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Dyer's Record Book (USA), 1885
This is a Dyer's record book. It was manufactured by Cocheco Print Works. It is dated 1885 and we acquired it in 1945. Its medium is label: leather binding, pen and ink on paper pages, cotton samples. It is a part of the Textiles department.
Dude Never Would Be Missed
While researching one of our printer-dyer record books for the Cooper-Hewitt exhibition Multiple Choice: From Sample to Product, I discovered a curious fabric swatch on page 105. The fragment shows two incomplete figures in Japanese-style dress and includes the text “Dude Never Would Be Missed” and “Got Him On My List.” Both phrases are lyrics from Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic operetta, The Mikado, which opened in London in 1885. (By setting the operetta in Japan, Gilbert was able to satirize British politics and institutions from a safe distance.) The fabric for this particular swatch was produced as a “cheater” cloth, meaning that the printed design created the illusion of “crazy patchwork.”[1] Produced in Dover, New Hampshire by Cocheco Mills in the same year as The Mikado’s premiere, this little swatch demonstrates the wild commercial success of the operetta while also telling us how quickly 19th-century American textile mills were able to respond to a cultural phenomenon like The Mikado.
This little notebook was one of 48 printer-dyer record books acquired by the Museum in 1945 from Pacific Print Works of Lowell, Massachusetts. During my research, I learned that Cocheco Mills was purchased by Pacific Print Works in the early 20th century. Although the printer-dyer record books of both companies must have been mixed together, research has revealed at least 10 notebooks that can be attributed to Cocheco Mills. Cocheco was an enormously successful textile mill in the 19th century, and produced many charming prints for fashion and interiors that remain popular with American quilters today.
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[1] More of the fabric can be seen in a bedcover on page 127 of American Quilts and Coverlets in the Metropolitan Museum of Art by Amelia Peck.
This object was featured in our Object of the Week series in a post titled Dude Never Would Be Missed.
This object was
donated by
Frederick J. Whitehead.
It is credited Gift of Frederick J. Whitehead from the collection compiled by his father Cornelius Whitehead at the Pacific Print Works of Lawrence, Massachusetts.
- Pocket Notebook Of Inventions (USA)
- ink on paper.
- Joseph B. Friedman Papers, Archives Center, National Museum of American....
- 14.2012.141
- Album, Autograph Album with Illustrations
- tooled, gilt leather binding; brush and gouache on laid paper.
- Gift of Unknown Donor.
- 1980-32-1307
Its dimensions are
H x W: 16.7 x 98 cm (6 9/16 x 38 9/16 in.) 192 pages
Cite this object as
Dyer's Record Book (USA), 1885; Manufactured by Cocheco Print Works; label: leather binding, pen and ink on paper pages, cotton samples; H x W: 16.7 x 98 cm (6 9/16 x 38 9/16 in.) 192 pages; Gift of Frederick J. Whitehead from the collection compiled by his father Cornelius Whitehead at the Pacific Print Works of Lawrence, Massachusetts; 1945-55-20
