Plaid blanket

[Hank Trent]

Re: Plaid blanket

What does this matter? Seriously - what bearing does this have on whether it's appropriate or not? Folks continue to argue natural vs. modern dye, but fundamentally fail to understand that chemically compounded dyes had been in use on a commercial production level for some 20 yrs.

Period chemical dyes aren't the same as modern chemical dyes. I agree that I think it's lower priority than more obvious things. The vast majority of cotton calico used in reenacting is modern dyed for example, and if we eliminated all of it, our recreated 1860s world would look strange.

But chemical dyes have changed quite a bit since the days of William Perkins. About 15 years ago, when I was looking for some actual mauve fabric, no one knew of any or knew how to make it. Don't know if things have changed since then, but at that time, natural dyes or modern dyes were the only choices, since there were some hobbyists and dealers using/selling natural dyes, but no one cared about coal-tar.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Plaid blanket

Hallo!

Being overly brief...

Much of natural dyes and dyestuffs such as plants, leaves, nuts, barks, and roots (aka vegetable dyes) is part of a complicated craft. There are two types of dyestuffs: substantive and adjective. "Substantive' is a dyestuff that imparts color witbout the use of a (chemical) mordant. For example. lichens, tree bark, or say Black Walnuts. An adjective dyestuff requires the additionn of a mordant to intentisfy a color and to set it or make it "permanent."

And one did not have to wait until the Industrial Revolution. The craft of dyeing was already centuries/milennia old, with mordanting chemicals not known as "chemicals." Pick some.. Alum is aluminum potassium sulfate. Blue Vitriol is copper sulfate. Chrome is potassium dichromate. Glauber's Salts is sodium sulphate. Urine is uric acid.

Again being overly brief, these should not be confused with post Perkins era "aniline" dyes. But yes, they are chemicals.

On the Sliding Scale of Imperfection...

Yes, we do allow for "psychological standards" and compromises at times. A psychological standard is one that is in the mind, where osmething that to the unaided human eye, sort of a microscope, chemcial analysis, or metalurgical testing we cannot see it as anything diffect.

Two commonly accepted psych standards are the use of steel for iron, or say the use of aniline blue dye for "vegetable' indigo dyed uniforms.

Here on the AC, and in this community we strive for the so-called "Gold Standard:"

1. Period raw materials
2. Period models, patterns, or forms.
3. Period methods of construction or manufacture.

And, unless one's impression IS the researched and documeted to person, time, and place portrayal, focusing on the rare and the exceptions distorts history and can come to inaccurately present and and represent or portray the exceptions as the norm or universal "truth."

The mods have so far kept this thread open because it morphed into being of value in finding historically accurate or correct blankets.

Please keep it that way. Thanks.

Curt
Dabbler Dyer Mess

[Mutt]

Re: Plaid blanket

Going back to prisoner blankies, check this guy's out: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource...b12674/?co=cwp

[MissMia]

Re: Plaid blanket

Going back to prisoner blankies, check this guy's out: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource...b12674/?co=cwp

Excellent photo!
I certainly have gleaned some great info from this thread--it's right on time and is a good help for my impression.

[RNMCSA]

Re: Plaid blanket

I hope this link works, it is a short past thread on the AC that is relavent to our disscussion here.

http://www.authentic-campaigner.com/forum/showthread.php?21690-Interesting-Quote-on-Blankets-in-the-ANV

[RNMCSA]

Re: Plaid blanket

For those still interested. I found this site that has some original coverlets etc. The colors and patterns are astounding. Let me be clear I am not advocating we all run out and purchase fancy coverlets, I simply find the variety interesting. Over the past couple of weeks I have been reading through many period news paper articles etc. I have found many instances of all sorts of Govt. officials imploring the people to donate, blankets, coverlets, comforts, carpet, etc. Also listed in some have been numbers of such recieved and given to the troops in this manner. I am unsure of copy rites with them and a lot of them have been scanned documents (my eyes hurt) so I did not copy directly to here. Some that have been useful are from Athens Ga., Richmond Va, etc. a google search of news paper archives of most any area of interest will turn up a lot. One of the issues I have run into as far as pictures of originals is there does not seem to be many. So if anyone has such doccumentation or pictures etc. please share. Here is the link I mentioned.

http://www.historic-american.com/WovenCoverlets.html