Garfield/Arthur political quilt with a jugate bandana as centerpiece,
about 1880, once in Shelly Zegart's inventory.
Attributed to Annie Ensminger Kready (1871-1956)/
Louisa Ensminger (1850-1899), Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
The center is known to collectors as a Jugate Bandana.
Same 1880 campaign; different bandana
The 1880 Presidential campaign seems to have seen the beginning of the
political bandana fashion.
Winning pair: Garfield/Arthur 1880
Twin portraits on paper were nothing new but campaign fabric
was innovative, particularly the bandana handkerchiefs.
1880 to 1904 were the years when they were a standard political trinket. Their introduction in 1880 begins when American textile printers adopted technology for rather inexpensive Turkey red dyeing. The Cochrane family was the chief technical innovator.
Bandanas---Turkey red and indigo blue---became a standard item of workmen's dress.
And cowboy wanna-be's.
Harrison/Morton 1888
Grover Cleveland 1884
The political cottons were primarily square bandanas meant to be cut and hemmed. But in 1888 there was a repeat yardage.
Benjamin Harrison & George Washington
Rather large-scale
Mrs. H.H. Morey of Chelsea, Vermont shows a piece at a fair.
From the Quilt Index and the Massachusetts project, 1888
Once in Julie Powell's collection; she donated it to the New England
Quilt Museum, which is opening an exhibit of her political collection on
September 17th.
Postage-stamp squares are a late-19th-century style associated with Pennsylvania's Lancaster County, particularly the town of Bowmansville.
You can buy a drawstring bag at the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America:
McKinley 1900
McKinley & T. Roosevelt/ William Jennings Bryan and Adlai Stevenson I
Glimpse of a Teddy Roosevelt quilt at a Massachusetts show.
New or Old?
The bandana
Roosevelt's campaigns in the early 1900s saw the end of the bandana fashion.
World War I and the problems with accessing German dyes were one factor.
An occasional nostalgic souvenir.
Including two prints I've drawn for Spoonflower featuring Kamala Harris and Tim Walz
A Jugate Bandana-style pair drawn from the 1888 Harrison/Washington repeat---on a smaller scale.
And a single portrait
Some days they're on sale.
Make stuff.
Related posts on political fabric: