Flying the flag
FURTHER to recent correspondence regarding the successful search to establish the origins of what some believe is America's oldest flag, which Andrew Phillips informs us hails from a workshop in Sudbury's Cross Street.
Curiously, it was a piece of such cloth, the Flag of Independence, that led to the Sudbury silk flag weavers’ demise.
Not least, cotton: cotton being the limiting factor that prevented flags made of silk from taking their respectful places among British antiques and the determining factor in identifying why Sudbury lost her trade in silken flags to the United States.
Most of the earlier English samples which have survived are made of silk and not other fabrics. And we have an Englishman to blame!
Textile printing was established in England in 1690 by a French refugee who opened a workshop near Richmond. Progress was slow until the Clayton Print Works was established in Lancashire in 1764. In 1770, calico was printed with the use of engraved plates and in 1783 Thomas Bell furthered the printing process on cloth by his invention of the roller printing machine.
This made possible the printing of fabrics such as silk flags and ship’s bunting, which as Phillips writes, helped keep Sudbury silk weaving alive.
Contemporaneously, the textile printing industry had begun in the United States with the manufacture of silken banners memorialising the death of the first president, George Washington (1789-97). From that time on, every presidential and vice-presidential candidate had his likeness produced in cloth, mostly on campaign banners and kerchiefs. Military campaigns and other national events were also recorded.
By the beginning of the 19th century American printers were churning out commemorative cotton textiles, not only on pennants and broadsides and flags, but kerchiefs, bandanas, bedspreads and quilts, as well as children’s instructional stories and poems, and games.
In time, in America, textiles served as commemorative souvenirs especially illustrating the advancement in industry, technology, architecture and art.
America went on to produce a pictorial record of American history that depicted in retrospect the nation’s political, social and cultural past.
FAITH HINES, Social historian
Old Court
Long Melford
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Sudbury
Friday 25 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 12 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 22 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 12 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 20 mph
Wind direction: East
