Between the Threads

Before we start today’s blog, I must address my gaffe. I have been working on this blog for just over five months now but have not yet engaged with cloth. That “seams” as though it should be considered a crime. Being such that Fall River was known as “Spindle City” and – by the late eighteen-hundreds – was one of the largest producers of cotton textiles in the world.

Well, my patient friends, the wait is over and the time for warps and wefts is now.

This beautiful little Celanese Striped Twill textile sample was produced at the Durfee Mills. Cream in color and woven with a light lavender stripe, this swatch was part of the company’s sample collection from the 1920s.

There is more to glean from this piece besides the color. Take for instance the name of the material; Celanese Twill. According to “A Comprehensive Diary of Textile Terms” by Alfred Higgins and Rudolph LaVault, Celanese is a “trade name for a cellulose acetate rayon yarn … also the fabric made from this yarn.” Twill is a type of weave “which produces distinct lines (wales) running diagonally across the cloth.”

The Durfee Mills was in operation from 1867-1935. The mill was named in honor of Bradford Mathew Chaloner Durfee’s father – Major Bradford Durfee. B.M.C. was elected President and interestingly, his uncle, David Anthony Brayton Sr., who bought the stone mansion that now houses the FRHS from Robert K. Remington in 1878, was elected treasurer.

Fall River was built on cotton textiles and the efforts and labors of the hundreds of thousands of workers who were employed by the mills. The city would not have been as world renowned if not for the busy spindles and the material they fabricated.

While the textile mills are no longer in operation, it is a pleasure to keep their history alive by sharing an example of what they manufactured. It is one of the many textile samples in the permanent collection of the FRHS.