Bi-Metallic Mining Company album. Catalog Record)

This album contains numerous photographs including cyanotypes, Kodak prints, and albumen prints suggesting that many of the photos were taken by those working for the mining company. Included are group portraits of miners, views of the equipment, buildings and downtown, women and children, and some modern snapshots from the 1990s showing the abandoned town.

~ Christine Morris, Associate Curator of Graphic Arts and Registrar

New to AAS: Sir Tom & Lady Thumb. New York: Solomon King, ca. 1822

Tom Thumb takes center stage as both a sword-wielding hero and object of royal curiosity in this early nineteenth-century picture book. Although this rhymed tale is set in the early Medieval court of King Arthur, the ladies and gentlemen of the court are dressed in Regency Era attire that would have been familiar to the young readers.

(Excerpt from Sir Tom & Lady Thumb, ca. 1822. Catalog Record)

New York publisher Solomon King (1791-1832) was a prolific picture book publisher in the early American Republic, and the Society is thrilled to acquire such a fine example of his output.

~ Laura Wasowicz, Curator of Children’s Literature

The Language of Flowers: A Victorian Fascination

This summer, I had the pleasure of curating a reading room display on the language of flowers. As a cataloger, much of my recent work has been focused on enhancing bibliographic records, but with spring and summer in full bloom outside my window, I found myself captivated by the beautiful illustrations featured in many books about the language of flowers. I had the opportunity to explore the Society’s collection of annually issued periodicals and gift books and selected the most stunning flower illustrations for the display. Along with these, I included a few unexpected variations, such as a book on flower fortune-telling, a flower calendar with a different meaning for each day of the year, and a young girl’s manuscript filled with notes on flowers and their meanings. Overall, the eye-catching display — along with the thoughtful meanings and poetry that accompany each illustration — creates a feast for both the eyes and the heart.  Continue reading The Language of Flowers: A Victorian Fascination

New to AAS: 2 Issues of Roll Call (Washington, DC), 1864

At least these two issues of the Roll Call newspaper from the Civil War were edited by “Three Ladies. Two of the War, and One of the Treasury Departments.” There is only one other known issue of this title, which may have begun in February 1864. It was apparently published during one of the many fairs held throughout the war to raise money for various causes – in this case the fair was held at the Patent Office.

(Front page of the March 3, 1864 edition of Roll Call. Catalog Record)

The two issues recently acquired by AAS are filled with poetry, advertisements of local business, and articles that might be of interest to those who had family members serving.

~Vincent Golden, Curator of Newspapers and Periodicals

Adventures in Amateur Newspaper Cataloging: The Acorn

As I work through cataloging the American Antiquarian Society’s collection of amateur newspapers,  I’m often amused by both the content of the material and the stories of the people who published them. The Acorn (Catalog Record), published in North Attleboro, Massachusetts, by Fannie Hamilton, delights on both accounts.

Hamilton published the first issue of the Acorn on January 1, 1878. In it, she included poetry, fiction, puzzles, and an “improvised primer” which has been cut out of the AAS copy. She captioned her articles to fit with her acorn theme: “Splinters” gave notes on other amateur journalists and “Oak Leaves” contained little tidbits of wisdom. Continue reading Adventures in Amateur Newspaper Cataloging: The Acorn

New to AAS: Boston, Massachusetts, Papers addition, 1710

Almanacs, pregnancy, and dodging fines are all contained in this one-page testimony to the Court of General Sessions of Massachusetts from 1710.

(Excerpt from the testimony to the Court of General Sessions of Massachusetts, 1710. Catalog Record)

Unmarried Ruth Copeland became pregnant with a child by a man named Samuel Hayden, who promised to marry her after finding out she was to have his child. Samuel subsequently rescinded his offer after reading an almanac, saying to her, “Ruth, you won’t lye in untill next March, tis a devilish while to it.” As it turns out, Samuel was buying time so he could deny his fatherhood and avoid paying the fine for bastardy that was required in eighteenth-century Massachusetts.

~Ashley Cataldo, Curator of Manuscripts