"Showboat on the Mississippi" dress silk, Mallinson's Early American series
date: label: Date made
content: 1929
name: label: maker
content: H. R. Mallinson & Co. Inc.
notes: label: Description
content: Length of Pussy Willow (trade name) silk--fine soft radium-like plain weave fabric (mfr #1900) having an allover printed pattern (mfr #2761) titled "Showboat on the Mississippi." Scenes include a Mississippi steamboat, "Carnival at Old New Orleans," and African-Americans in the cotton fields and playing music. Colorway in tan, brown, yellow, gray, red, blue, green, and black on white ground #16b. One of the designs of the H.R. Mallinson & Co., Inc. 1929 Early American printed dress silks series. This design was inspired by the Jerome Kern/ Oscar Hammerstein musical "Showboat" which was in turn based on the novel of the same name by Edna Ferber. Judging from drawings by free-lance textile designer Walter Mitschke in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts - Boston, Mitschke designed this print and several others in the Early American series. [NB: "radium" was the term widely used in the early 20th century for a type of supple, lightweight, plain weave silk fabric. The original cataloger of this textile compared it to a familiar silk quality.]
label: Description
content: 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 City
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Textiles
label: See more items in
content: American Silks
label: See more items in
content: Migel-Mallinson Silks
label: See more items in
content: Mallinson's Early American
label: See more items in
content: Textiles
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of H.R. Mallinson & Co., Inc.
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: TE.T05934
label: catalog number
content: T5934
label: catalog number
content: T (/) 5934
label: accession number
content: 104252
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Fabric, Printed
label: Object Name
content: fabric length
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: silk (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: plain weave; cylinder-printed (overall production method/technique)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 36 in x 39 in; 91.44 cm x 99.06 cm