A Pair of Panel Quilts

"Quilt given to Rosa Benson Snoddy by her 

mother & father when she married" in 1853,

Spartanburg, South Carolina

Laurel Horton has studied the quilts of the Snoddy/Black family and published a book and several online articles about Mary Black's inherited quilts. This one seems to be the oldest in the family collection.

It's also the only one attributed to Mary Black's grandmother

Nancy Miller Benson (1809-1879) who lived her life in Spartanburg.

Spartanburg about the turn of the last century

Yardage, Collection of the Winterthur Museum,

which has several pieces. Curator Florence Montgomery

identified it as 1840-50, England. Curator Linda Eaton

describes it as 25-1/2" wide.

The fabric features a repeat of rose wreaths, circular panels

in two sizes and a rose sprig on the left and right.

The family was uncertain who made the quilt but the information passed with it indicated it was a wedding present for Rosa who married Samuel Snoddy.

Laurel Horton has summarized the family history:

"The Bensons could have purchased the chintz locally but it is quite possible that they demonstrated the importance of their eldest daughter's marriage by making a shopping excursion to Charleston to buy special items such as fabric for a wedding quilt.The information handed down by Mary Black is not specific about who made this chintz quilt; it is probable that Rosa's mother made it, alone or with help from family members or household slaves."

The assumption here is that this was a gift especially for Rosa and that her parents gave it to her. Therefore, her mother must have made the quilt or supervised its making in their home, using fabric specially purchased for this quilt.

I am questioning that assumption. My main evidence is a nearly identical quilt in the collection of the Los Angeles Museum of Art.

Whole-Cloth Quilt,  1850, 97 x 97 1/2 inches. 

Gift of Louise Bloom (M.90.144)

https://collections.lacma.org/node/224677

Both  are quilted in a diagonal grid.

Rosa Benson Snoddy's quilt: 

"She quilted the three layers in a simple, overall diagonal crosshatch. The chalk-like material she used to mark the quilting lines remains visible, an indication that the quilt has never been washed....The simple crosshatch quilting design could have been accomplished in a relatively short time, suggesting that Nancy Miller Benson chose not to take this as an opportunity to display fine handwork."

The major difference is in size with the LACMA quilt being a wider square with a full strip on the right here. Both have a length of about 6 wreaths.  Rosa's quilt looks to be a redder colorway than the LACMA quilt, which is the greenish shade usually seen in this wreath panel. (Color difference may just be a color accuracy problem in the photos.) The LACMA quilt seems to have an added red binding while Rosa's quilt has the back brought over the front for an edging.

Single wreath in an album quilt dated 1843,

unknown source

My interpretation of this pair of quilts: They were made by professional quiltmakers in South Carolina about 1850. The Benson family bought the quilt readymade for Rosa's wedding.

It seems that someone stripped whole-cloth quilt tops of the wreath yardage and quilted them with a simple grid. How many others were made and sold? 

When we hear the words wedding and quilt our conventional wisdom about quilts makes us assume a few things:

Wedding Quilt---Made by Mother
Two identical quilts---Mother made one for each child?

Why not Wedding Quilt---Bought by Mother?

I think it is time to think differently about women's work.

See one of Laurel Horton's posts about the Black family quilts.

https://southernspaces.org/content/whole-cloth-chintz-wedding-quilt-ca-1850

Selling Fabric: Making a Fortune

Dry goods shop in the 1860s

In 1846 a directory of Philadelphia's wealthy citizens listed Jane Lang as worth $50,000. "An industrious, persevering lady, who has made a fortune in the retail dry goods business; having been established for a series of years, in north Eighth street, and keeping always a choice and well selected stock of fancy and staple articles."

Jane Lang never married. Her tombstone indicates she lived from 1789 to 1867 into her late 70s. She was in her early forties when she was listed as wealthy.

Her marker in Philadelphia's Laurel Hill Cemetery

 includes three other women, perhaps a sister and two nieces.

Looking towards 5th Street on Chestnut when the Langs kept dry good stores.

Library Company of Philadelphia

Philadelphia's large shopping district included Chestnut and Market Streets.

The city's commercial directories list Jane Lang's business from 1839 until after the Civil War. Her dry goods stores were located at various spots,  35, 37 & 41 N 8th and 733 Filbert Street. At one point she lived at 37 N 8th in 1839, probably above the shop.

North side of Chestnut Street.

733 Filbert Street about 1960 from the Library of Congress

Dry goods seem to have been a family business. George S. Lang also owned a business in the same building. He is probably Jane's brother, both children of John Lang, who was a clerk in the United States Bank, family history tell us.

George Shortread Lang (1799-1877) was an "engraver of considerable reputation; he afterwards went into the dry goods business on Eighth Street, from which he retired about ten years ago," according to his 1877 obituary.

Lang's engraving of Washington after a Sully painting is his most famous work.

Album quilt dated 1841, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 

Bequest of Natalie K. Rowland, 1941

http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/46170.html?mulR=591891229%7C166

Is he the same George S. Lang who signed this album quilt in 

the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art?

We can wonder where all those chintz squares cut exactly alike in

the alternate blocks came from.

In 1864 both George and Jane Lang paid income tax to support

 Union war efforts. Each paid over $8,000,

 higher than most of the Philadelphians listed.

George's son James Traquair Lang (1858-1920) went into the family dry goods business after leaving Swarthmore College in the late 1870s. He became a lawyer after his father died and that seems to have been the end of the Lang's retailing businesses.

I can find very little about Jane Lang's personal life. Leaving no children means no descendants to find you in their genealogy. Being a successful woman business owner means you are ignored in much of the commerce boosting publications of the time---unless of course you are singled out as an oddity. "Woman Earns Money!"

Mrs. Treen's card for an end-of-the-century Philadelphia shop

But Jane was not an an oddity. Running a dry goods store specializing in fabrics was a common occupation for women.

Mrs. J. Benson

Fancy Dry Goods, Freeport, Illinois

Mrs. S.J. Thompson, Marengo, Iowa

Most of the trade cards for woman-owned dry goods stores are

from the end of the 19th century when color lithography was new.

Except for the remarkable early version below.

Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Mrs. Holt commissioned William Hogarth to make her

a trade card about 1710. Her London fabric shop sold silks, damasks

and Italian wines.

Portrait in Black

 Philadelphia Museum of Art 

We can follow the Langs into the 20th century. George's best known descendant was his granddaughter artist Annie Traquair Lang (1885-1918) who died at 33 in the 1918 influenza epidemic. She was quite close to William Merritt Chase who painted the above portrait in 1911

Annie Lang is getting her just due these days:

http://www.themagazineantiques.com/article/portrait-takes-shape/

See Jane's tombstone here:

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/139781611/jane-lang

And do note that the chintz in the Philadelphia album quilt is the same as one the Boyle sisters used in Petersburg, Virginia. See the last post.