Negro cloth or Lowell cloth was a coarse and strong cloth used for slaves' clothing in the West Indies and the Southern Colonies. [1] [2] [3] The cloth was imported from Europe (primarily Wales) in the 18th and 19th centuries. [4] [5]
The name Lowell cloth came from the town Lowell in Massachusetts, United States, where the cloth was produced. [6]
South Carolina's Negro Act of 1735 had various cheap materials dictated for slave clothes that include ''Negro cloth, duffelds, course kiersies, osnaburg, blue linen, checked linen, coarse calicoes and checked kinds of cotton'' [7] [8] [9] [10]
Negro cloth was a woven material made of cotton or blended coarse threads also homespun. [11] [12] [13] [14] These were inexpensive and lower grades of cloth. [4] Certain long cloths of coarser varieties and Salampore were among recognized Indian materials; the Dutch merchants called them ''Guinea or Negro cloth.'' [15] [16] [17] ''Guinea cloth'' was a generic term for various inferior Indian piece goods traded for the purpose, [18] such as inexpensive dyed plain and patterned calicoes like stripes and checks. [19] [20]
Negro cloth was durable, but often regarded by its wearers as coarse, rough, and uncomfortable. Those freed from slavery recalled the cloth feeling akin to "needles sticking one all the time." [4] [21]
The cloth was converted into various garments, such as breeches, jackets, skirts, [6] bodices, shirts and trousers. [11]
Calico is a heavy plain-woven textile made from unbleached, and often not fully processed, cotton. It may also contain unseparated husk parts. The fabric is far coarser than muslin, but less coarse and thick than canvas or denim. However, it is still very cheap owing to its unfinished and undyed appearance.
Quilting is the term given to the process of joining a minimum of three layers of fabric together either through stitching manually using a needle and thread, or mechanically with a sewing machine or specialised longarm quilting system. An array of stitches is passed through all layers of the fabric to create a three-dimensional padded surface. The three layers are typically referred to as the top fabric or quilt top, batting or insulating material, and the backing.
Madras is a lightweight cotton fabric with typically patterned texture and tartan design, used primarily for summer clothing such as pants, shorts, lungi, dresses, and jackets. The fabric takes its name from the former name of the city of Chennai in south India.
Osnaburg is a general term for coarse, plain-weave fabric. It also refers specifically to a historic fabric originally woven in flax but also in tow or jute, and from flax or tow warp with a mixed or jute weft.
A blanket is a swath of soft cloth large enough either to cover or to enfold most of the user's body and thick enough to keep the body warm by trapping radiant body heat that otherwise would be lost through convection.
Hessian, burlap in the United States and Canada, or crocus in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean, is a woven fabric made of vegetable fibres, usually the skin of the jute plant or sisal leaves. It is generally used for duties of rough handling, such as making sacks employed to ship farm products and to act as covers for sandbags, and for wrapping tree-root balls. However, this dense woven fabric, historically coarse, more recently is being produced in a refined state, known simply as "jute", as an eco-friendly material for bags, rugs, and other products.
Longcloth refers to a plain cotton cloth originally made in comparatively long pieces.
A fichu is a large, square kerchief worn by women to fill in the low neckline of a bodice.
A dress is a garment traditionally worn by women or girls consisting of a skirt with an attached bodice. It consists of a top piece that covers the torso and hangs down over the legs. A dress can be any one-piece garment containing a skirt of any length, and can be formal or casual.
Slavery in Virginia began with the capture and enslavement of Native Americans during the early days of the English Colony of Virginia and through the late eighteenth century. They primarily worked in tobacco fields. Africans were first brought to colonial Virginia in 1619, when 20 Africans from present-day Angola arrived in Virginia aboard the ship The White Lion.
The history of cotton can be traced to domestication for an important role in the history of India, the British Empire, and the United States, and continues to be an important crop and commodity.
Kazakh clothing, worn by the Kazakh people, is often made of materials suited to the region's extreme climate and the people's nomadic lifestyle. It is commonly decorated with elaborate ornaments made from bird beaks, animal horns, hooves and feet. Although contemporary Kazakhs usually wear Western dress, the Turkic people wear more traditional clothing for holidays and special occasions.
Mughal clothing refers to clothing adhered by the Mughals in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries throughout the extent of their empire. Much of them were already being used in the past centuries before their arrival in Indian subcontinent. It was characterized by luxurious styles and was made with muslin, silk, velvet and brocade. Elaborate patterns including dots, checks, and waves were used with colors from various dyes including cochineal, sulfate of iron, sulfate of copper and sulfate of antimony were used.
The homespun movement was started in 1767 by Quakers in Boston, Massachusetts, to encourage the purchase of goods, especially apparel, manufactured in the American Colonies. The movement was created in response to the British Townshend Acts of 1767 and 1768, in the early stages of the American Revolution.
Bafta is a kind of calico, initially made in India.
Tansukh cloth was a fine cotton cloth primarily used for feminine dresses in medieval India, Tansukh is one of the seven explicitly mentioned cloths named in the exhaustive list of cotton cloths in Ain-i-Akbari. The bodices made of Tansukh and Bafta are referred by the poet Bhikhari Das. Tansukh was a woven material with another class of muslin with a very soft and delicate texture.
Piece goods were the textile materials sold in cut pieces as per the buyer's specification. The piece goods were either cut from a fabric roll or produced with a certain length, also called yard goods. Various textiles such as cotton, wool, silk, etc., were traded in terms of piece goods. The prices were determined as per the fabric quality.
Virginia cloth was a coarse cloth made by natives of Virginia. The fabric has a record of existence in 1721 and was used for servants' wear. The material was a mix of cotton and wool.
Parramatta cloth was a cloth of the early 19th century from the town Parramatta in Australia. Initially, it was a coarse cloth produced by the inmates of Parramatta Female Factory, and used for convicts’ clothing. After 1815 the cloth was finished in a separate factory, producing a tweed of superior quality which was imitated by English producers.
Cumbi was a fine luxurious fabric of the Inca Empire. Elites used to offer cumbi to the rulers, and it was a reserved cloth for Royalty. Common people were not allowed to use Cumbi. Cumbi was a phenomenal textile art of Andean textiles.
Most clothing was made out of coarse, inexpensive cloth such as osnaburg, "jeans," homespun, and a plain-weave white cotton or wool fabric advertised as "Negro cloth." These fabrics were used to construct shirts, skirts, bodices, and trousers
Negro cloth, a roughly woven blend known for its service and durability, was a mainstay of the slaves' clothing, and with the approach of winter weather, the women of the household focused more heavily on producing this fabric.
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