Roller and Block-printed Cotton

Date1825-1835

Owned by Emily Hannah Badger Smith (1806 - 1882)

MediumRoller and block printed cotton

DimensionsOW: 11 5/8" OL: 20 3/4"

Credit LineGift of Beatrix T. Rumford

Object number1999-220

DescriptionThis is a rectangular textile document block-and roller-printed in reds, yellow, green, reserve white on a glazed blue cotton tabby ground. The design consists of a pillar print with floral clusters surmounting acanthus capitals in an offset vertical repeat. The green is overprinted with blue and yellow.
Label TextWorldwide trade made it possible for fashion-conscious Americans to import a variety of fabrics. Pillar printed textiles, such as this one, were especially popular between the years 1800 and 1808, and again between 1825 and 1835. Family tradition states that this printed pillar fragment was once part of a set of bed hangings used with a loom-quilted bedcover by Emily H. Badger Smith and her husband Levi Smith of Readiing, Pennsylvania.
ProvenanceThis textile is from bedhangings used with quilt (G1999-219) in 1827. Family tradition (transcribed from a storage box) states that the quilt was the "Brides Quilt" of Emily H. Badger when she married Levi Smith, April 10, 1827, in Reading, Pennsylvania. Emily Hannah Badger Smith was born in Bucksport, Maine in 1806 and died in Reading, Pennsylvania in 1882. She was the great-grandmother of Rose Clymer Rumford (Mrs. Lewis Rumford), to whom the counterpane was given by Elsie B. Clymer in November of 1955. The counterpane then came to Rose and Lewis Rumford's daughter, Beatrix Rumford.