Day dress of H.R. Mallinson's "Showboat on the Mississippi" printed silk, Early American series
date: label: date made
content: ca. 1929
name: label: maker
content: H. R. Mallinson & Co. Inc.
notes: label: Description
content: Day dress of H.R. Mallinson & Co., Inc. Pussy Willow (trade name) silk in the "Showboat on the Mississippi" design from the 1929 "Early American" print series. The print has scenes of New Orleans, a paddle wheel steam boat, African-Americans picking cotton, dancing, and playing music, connected by floral motifs. The dress is typically 1929 in style, with a dropped waist, two-tiered circular cut skirt, long sleeves with covered button and loop closures, and a v-neckline. The neck and waist are trimmed with a tie and sash in two colors of silk to coordinate with the print. Inspired in part by the Broadway hit musical, Showboat, the scenes depict a pre-Civil War Southern culture, and viewers today might see these images differently than they were originally meant. In 1929 the Mallinson firm was commenting on the bleak truth of slavery and the myth of the Old South, the company’s publicity stated “…as recently as 66 years ago, enlightened Americans fought for and died in the belief that to derive their very existence, prosperity and luxury from the unrecompensed sweat of another man’s brow was wholly right and justifiable.” The dress is extremely well made, probably by a skilled dressmaker for a client, from fabric purchased by the client at a fabric shop or department store. Examples of both the print design and the ground cloth are among the Mallinson Early American series examples in the textile collection. Mallinson's 1929 "Early American" series of printed dress silks was based on historical events and figures that were perceived at the time to consitute a shared American story. It was the last of the company's line of designs based on American themes in which each design was printed in at least seven colors, in several colorways, on three or four different ground cloths. The stock market crash and economic depression that followed made the investment in this kind of design unprofitable.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: New York, New York
topic: label: web subject
content: Fashion
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Textiles
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content: American Silks
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content: American Silk Industry
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content: Migel-Mallinson Silks
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content: Textiles
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content: Mallinson's Early American
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2015.0335.01
label: accession number
content: 2015.0335
label: catalog number
content: 2015.0335.01
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Day dress
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 47 in; 119.38 cm