Bates is a familiar brand to many, remembered fondly perhaps from a bedspread or mid-century clothing. Textiles & Design: Bates Mill 1930-1990 presents an engaging story of fabrics from Bates Manufacturing Company (Bates Mill) of Lewiston, Maine (founded 1850). During the post-World War II era, Bates maintained a head office and design studio in New York, regional sales offices nationwide, and production facilities in Maine. This book was inspired by the 2016-17 exhibition “Covering the Nation: The Art of the Bates Bedspread” at Museum L-A (Lewiston-Auburn) in Lewiston, Maine.
Textile designer and historian Jacqueline Field, the guest curator of the exhibition, highlights the wide range of woven and printed textiles Bates produced during the second half of the twentieth century. Organized by theme, each chapter opens with an essay that considers the historical context for one individual product line and concludes with ample related illustrations. Overall, the illustrations provide a valuable record of American middle and upper-middle-class lifestyles, changing taste in interior décor, and growing consumer culture. Additionally, the interspersed factory floor pictures and mill life anecdotes offer insight into aspects of textile production not usually covered. Museum L-A gave the author access to holdings that included catalogues, advertisements, newsletters, annual reports, photographs, magazines, and other records. The book is illustrated with more than 275 images of Bates products, including catalogue photographs of bedspreads in stylish room vignettes, extant textiles, design sketches, advertisements, window displays, and more.
Chapter 1, “Tots to Teens,” describes bedspread designs inspired by popular culture, from nursery rhymes in the 1930s to astronauts in the 1970s, plus numerous other kid-friendly themes. Chapter 2, “Wartime,” highlights Bates astonishing wartime contributions. The company produced fabric for a range of military usage—parachutes, uniforms, hospital sheets—and paid tribute on the Home Front with popular bedspread designs like “Midway” to commemorate the Battle of Midway. Bates produced knitting bags made from bedspread fabrics beginning in 1941. Chapter 3, “Dorms and Bates Mill College Board,” describes Bates’ unique and economically successful use of student market researchers to determine college students’ preferences for dorm bedspread designs. Chapter 4, “Woven Florals,” discusses jacquard weaving, the use of mixed fibers, and the “magic” of cross-dyeing.
Chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8 consider a variety of machine fabrications, some derived from colonial textiles: candlewick, chenille, crests, terry loop, matelassé, and Americana reproductions. In Chapter 6 Bates mechanization of terry loop production is significant for anyone interested in colonial weaving. Chapter 9, “Screen Printing,” shifts the focus to the mill’s fascinating progression from hand to large-scale, automated screen printing, consistent with emerging modern designs of the 1960s. Chapter 10, “Rayon and Synthetics,” describes the influence of synthetic fibers on product design. Chapter 11, “Fashion Fabrics,” elaborates on Bates Mill’s aggressive venture into the piece goods and home sewing markets from 1945 until the 1970s. French and American designers interpreted Bates fabrics in cooperation with Vogue patterns—the Schiaparelli cocktail dress is a standout. Bates made fabrics for every type of apparel.
The book concludes with Chapter 12, “Gallery: Designers and Designs,” which acknowledges otherwise anonymous individuals, and Chapter 13, “Conclusion: Continuation of the Legacy,” which chronicles the mill’s demise, a fate suffered by so many textile companies in the 1970s. Information about present-day products inspired by Bates designs and sold at Museum L-A in Lewiston and at Maine Heritage Weavers in Monmouth, Maine, appears with the chapter endnotes, bibliography, references, and further reading, plus a detailed timeline of Bates Mill’s history.
Textiles & Designs: Bates Mill 1930-1990 pays homage to the hard work and creativity of generations of mill workers during the second half of the twentieth century. Accessible and enjoyable for general readers, the book will also prove useful to scholars seeking to understand the historic arc of productivity—and ultimate demise—in American textile manufacturing.
Book Author Bio Note: Jacqueline Field, an experienced textile designer and long-time TSA member, co-authored the award-winning book, American Silk: 1830-1930 (Texas Tech University Press), and has published numerous articles on textiles and dress. She is retired from her teaching position at Westbrook College, Maine.
Available from Amazon and Museum L-A: info@museumla.org or 207-333-3881
This announcement was written by Susan M. Strawn, professor emerita of Apparel Design and Merchandising at Dominican University (Illinois). A PieceWork contributing editor, she studies historical/cultural textiles and is author of Knitting America: A Glorious History from Warm Socks to High Art (St. Paul: Voyageur, 2007).
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