Days-of-the-Week Tablecloth
date: label: Date
content: 1943
notes: label: Caption
content: This partially finished tablecloth reprises housekeeping activities from a coordinating days-of the-week towel set. Ironing and baking appear in colorful cross stitch, while stamped imprints hint at other tasks to be embroidered, including laundry, sewing, grocery shopping, and cleaning. Notably, Sunday’s “rest” design is absent. The scenes create six place settings along top and bottom rectangular borders with floral insets at the corners. The linen cloth is part of a needlecraft kit, a popular creative endeavor in the 1940s, when smaller, single-family homes and new appliances eased the burden of housework for middle-class women. An apron completes the decorative set (2008.0002.0006a-g). Mary Thompson Ford (1861-1960) was both college-educated and a proud homemaker in Jersey City, NJ. Her daughter Blanche Ford Hart (1897-1992) likely embroidered the tablecloth along with the towels and apron.
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anacostia Community Museum Collection
creditLine: label: Cite As
content: Anacostia Community Museum, Smithsonian Institution, gift of Theresa Allen
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: Anacostia Community Museum
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 2008.0002.0006f
objectType: label: Type
content: cloth
objectRights: label: Restrictions & Rights
content: CC0
physicalDescription: label: Medium
content: linen, cotton
label: Dimensions
content: 36 5/8 × 52 1/2 in. (93 × 133.3 cm)