"Longfellow Yellow": Could it be Natural?

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In the last MTS Blog, we introduced you to the Spanish-style dress made for "Fanny" Appleton Longfellow (1817–1861), wife of author Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. While the style itself is bold, the most striking aspect of the Longfellow dress is its color combination: a deep black velvet, paired with a vivid lemony yellow silk that sometimes seems gold and sometimes acquires a greenish cast.

Detail of Fanny Appleton Longfellow's yellow dress. Image by MTS. Courtesy National Park Service, Longfellow House - Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site.

In the 1850s, the color yellow could be created either with chemical dyes or with dozens of different vegetal dyes. The four natural dyes most often found in dyer’s manuals of the time were quercitron bark, weld, fustic, and turmeric. Of those, quercitron was the most common due to its combination of strength and economy. Weld, a popular yellow dyestuff for centuries, was still used a great deal. Turmeric would have been the most expensive option, but is definitely not the culprit here: its hallmark is a warmer, golden color. The last option, fustic (both ‘old’ and ‘young’), does not yield so vivid a shade as this, nor one so colorfast. ​

Yellow dress c. 1836. British. Silk. MMA 1971.47.3a–e

If the Longfellow dress is dyed with a natural dye, weld and quercitron are the most viable options. They can both produce a bright lemon yellow when combined with an alum mordant, and they fare better over time and use than the others. Weld, in particular, is famous for leaning to cooler, greenish yellows, while quercitron more easily tends to golden (but can achieve any of weld’s tones with ease). It is hard to say if one seems more likely than the other, though; without concrete evidence, we can only state that quercitron is more likely because it was more popular at the time. From its introduction by the chemist Edward Bancroft in 1775, it became known as a bright and colorfast dyestuff–better than anything before it. While weld was known to diminish in contact with air and light, quercitron was not as prone to fading. It was also cheaper and easier to use. ​

Whether or not either quercitron or weld is responsible for the "Longfellow yellow," it remains that such a color was possible to achieve before the advent of aniline dyes in the 1860s. There are extant vibrant yellow gowns in several museum collections, with colors ranging from true golden to a greenish acid yellow.

Yellow slippers c. 1830-35. British. Silk. VAM T.178&A-1962

Additional reading: Hansen, Heather Nicole. The Quest for Quercitron: Revealing the Story of a Forgotten Dye. Master’s Thesis, Winter 2011. University of Delaware.

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Kenna Libes is a Public Humanities MA student at Brown University. She got her start at the Smithsonian, and then fell in love with New England while sewing at Plimoth Plantation. Currently, she is working on editing her first paper for publication. ​