Placemat, "Reducing", Folly Cove Designers; 1949
date: label: Date made
content: 1949
name: label: maker
content: Folly Cove Designers
label: artist/designer
content: Burton, Virginia Lee
label: association
content: Folly Cove Designers
notes: label: Description
content: Placemat; cotton print in deep coral red on a natural ground, depiction of a young woman performing different callisthenics, "Reducing" by Virginia Lee Burton (Virginia Demetrios) of Folly Cove Designers, Gloucester, MA, 1949. Placemat shows a young woman performing four different exercises in order to lose weight. At first she is shown bending to touch her toes, the second series has her swinging her legs, the third shows her lying on her back doing bicycle kicks in the air, and in the last segment she is jumping rope. All the while she is shown in various stages of weight loss. A scalloped background incorporates a looped tape measure, also shown with the loops growing tighter along with the woman's weight "reduction".
label: Description
content: The topics of weight loss and body image are constantly in the news, popular magazines, media, and now social media. This is a comic look at weight reduction efforts – with the irony of using weight loss imagery on a placemat destined for a table at which one ate. This object illustrates the gender expectations of its time and provides context for discussions of past and contemporary issues relating to gender, body image, food, and exercise.
label: Description
content: 12.5” L X 19” W
label: Description
content: ATHM Collection - # 2014.216.2; gift of Marjorie J. Short
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: Place Made
content: United States: Massachusetts, Gloucester
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Textiles
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: American Textile History Museum Collection
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2017.0232.55
label: catalog number
content: 2017.0232.55
label: accession number
content: 2017.0232
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Placemat
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: cotton (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: plain weave; screen printed (overall production method/technique)