The years 1865–1900 were a time of immense change in the American textile industry. In the decades following the Civil War, advances in printing and dye technology expanded both the variety of fabrics available and the range of colors that could be produced.
Textiles of the post-Civil War period featured an extraordinary assortment of large- and small-scale designs, finely engraved prints, paisleys, stripes, geometrics, and polychrome florals. The palette was often warm and wonderfully rich—cream, tan, mocha, chocolate brown, rust, pink, red, and green—colors that today give reproduction quilts from this period their unmistakable antique character.
One of the most important changes came in 1869, when a method for producing synthetic alizarin—the principal red coloring component associated with madder dye—was developed. The abundance and popularity of madder-style prints during the 1870s and 1880s helped earn these years the nickname “the Madder Decades.” Madder prints appeared extensively in both dress fabrics and quilts, producing characteristic shades of red, rust, brown, pink, and related warm tones.
Another major breakthrough arrived near the end of the century. In 1897, German chemists developed a commercially practical synthetic indigo, helping usher in a new era for one of the world's oldest and most important textile colors.
|
Showing 151 - 180
of results
|
Sort By:
|































































