From lap to loom: The transition of Marseilles white work from hand to machine

Chronicle of the Early American Industries Association, Inc., The, Mar 2001 by Atkins, Jacqueline M

In Europe, professionals more often than not did the complex and time-consuming decorative needlework that characterized white work. Professionally produced imports were much coveted and sought-after in North America, but they were also very expensive. One 1745 inventory, for example, notes that 20 guineas were spent for a "Marcels bed [coverlet] and canopy..." imported via England.12 This amount was far greater than the average annual income of most of the American population of the time. Thus, for the most part, American women were more likely to provide their own needle decoration than to purchase it, and the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries saw an explosion in the production of decorative quilted, stuffed, corded, embroidered, and/or candlewicked bed covers and related furnishings.13 Many have designs closely related to those seen in Marseilles quilted bed covers, and it is quite possible that American women took their design inspiration from these textiles that they might have seen, if not owned. The white work imported from Marseilles nevertheless remained the white work of choice for those who could afford them, whether in the form of finished bed covers, petticoats, or yardage.

The Quilted Textiles of Marseilles

The desirability of the Marseilles white work was not a new phenomenon. Marseilles had been known for its fine quilting since the fifteenth century, when there is some evidence of a cottage industry in quilted goods made by local women.14 Beginning in the seventeenth century, similar quilted and corded white work was being produced elsewhere-Sicily, for example, and even such far-flung locales as Portuguese Goa on the west coast of India.15 However, seventeenth-century Marseilles held the reputation for the highest quality work as well as for the ability to produce and export it on a large scale. Hundreds of commercial ateliers in and around Marseilles employed thousands of professional and domestic needlewomen to produce the finely detailed hand-quilted, corded, and stuffed bed covers, clothing, and yard goods that were in demand in many parts of the world.

It should be noted here that the most traditional Marseilles quilting is not true quilting, which implies a three-layer "sandwich" of top, batting, and backing. Traditional Marseilles quilting is composed of two layers of fabric, a finely woven one for the top layer and a more loosely woven one for the back, with yarn, cord, or cotton inserted between them to define the designs. The quilter first outlines her design with fine, tiny stitches, sewing front and back layers together at the same time. She then uses a bodkin or a large-eyed needle to force the cording or stuffing material through the backing fabric into the stitched outlines to produce a three dimensional pattern.16 The background areas of some Marseilles quilts have no stuffing or cording, but the pattern stitches are set so closely and tightly that they give a textured effect to the whole. These heavily stitched, stuffed, and corded textiles often became quite weighty-a clue to which is given in this correspondence from an English gentleman to a London merchant from whom he had ordered a "neat white quilted calico petticoat for my Mother which must be a yard and four inches long." Once the petticoat was received, however, he returned it, noting that, "It is so heavy my mother cannot wearing it Fsic]."17