1900 to 1930

1900-1930, The turn of the 20th Century, brought a noticeable change to American printed textiles. The rich, warm polychrome fabrics of the late 1800s began giving way to simpler designs, cooler colors, and practical shirting prints that would become characteristic of the early decades of the new century.

The economic depression that began in 1893 had a profound effect on the domestic textile industry. Fabric printing companies closed, while others reduced their design staffs and looked for ways to produce attractive fabrics more economically. Complex, multicolored prints required more printing steps and greater expense, so manufacturers increasingly turned to simpler designs and fewer-color combinations.

The result was a distinct shift in the appearance of everyday cotton fabrics. The browns, golds, greens, and richly saturated polychromes of the late 19th century were joined—and increasingly replaced—by blues, grays, blacks, burgundies, reds, and pinks, often printed against white or off-white grounds.

This was also an important era for shirtings—fabrics covered with small, neat geometrics, dots, sprigs, stripes, and other tidy repeating motifs. Their subtle patterns made them useful in clothing as well as quilts, and today they are wonderful choices for backgrounds, light values, and scrappy antique-inspired projects.