Although we were eager to begin treatment of the banner, we were equally fascinated by the history and subject matter.   “The Yankee Doodle Detective” was a comedy play considered to be “one of the best melodramas ever produced.” It was written by and starred James Kyrle Mac Curdy, a Californian who lived from 5/2/1875 to 12/5/1923. 

The history of the Lawrence Opera House is also interesting. It was built by the Boston & Lowell Railroad between 1878 and 1880 and its first performance was held on May 26, 1881. Located at 326 Essex Street, near B&L’s Grand Depot, the Lawrence Opera House was long considered the most ornamental building in the city. It was renamed The Rialto in 1920, and was then known for vaudevillian acts and cinema. It became the Winter Garden Auditorium around 1923 and was eventually demolished in the 1940s.

The banner is owned by a private citizen who has loaned it several times to the Lawrence Heritage State Park in Massachusetts. The banner is dirty and stained. It had been folded for an extended period of time, during which it was damaged by water. There are numerous tears, especially at the corners, from which presumably it was hung. 

Mac Curdy is also known for “A Little Girl in a Big City” and “Pedro the Italian,” which was one of the first works of theater in which an Italian man was portray in a romantic, positive role. Mac Curdy died in Hollywood at the age of 47. His wife, fellow actor Kate Woods Fiske, outlived her husband by twenty five years. 

The length and condition of the banner suggest that it could have been stretched across a street, in front of the building front, or even inside the B&L railroad depot. Its display life was probably only a few weeks originally, but it has survived nearly 100 years as a testament to the cosmopolitan energy of early 20th-century Lawrence, Massachusetts.

Camille Myers Breeze founded Museum Textile services in 1999. She is a prolific author, and educator of museum personnel and emerging conservation professionals in the US and abroad.

Before Camille's 2 pm lecture to Museum Studies students, she and Kate started mounting the purported 1801 Wedding dress of Eliza Wheaton, the college's namesake. The extremely fragile dress has been heavily altered as recently as the early 20th century, when the embroidered net cape and waistband were apparently added.

Tracing the Thread is on exhibit through February 13, 2015. The Beard Gallery is located in the Watson Fine Arts Building at Wheaton College and is open Monday through Saturday from 12:30 to 4:30 pm. 

The accession record for the cloak reads, “Scarlet riding cape worn by Hon. Wm. [Squire Samuel – penciled in] White who lived at White’s Corner, Main Street; this Mr. White, so folk lore says, was a six feet tall man, rode on a white horse, wore a wig and black cocked hat, and made a striking figure as he rode through the village.” In 1889, these "articles of dress" were owned by Samuel's great grandson, James Davis White. They were later donated to the Buttonwoods Museum but the cloak had not been seen by any living staff until it was discovered safe and sound in 2013.

The cloak is hand-stitched of red wool broadcloth. It closed at the neck with one button and tied with a brown braided-silk cord. Nine additional buttons, in three sets of three, run down the front. Only the top two buttonholes functioned, and they closed in the opposite direction of the very top button. All of the buttons, of which six remain wholly or partially intact, are made of wood and wrapped decoratively with wool thread. 

The cloak has an inner collar of two layers that closed with three missing buttons and has a slight peak at the back. The lower collar is made of a single layer of wool with a plain seam on the underside. The presence of this seam, as well as the fine finishing on the entire inner collar, suggest that neither of these collars was originally a hood. The cloak was in fair condition with minor insect damage and soiling from wear and display, most notably on the shoulders and collar.

A thorough treatment of the White genealogy can be found in “The Descendants of William White of Haverhill, Mass.” written by the Hon. Daniel Appleton White in 1862. The Samuel White Esq. mentioned in the accession note lived from 1765-1801. He is the great, great, grandson of William White, one of Haverhill’s first settlers. Samuel was a “prominent and patriotic citizen” whose name is on a plaque on the bell that once hung in the First Baptist Meeting House, later moved the Baptist Meeting House in Plaistow, NH. He is immortalized in Annie Frances Richard’s notes to the second edition of the book as follows: "It is said that 'Squire White possessed great personal attractions, and was a conspicuous figure as he rode about the town on his fine horse, in his "wig and red cloak." 

In 1744, Merrimack Street was divided into large lots including Lot Number One at the corner of Merrimack and Main Streets. A Samuel White, Esquire, acquired the land and built a house for himself and his bride, Sarah Brown. The Whites lived at White's Corner until April 16, 1775, when a great fire destroyed their home and 16 other buildings on the west side of Main Street. Three days after the fire, on April 19, 1775, Haverhill's Minutemen gathered before marching to the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Conservation of Samuel White's cloak consisted of surface cleaning followed by wetcleaning. Because costume historian Henry Cook determined that the thread holding the buttons to the cloak is original, the buttons were encased in protective netting before treatment. The Buttonwoods Museum staff will hope to restore and replicate the buttons before the cloak is eventually exhibited.

Camille Myers Breeze founded Museum Textile services in 1999. She is a prolific author, and educator of museum personnel and emerging conservation professionals in the US and abroad.

The coverlet bears the seal of the President of the United States and the date 1831. The eagle seal was used as early as April 1789, and the date of 1831 is probably the date the coverlet was woven. It is a double weave, meaning that there are two sets of warps and two sets of wefts. In this case, there is a blue wool and a white cotton of each element. When the white warp is on the front, the blue warp is on the back, and likewise with the weft, creating a mirrored image. 

Upon arrival, the coverlet was dirty and discolored with several areas of damage, including a large swath of missing blue yarns along the bottom edge. One possible explanation for this is insect damage--the blue is wool and attractive to moths and carpet beetles. The large loss may also have been caused by abrasion or wear; we'll never know for sure.

After this project had been signed under contract, a new book was added to the MTS library entitled Weaving a Legacy: The Don and Jean Stuck Coverlet Collection. The catalog was written by Clarita S. Anderson for a 1995 exhibit at the Columbus Museum of Art. We were excited to find that Plate 7 of this book is a nearly identical Presidential coverlet. The most notable difference between the two is that the illustrated coverlet has a fringe on the sides and bottom and does not have the same pattern of damage. Like our client's coverlet, this one is yellowed from cellulosic degradation. We easily solved the problem by wetcleaning our client's coverlet and drying it beneath a cotton wicking sheet. Although the water had run clear when we had finished washing the coverlet, when it was dry the wicking cloth showed a great deal of additional discoloration and soil that was trapped in the plush yarns.

We also learned from Anderson that, at the time of her exhibition, only four quilts were known bearing the Great Eagle Seal, ranging in date from 1810 to 1830. She appears to have not known any additional matching coverlets.

Anderson's essay attributes the illustrated coverlet to New York based primarily on the fact that it has quite an early date (1831) and is a full 76 wide with no center seam. She explains that such early dated coverlets have only been found in New York and New Jersey. Of the 1,824 New York coverlets known, only 29 are dated 1831 or earlier and are seamless; of the 253 New Jersey coverlets known there is only one full-loom width example dated to 1831 or earlier. The coverlet treated at MTS was purchased on auction in upstate New York by a collector who lives in the region, which seems to corroborate the New York origin. 

The owner of the coverlet treated by MTS opted to have us restore the pattern in the damaged area of his coverlet. MTS intern Kate Herron was given the daunting task of dyeing wool yarns to match the original. She used natural-colored Appleton two-ply yarn and dyed them with Jacquard acid dyes to a bright navy color. Kate then drafted the woven pattern onto paper as a guide. She first floated new vertical wool warp and then wove in the blue weft. All of the white cotton yarns were in place--Kate only had to pass the new yarn over and under itself on both sides of the coverlet. It was no easy task but the results are excellent and would fool the eye of all but a trained textile specialist.

Camille Myers Breeze founded Museum Textile services in 1999. She is a prolific author, and educator of museum personnel and emerging conservation professionals in the US and abroad.

Being a textile conservator is an exciting and rewarding career, made even better by the awesome team I get to work with. We have had the great fortune to conserve objects from mummies to mittens, castle walls to Masonic dolls, and everything in between. 

Thank you for all the patronage and friendship that have propelled Museum Textile Services these last 15 years. As always, you are encouraged to follow us on Facebook and to contact me with any questions using our web form.

Here's to 30 more years at MTS!

Camille Myers Breeze founded Museum Textile services in 1999. She is a prolific author, and educator of museum personnel and emerging conservation professionals in the US and abroad.

Some of the pages contain samples consistent with 19th century styles, such as baleen stays or the straw and grass trims pictured at left. Others, such as these ribbons, or "franzisisches (sp?)," may be from the early 20th century. The columns to the right and left of the samples probably contain prices and quantities, and the consistency of the handwriting begs the question whether a single person was responsible for keeping this ledger.

In the latter half of the 19th century, the city of Leipzig experienced burst of rapid industrial growth, particularly in the areas of printing and textile manufacturing.  It makes sense, therefore, that a sample book such as this could have been assembled by a manufacturers to either archive or showcase the full extent of their production line. The incredible variety of materials collected in this book also suggests that the book could have been assembled by a salesman or shopkeeper to easily exhibit their range of offerings from multiple factories in place of cumbersome bolts and spools.

The travels the Leipzig swatch book took in the early 20th century are easier to decode. The book came to us in a custom-made cardboard box labeled, “The Addis Co.” The W.I. Addis Co. clothing store was founded in 1916 in Syracuse, NY,  and merged with Dey Bros. department store before going bankrupt in 1992. 

The book then traveled down to New York City--a label inside the box cover reads, “Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc, 980 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10021.” The Parke-Bernet Galleries began in 1937 and quickly became New York’s largest auction house. They were purchased in 1964 by Sotheby’s & Co. 

Just above the paper label is an intriguing inscription reading “Textile: Museum: ‘Cooper Union’ Downtown N.Y.” We will never know whether the book belonged to the Cooper Union prior to arriving at Parke-Bernet, or was purchased on auction by the school. 

The Leipzig swatch book was given to its current owner by his grandfather in the 1980s. Although the owner had only opened the box a dozen times since, and had stored it in a cool and dry place, the book and box were showing signs of ageing. Because the paper and binding of the book were in generally stable condition, paper conservator Bryan Owen referred the owner to MTS to determine the preservation needs of the textiles inside. 

Soot and particulate matter were removed from the paper and textile samples using a HEPA vacuum and vulcanized rubber sponges. Interleaving the pages of the book with archival tissue was decided against due to the stress that it would place on the binding. Treatment concluded by wrapping the book in rayon tissue and placing it in a new custom box lined with Volara. Both the new and original boxes were returned to the owner.

Kate Herron Gendreau  joined the MTS team in 2014 as in intern while working on the completion of her MLA in Museum Studies at the Harvard Extension School.  When she is not busy with work and school, she teaches hand embroidery in Boston in addition to designing and selling her own patterns. 

As I explain in the Podcast, beware of any gown preservation specialist who seals your dress in a box and tells you not to open it. What are they afraid you will find? Proper archival storage products are dye and acid free, made of inert plastics, and preferably opaque to protect the contents from light. Although many archival storage boxes are made of acid-free cardboard, At MTS we prefer archival polypropylene storage boxes. They are durable, opaque, pest resistant, and remain pH neutral forever. Cardboard boxes are more fragile, an easy target for pests, and they reacidify from their contents and environment. 

Camille Myers Breeze founded Museum Textile services in 1999. She is a prolific author, and educator of museum personnel and emerging conservation professionals in the US and abroad.

The tuition and materials fee for this class is $880. This class is held at the beautiful Campbell Center campus in Mount Carroll, IL. Students may apply credits from this class toward Specialty Track certification in Textiles. To register, visit the Campbell Center web page at www.campbellcenter.org.

Camille Myers Breeze founded Museum Textile services in 1999. She is a prolific author, and educator of museum personnel and emerging conservation professionals in the US and abroad.