The art of the Bates bedspread

Museum L-A exhibit highlights the beauty and techniques of the many bedspreads created by Bates Manufacturing Co.

The topic was Bates bedspreads and their fate.

Textile historian Jacqueline Field asked rhetorically, “Where did the bedspreads end up? No one wasted textiles. Cloth, in the old days, would be used until it literally fell apart. They would not have been taken to the dump.”

No, bedspreads weren’t taken to the dump. Fortunately, many were passed down from one generation to another; maybe stored in attics and in trunks. They ended up in estate sales, antique shops and eventually even online trading posts like eBay and Etsy. And over the last decade, some of the beautiful artifacts have been finding their way back home to Lewiston, where a stunning collection of them has been assembled and curated for Museum L-A’s current exhibit: “Covering the Nation: the Art of the Bates Bedspread.”

Executive Director Rachel Desgrosseilliers remembers having “a small collection of bedspreads, 12 to be exact” when she started work at the museum in 2004. “I started to talk to people. I went to the internet trying to track down Bates bedspreads. I bought some.”

She found there were other people like her, looking for the iconic products. She remembers bidding for an item against a woman who had collected “over 400 Bates bedspreads because she just loved them.”

Desgrosseilliers’ efforts, it turns out, have been helped by Museum L-A’s 2004 “Millworkers’ Reunion,” which started amassing oral histories from the men and women who worked in Lewiston-Auburn’s powerful manufacturing center during its heyday. A broad range of employees were interviewed, from floor sweepers to loom fixers to the president of the company.

In addition to giving former employees a forum to tell and record their stories, the oral history project provided a sense that someone cared about their stories. As a result, many workers felt there was now a place to donate the physical evidence of the labor they had so diligently performed during their textile careers.

“That’s why the oral histories have been so helpful,” said Desgrosseilliers, “by bits and pieces; we do what we can to get the information. When people bring us things, we determine if it will add to the collection.”

She recalled the day a former loom fixer brought in his tools and gave them to her for the museum. He had tears in his eyes. She thanked him and he said, “You’re thanking me? I thank you. I can go in peace now. Somebody cares about the work I did.”

More than 10 years and many, many donated artifacts later, the museum’s current exhibit is its first to focus solely on the physical output of the millworkers’ labor.

THE DESIGN PROCESS

Bates Manufacturing Company was established in Lewiston in 1850 and produced cotton textile products until 2000.

While the exhibit highlights possibly the most remembered of Bates products, Field, who is curating the exhibit, said, “It wasn’t just bedspreads; they produced everything to do with beds. They made sheets, they made mattress covers, they made light blankets for hospitals. They made contract bedding for institutions and for hotels. They could weave in a crest or a badge. They did a lot of government contracts for the Navy. They did everything from the plainest things like sheeting to the complex like the matelasse bedspreads. . . . Bates made everything to do with domestic use.”

At the center of Bates Manufacturing’s physical plant was the Jacquard loom, named after the French inventor. This weaving process “is the backbone of any type of pattern weaving,” said Field. It simplified the process of creating complex patterns with textiles by using a sequence of punched cards.

Bates Manufacturing not only had the looms, they employed a design department of four to five individuals who created new patterns. Their work could begin with a doodle, then color might be added. Eventually, the concept would be transferred to “point paper” and then punch cards would be created. Desgrosseilliers said that in the 1940s, “it might cost $50,000 to bring a design into production.”

Field described the process of producing a new product as being “like a chain.” Ideas didn’t just spring out of nowhere. “Innovations, like small technical adjustments to the loom or the process, quite often came from the floor because the people who were working the machines could see that if there was just a little adjustment here or there, it would improve the end product.”

“Designs grow on what has gone before.”

MARKETING REVEALS HISTORY

The current exhibit features pristine examples of Bates Manufacturing’s five major bedspread fabrication techniques: terry, colonial, matelasse, damask and screen-printed.

Each example includes information regarding the weaving method as well as interesting facts about the product. For instance, the “Queen Elizabeth” bedspread was introduced and dedicated to its namesake for her 1952 coronation. The idea for the bedspread initially came from Bates Manufacturing secretary Carmen Giguere. More than two years in design before it reached the production, the pattern featured a large central medallion with raised “puffs” and was one of the most complex designs yet undertaken. When completed, it represented a type of matelasse weaving that had never been done before and the company applied for a patent.

Also included with the exhibit are marketing materials, including the catalogs used by salesmen. “The salesmen went out with their catalogs and would show what was available and what was new. Stores ordered in lots of 50 or 100 in assorted colors. Spring and fall catalogs, there were a lot of Bates bedspreads being sold across the country,” Field said.

Desgrosseilliers said no one knows how many different bedspread designs the company created over its history, but that they number at least in the thousands based on her research. She knows there were more than 1,000 screen-printed designs alone. The number of Bates bedspreads manufactured during the company’s operation is similarly elusive, though there are hints of a massive volume.

“George Washington’s Choice” or simply the “George Washington” bedspread — the most widely sold Bates bedspread — is featured in the exhibit as an example of the “terry” fabrication method. It began selling in 1940. At its peak, museum officials said, the company was selling 200,000 a year worldwide, with about 5 million being produced since 1940.

As tastes changed, Bates continuously monitored the mood of the market. “They tried everything” to increase sales of their products, said Desgrosseilliers. The exhibit includes a number of children’s bedspreads with themes germane to a curious child, like woven spaceships and race cars.

Always innovating, Bates began using screen printing techniques in the early 1960s; vibrant and colorful examples of this fabrication process are included in the exhibition.

Field, who co-authored a book on the American silk industry featuring a study of the defunct Haskell Silk Company of Westbrook, described how archival items, like the materials used by a company’s sales force, can help recover the larger, comprehensive history of a business.

While she considers herself a “relative newcomer to the Bates scene,” when asked what her role might be in the future now that the exhibit has begun, Field said, “My research is ongoing and I will be continuing it.”

Mostly, though, Field encouraged people to view the exhibit.

“Simply enjoy looking at these things and just remember that human hands and brains made them. People make things. People are at the back of everything we see — human invention and production. In the electronic age, people are losing touch with the idea that things are made.”

The stunning and beautiful collection of textiles currently on display adds a new dimension to Museum L-A’s mission to chronicle the legacy of the region’s workers. More than just a memory, the long-lasting artifacts document and prove the company’s motto: Bates bedspreads were “loomed to be heirloomed.”

Julie-Ann Baumer writes from her home in Lisbon Falls. She owns several Bates bedspreads. Read her blog www.julieannbaumer.com or follow her on twitter @aunttomato

Bates bedspread fabrication techniques

Terry

The name Terry comes from the French verb “tirer” (to tug or pull). Think about a “terrycloth” towel, with the looped pile creating absorption. Before the invention of the Jacquard loom and weaving process, weavers would stop weaving at every pattern row and pull loops of soft yarn by hand.

In 1940 Bates craftsmen automated the process and the creation of elaborate patterns became possible.

The “George Washington’s Choice” is by far the most widely recognized “terry” weaved bedspread, but “popcorn chenille” and “hobnail” designs are types of terry weave many will also recognize.

Matellase

Matelasse is a French weaving process (from the French verb “metelasser” meaning to pad or cushion) that results in a “puffy” appearance, somewhat like quilting.

Also woven using a Jacquard loom, matelasse is double weaved, with parts of the fabric constructed of two layers adjacent to single layers of fabric. The separate areas contain air and then “puff up” for a quilted appearance.

The “Queen Elizabeth” bedspread, introduced by Bates in 1952 during Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation year, was a popular pattern.

Damask

Damask was originally a hand-woven silk with a pattern formed by weaving, generally with one color. The design texture is subtle and the fabric is generally reversible.

Bates manufactured cotton and rayon tablecloths and napkins in damask and produced heavier, colored, cotton damask bed covers.

Colonial

Colonial was the term Bates named their double-weave bedspreads, although double weaving dates back to ancient times. The weaving process creates a reversible pattern; one side is the inverse of the other. Generally in two colors, the pattern is often seen as “colonial” for decorating purposes.

Screen

Screen printing using nylon or polyester mesh mounted on wood or metal frames to transfer ink onto fabric. The process can involve multiple screens, with opaque and open spaces. When ink is scraped across the mesh, a printed pattern is created.

After World War II, as screen printing became automated, Bates began experimenting and producing more products using this process with various plain cotton fabrics.