Subject: Re: grain sacks made into ???? From: Brian Bigler <usemeum@mhtc.net> Message-ID: <b7d28633-52eb-b44a-0885-62b751323cdd@mhtc.net> Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2020 13:00:56 -0600
Hello Mary
I am going to take a few guesses at what the items are that you have
because it is difficult not seeing them in person.
The dimensions you give and the coarseness of the fabric indicates that
this is a recycled (or as they say today "up cycled") grain bag - the
long narrow kind used for storing and hauling farmer's grain in the last
half of the 19th century. Many of these were made by Bemis or Ames and
were touted as "seamless" by the manufacture. The printing on these was
blue or black or sometimes had red striping running the length of the
bag - all printing was fairly easy to remove by using bleach or lye
soap. If you look inside the bag you may see evidence of a label as farm
women would often invert these before making them into something useful.
The lace on this object is commercially made and was readily available
through mail order or the local store.
Now for use:
Guess number one and most practical. Because there are ties on one end
of this piece and lace only on the other it was meant to be fastened to
something from that end only. My first guess is the back of a chair.
Women made cushions for chairs to make them more comfortable and they
were sometimes placed over thin batten filled pillows or cushions.
Other times they were just left as double layered fabric such as found
in the bag itself. They were made so that by removing a few threads
they could be taken off the pillow and washed periodically. Also, in
the days before air-conditioning these were used to kept sweaty backs
from sticking to varnished surfaces or rough caned surfaces as in the
case of many 19th century rocking chairs. Victorians especially liked
fabrics hung from furniture as part of that parlor clutter look
prevalent then.
Guess number two. In the days when mostly men wore hair gels, women
fashioned what are called antimacassars to protect furniture. Mostly in
the form of doilies that could be pinned to the backs and arms of fabric
covered chairs and sofas, These were easily removed for the laundry.
These would have been prevalent at the end of the 19th century and into
the beginning of the 20th. Your pieces date to this time-period.
Finally and least possible. These may have been used as Victorian era
splashers which were hung from the harp of a washstand or fashioned to
the wall behind a washstand where the pitcher and bowl sat. These
collected the water and soap that would have otherwise been splashed on
walls of bedrooms. Because of the length and width of your pieces this
is a less likely use for them, but not out of the running as a
possibility. These were also hung behind the buckets of water that were
used for drinking.
There is one other option and that of these being tied to a dowel in
place of a roller towel and used for drying hands. Usually these types
of towels had a loop of fabric at one corner only.
Hope you are doing well Mary
Brian J. Bigler - Mount Horeb
Exhibit Designer and Museum Consultant
On 11/16/2020 4:10 PM, Mary Dibble wrote:
> Good afternoon
>
> I am attaching a photo of one of three similar items we found in a box
> in our attic eaves marked "grain sack linen". This one is 38 inches
> long and about 14 and a half inches wide. All three have different
> designs but are pretty close in dimensions. They are like really long
> slender pillow shams.
>
> I'm assuming a frugal housewife washed the grain sacks, cut out the
> printed company name, and then tatted them into something special.
> Does anyone see something else here?
>
> And can anyone identify what they would have been used for and what
> they would have been filled with? Does anyone have a name for them?
>
> Thanks
>
> Mary Dibble
> New Glarus Historical Society