Garfield/Arthur political quilt with a jugate bandana as centerpiece,
about 1880, once in Shelly Zegart's inventory.
Attributed to Annie Ensminger Kready (1871-1956)/
Louisa Ensminger (1850-1899), Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
The center is known to collectors as a Jugate Bandana.
Same 1880 campaign; different bandana
The 1880 Presidential campaign seems to have seen the beginning of the
political bandana fashion.
Winning pair: Garfield/Arthur 1880
Twin portraits on paper were nothing new but campaign fabric
was innovative, particularly the bandana handkerchiefs.
1880 to 1904 were the years when they were a standard political trinket. Their introduction in 1880 begins when American textile printers adopted technology for rather inexpensive Turkey red dyeing. The Cochrane family was the chief technical innovator.
Bandanas---Turkey red and indigo blue---became a standard item of workmen's dress.
And cowboy wanna-be's.
Harrison/Morton 1888
Grover Cleveland 1884
The political cottons were primarily square bandanas meant to be cut and hemmed. But in 1888 there was a repeat yardage.
Benjamin Harrison & George Washington
Rather large-scale
Mrs. H.H. Morey of Chelsea, Vermont shows a piece at a fair.
From the Quilt Index and the Massachusetts project, 1888
Once in Julie Powell's collection; she donated it to the New England
Quilt Museum, which is opening an exhibit of her political collection on
September 17th.
Postage-stamp squares are a late-19th-century style associated with Pennsylvania's Lancaster County, particularly the town of Bowmansville.
You can buy a drawstring bag at the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America:
McKinley 1900
McKinley & T. Roosevelt/ William Jennings Bryan and Adlai Stevenson I
Glimpse of a Teddy Roosevelt quilt at a Massachusetts show.
New or Old?
The bandana
Roosevelt's campaigns in the early 1900s saw the end of the bandana fashion.
World War I and the problems with accessing German dyes were one factor.
An occasional nostalgic souvenir.
Including two prints I've drawn for Spoonflower featuring Kamala Harris and Tim Walz
A Jugate Bandana-style pair drawn from the 1888 Harrison/Washington repeat---on a smaller scale.
And a single portrait
Some days they're on sale.
Make stuff.
Related posts on political fabric:
The postage stamp top which was once in the collection of Julie Powell is now in the collection of the New England Quilt Museum. A small exhibit of political quilts from the NEQM collection will open on September 17. It will include that top as well as other political quilts from the Julie Powell collection that she donated to NEQM.
ReplyDeleteGreat to hear that. Do miss that Julie.
DeleteThere was Garfield yardage. I saw a dress made out of it at an exhibit in Lancaster, OH, in 2019.....And "jugate" -- as in "conjugate."
ReplyDelete