Textile History…To Have Or Not: How Available Were Interior Furnishing Fabrics in Post-Revolutionary Rural America, 1790-1825?

August 23-25, 2013 (A 3-day workshop)
Fee:$195.00

Looking at the wealth and commerce of rural New York in 1800, we’ll establish some context for examining this period of textile production and consumption:

  • What were considered middle class furnishing textiles for rural areas?
  • Where did they come from? And how did they get there?
  • Who was making them in rural America, and on what equipment?

To answer these questions we will start with a short session on How do we identify textiles and how do we know what we know?

Discussions will include working with these sources: probate inventories, auction records, bills of lading, account books, draft books, city directories, tax records, gazetteers, fair premiums, newspapers and court and patent records.

We will look at historic interiors and interior décor illustrations – the Vogue versus the reality, and then we’ll examine historic documented textiles.

Instructors will include: Rabbit Goody, Textile Historian, Founder & Owner of Thistle Hill Weavers, Jill Maney, Independent Scholar & Business Manager, Thistle Hill Weavers and Jon Maney, directer of Hyde Hall, Cooperstown, NY

There will be a period dinner served as part of the program in the Briggs Tavern on the evening of Saturday, August 24 at a charge of $25.00 per person.

To register for this program, please CALL 518-284-2729 or email rabbitgoodythw@gmail.com