I'm concerned when I see poor scholarship displayed as textile history by museums. The decades-long completely inaccurate "history" of coded quilt patterns as part of the history of slavery may be a worst-case scenario.
I feel it's important to call out other trends in misguided history such as the current misinformation that weavers in 17th-century Bermuda were producing complex indigo prints. I've mentioned that the Albany Institute in New York is showing an indigo print of the type popular with New Yorkers with the caption that it was printed by weavers on the archipelago of Bermuda in the mid-17th century. See my post of indignation here:
Identical misinformation is published in the catalog of an exhibit “Blue Gold” now on view at the Mingei Museum in San Diego. (Through March 16, 2025.) The catalog is available online.
https://publications.mingei.org/blue-gold/
Inside we have the same dubious reference to Bermudans printing complex resist-dyed indigo cottons in the early-17th century. Bermuda is a British Overseas Territory composed of islands in the Atlantic hundreds of miles east of Charleston and north of the "West Indies"
Inside we have the same dubious reference to Bermudans printing complex resist-dyed indigo cottons in the early-17th century. Bermuda is a British Overseas Territory composed of islands in the Atlantic hundreds of miles east of Charleston and north of the "West Indies"
The Evidence:
As early as 1624 it was noted that enslaved people wove homegrown Sea Island cotton into cloth dyed with indigo in Bermuda. A survey from 1626 mentioned "weavers"‘ on 46 acres on Longbird Island, land that was the “tenure and occupation of John Stirrop and Ralph Wright weavers.” Stirrop and Wright are fairly well documented as weavers, "weavers of dimity,” a ribbed cotton that might be plain or printed.
As early as 1624 it was noted that enslaved people wove homegrown Sea Island cotton into cloth dyed with indigo in Bermuda. A survey from 1626 mentioned "weavers"‘ on 46 acres on Longbird Island, land that was the “tenure and occupation of John Stirrop and Ralph Wright weavers.” Stirrop and Wright are fairly well documented as weavers, "weavers of dimity,” a ribbed cotton that might be plain or printed.
White dimity
Yet nowhere do we see any evidence that Stirrop and Wright were printing on their cotton cloth. When surveyors and biographers classified a skilled mechanic as a weaver---they did NOT mean a printer. The past three posts, I hope, have illustrated that basic principle of specialization clearly.
Shelburne Museum
Without further evidence we will conclude that this style
of sophisticated indigo resist cotton was an Indian production
shipped around the world.
Long Bird Island as it was no longer exists. It was bulldozed and transformed into a U.S. Army Base during World War II, making the discovery of any archeological evidence of the weaving industry about impossible to find.
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I hate to be a pain...
But really....
Don't museums have the obligation to present current scholarship on textile production?
It is naive to speculate that people identified as weavers also were skilled at printing cotton.
More:
I do go on....
