Coat
Dateca. 1780
MediumWarp is all cotton; weft #1 is cotton spun with blue and yellowish wool; weft #2 (slub) is cotton spun with blue, brown, and yellowish wool. Buttons are wood covered with primary fabric.
DimensionsCoat length: 47 1/2"; shoulders across back: 14 1/2"
Credit LineMuseum Purchase
Object number1964-174,A
DescriptionFrock coat of homespun cotton spun with with blue and brown wool. Turn-down collar. Coat cut slim with curving cutaway, with eight buttons at front (one missing) and nine buttonholes with only the second from the top cut through. Two deep side pockets with plain flaps. Sleeves are cut to curve over elbows with open vent cuffs and no buttons. The coat's long, almost-straight skirt is deeply vented and pleated at center back, with button trim. The textile is homespun cotton warp in natural color with natural cotton wefts spun with blue and brown wool, woven in tabby or plain weave.Construction History:
1. 1780 Initial Construction
2. Dates Unknown- darning in 3 spots, 3 3/4" darned horizontal tear on the lesft side of the collar, two darns 1" and 1 1/4" on the top of the left cuff.
3. Date Unknown- 7th button from top re-attached with different thread
Label TextSheep were scarce during the colonial period, especially in the South, and so colonists mixed wool with other fibers to make it go further. Because of the differences in climate and in the labor force, northerners mixed wool with linen, producing linsey-woolsey, while southerners typically mixed it with cotton. Cognizant of the wool shortage in 1775, two Virginia fullers, or woolen cloth processors, instructed their clients to combine small amounts of wool with cotton during weaving so that the woven goods would shrink up in processing and produce a warm fabric suitable for servants’ and children’s winter clothing: “A cotton chain [warp] filled in with a thread of cotton and a thread of wool, slack twisted together, thickens very well in the [fulling] mill, and we believe will weave exceeding well.” To make a mixed cloth with two different colors, weavers should use a cotton warp “filled in with mixed wool of two pounds and an half of white, to one pound of black. . . . The filling shou’d be even spun, and slack twisted.” This appears to be the technique an unknown Virginia spinner and weaver used to produce homespun fabric for this coat, which combines a warp of cotton and a weft of blue, yellow, and brown wool spun together with cotton. Over the years, the coat's wool fibers disintegrated more than the cotton threads, possibly hastened by washing in alkaline detergents to which wool is more vulnerable. Only in protected areas can one see that the coat originally had a napped surface and was blue flecked with brown.
The coat descended in the Askew or Pruden family of Goochland or Isle of Wight County, Virginia. Family tradition says that it was the uniform of a private in the Revolutionary War, although his exact identity is unknown. The coat is cut in the fashionable style of the 1780s with a high turndown collar, slim styling, and tight sleeves ending in small cuffs. The buttons are wood, probably maple, covered with the fabric of the coat. Somewhat unusual in men's coats of the period, this one is unlined, a response either to shortages of materials or to the warm Virginia climate.
ProvenanceWorn in Virginia, Isle of Wight or Goochland. Said to have been Revolutionary War (private's) uniform worn by a member of the Askew or Pruden families.
