The January 1809 issue of Repository features Rudolph Ackermann’s fabric selections including, clockwise from top left, “a plush made of mohair ‘for
gentlemen’s wear,’” silk velvet, flowered satin for evening wear and brocade.
These coarse-printed Indian cottons were exported in
1736 from Marseilles, France, in the Guinea trade.
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Textiles and Trade
Textiles in America 1650-1870
by Florence M. Montgomery
W.W. Norton & Company, New York, NY; 2007
412 pp.; clothbound; 117 color and 255 b&w illustrations; $50
ISBN 978-0-393-73224-5
Reviewed by Demetra Canna Smith
Most of us only joke about reading a dictionary from front to back. I have, however, come across a few people who claim that they read the last page of a novel before beginning the book, in order to convince themselves that it has a satisfactory ending. Only after making such an assessment do they take the time to enjoy the story. When I opened Florence Montgomery’s Textiles in America 1650-1870, reissued this year by W.W. Norton & Company, I skipped through the beautiful images and essays and headed straight for the bibliography and dictionary. While I cannot add reading this lexicon in one sitting to my list of accomplishments, the definitions and illustrations are so fascinating that each time I open it to look up a term, I find myself poring over the nearby entries.
Montgomery’s insights make the book a wonderful introduction to interior and textile history, as well as a detailed guide for those interested in further research on the topics she covers. First published in 1984, Textiles in America is best known as a reference for antiquated textile terminology. The essays that compose the first third of the book, however, explore thoughts on practical and aesthetic matters relating to home economics. The illustrations are delightful and well chosen, and the essays provide insight for those interested in reconstructing period rooms. It is equally valuable for homeowners and decorators who endeavor to incorporate historical approaches in authentic, yet inventive, ways.
Though Montgomery makes excellent use of images throughout the book, in the first essay, “Furnishing Practices in England and America,” she warns, “Visual sources are inadequate to inform us completely concerning the use of rooms in the larger houses of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, and to some degree even the nineteenth century.” Later in the same essay, regarding ongoing research in historic homes, she warns, “In America furnishing plans of some of the older restorations have recently been the object of intense scrutiny.…It is clear that furnishing old houses is a far more complex matter than it was once thought to be. Generalizations about household furnishings remain difficult whether discussing the twentieth century or the seventeenth century.” Images and documentation are essential to the other essays, which discuss bed hangings, window curtains, upholstery and considerations for period rooms.
The dictionary and the essays that compose Textiles in America prove fascinating to a reader simply interested in the evolution of the English language. There are dozens of archaic words sprinkled throughout the essays that lead one straight to the dictionary. In her discussion of appropriate fabrics for particular uses, Montgomery writes: “Worsted materials, known in the eighteenth century by such names as embossed camlet, cheney, harateen, moreen, and grogrinett were widely used not only for bed curtains but also for upholstery.” That’s one sentence and five definitions to look up. In flipping back to the dictionary, I discovered that embossed camlet “is a pattern impressed on wool cloth with rollers, designed to imitate expensive woven damasks,” whereas cheney is defined as “a worsted furnishing material… related to harateen and moreen…” Additionally, from a note that accompanies figure D-29, “Worsteds with this finish were known as harateen and moreen, and possibly as china or cheney in the eighteenth century.” Out of context these definitions seem convoluted, but Montgomery’s documentation, photographs of fabrics and references allow readers to sort through them to attain a clear understanding of historical terms and applications in America as well as the countries from whence the colonists came.
In addition to providing context for the dissemination of European trends and the contributions of uniquely American approaches that were part of the larger story of the United States economic and social development in the 18th and 19th centuries, Textiles in America also sheds light on the early trade relationships that allowed the colonies to eventually assert independence and come into their own. As Charles G. Koch observes in his recently published The Science of Success (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2007), “Rarely has a great civilization developed in isolation. How conducive a country’s geography and politics have been to trade has tended to determine its cultural and economic development. Countries that have had the greatest exposure to and use of goods, knowledge, methods, and innovations from all over the world have progressed the earliest and the most.” Textiles in America’s extensive quotes from advertisements, guides for “Household Economy,” and extracts from letters and journals provide the reader with notions of how textiles and trade defined home and fashion in the developing United States. Combined with the visual resources and Montgomery’s insights, the dictionary and the essays that compose this book make it an excellent addition to one’s reading and reference list. 
Demetra Canna Smith is president of Balmer Architectural Mouldings’ New York Division. She is also a member of The Institute of Classical Architecture & Classical America.
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