Bombazine and the 19th Century Widow by Zina Abbott

In my most recent novel, Dead Set Delphinia, my heroine in the fall of 1881 finds herself involved with the furniture store owner in the relatively new mining town of Jubilee Springs. Since he has the skills to nail together a pine box, he has also become the coffin-maker and, by default, the town mortician. This was not all that unusual. While researching Lundy, California for the Eastern Sierra Brides 1884 series I wrote, I found in real life the furniture store owner, Andrew Barnes, was also the coffin-builder and mortician for that community.

1870-1880's

As part of the plot, in Dead Set Delphinia, when Bennett Nighy asks for Delphinia’s help to act as a hostess at the viewing of one of the town’s beloved deceased citizens, she decides it is time to visit the seamstress in order to see if the woman can help her put together an appropriate gown in black bombazine.

I sew, and I have been known to frequent fabric stores. However, my first recollection of being exposed to the fabric bombazine came about as I read The Widow of the South by Robert Hicks. This novel, based on a true story, tells about Carnton Plantation, the scene of a horrific Civil War battle in 1864, how the land became a cemetery for the multitude of Confederate dead. It continued to be watched over by the widow of the plantation owner who, until her death, wore nothing but black bombazine mourning dresses.

 

Mary Todd Lincoln in mourning bombazine

The word “bombazine” struck me as unusual. The way my crazy mind works, it put me in mind of cabaret music – you know: bomba-bomba-bomba.

Exactly what is bombazine?

bom·ba·zine

[ˈbämbəzēn]

NOUN:  a twilled dress fabric of worsted and silk or cotton.

Bombazine, or bombasine, is a fabric originally made of silk or silk and wool, and now also made of cotton and wool or of wool alone. Quality bombazine is made with a silk warp and a worsted weft. It is twilled or corded and used for dress-material. Black bombazine was once used largely for mourning wear, but the material had gone out of fashion by the beginning of the 20th century. In the nineteenth century, the fabric was mostly made in Norwich, England.

Bombazine is said to have originated in the United Kingdom in the early 18th century but quickly spread across Europe and eventually called bombazine from the old French word bombasin. Interestingly enough, it first found use as a cloth ideal for mourning widows although subsequent growth of the fashion industry allowed it to flourish towards other uses. 

Bombazine was also used to make the black robes worn by judges.

Here are some interesting facts about bombazine:

• Bombazine used to be exclusively made from silk. However, the subsequent need to make it affordable to the masses necessitated the shift from silk to cotton and wool. In many societies in olden times, the price of silk was too exorbitant to merit buying bombazine. However, because bombazine cannot compete with velvet as a luxury material, it was forced to find another niche in a more affordable price range.

• Twilling or cording are the only known methods known for making bombazine. Twilling is process of weaving where cloth strands are pushed through other cloth strands positioned lengthwise on a weaving machine. The resulting cloth has a characteristic diagonal pattern that is highly resistant to ordinary wear and tear. More modern incarnations of twilled fabric include denim which is used for making jeans.

• The use of bombazine as a mourner’s cloth was precipitated by the observation that the fabric has just enough sheen and sparkle for a mourning widow. Too much sparkle would have been construed as a blatant display of disrespect to the dead while cloth with less shine would have been a symbol of low status in society which was not ideal in an era where Victorian affluence was the prevailing theme.

Mary Wylie King, widow 1920

• While bombazine can be made in a variety of colors, it is predominantly manufactured and sold in black. This is consistent with its status as the cloth of choice for mourner’s dresses.

• Today, bombazine no longer has the same status as it once had in Victorian times. Bombazine is still sold in many shops but in substantially lower volumes. The values of the modern times has pushed the material to relative obscurity so much so that not many people are familiar with this type of fabric.

• Modern applications of bombazine include lining material in caskets and jewelry boxes. The next time you see a casket, check out the inner lining so you’ll know firsthand what bombazine looks like.

Sources:

Wikipedia

http://www.typesofclothingfabrics.com/bombazine.shtml

avictorian.com

Dead Set Delphinia is a full novel and the fourth of Zina Abbott's books in the Sweethearts of Jubilee Springs series. You may read more about it by CLICKING HERE.

Her fifth book, Evasive Eddie Joe, is scheduled for publication October 31st.

Zina Abbott has available three other novellas in the Sweethearts of Jubilee Springs series.

Book 3: Aaron’sAnnulment Bride

Book 6:  Cat's Meow

Book 7:  Bargain Bessie

  ~o0o~ 

To read and enjoy all of the books in the Sweethearts of Jubilee Springs series, please sign up and follow us on Amazon by CLICKING HERE.

Cotton, Cowboys and Indians

 When you think of the Old West, what fabrics immediately come to mind?

For me, there are two: denim and calico. It's true, cowboys were as likely to wear canvas or twill pants before Levis Strauss and Jacob Davis invented riveted jeans in 1873, but printed calico staked its claim in American fashions long before that. And both cotton fabrics have a long history before they became associated with the Old West.

Cotton has been cultivated and woven for at least 7,000 years in the Indus Valley (Pakistan) and Mexico. India developed a vital textile industry based on cotton. Through them, calico and muslin was introduced to Europe.

Calico and muslin have a simple weave. Muslin uses bleached cotton and is a more finished product. Calico is unbleached and rougher in texture. Typically, it would be dyed or printed in bright colors. Chintz is calico cloth that has been printed and finished. These printed fabrics were exported to Europe and highly popular with everyone not connected to the wool trade. Since the wool industry had more clout than fashion consumers, trade sanctions protected the wool trade until English and French mills could print the cotton cloth more cheaply than the Indians.

Unlike the larger, bolder floral prints that we associate with chintz and Indian calico, English calico used smaller, denser patterns. It was the Lancashire printed calico that went to America. There, the printed calico was so common that the term "calico" came to mean the print not the cloth.

Natural calico (known as grey cloth in the trade) became known as muslin in America. What the English called muslin became finished muslin.

The devolution of the Indian textile industry by English and French trade sanctions, was capped off by American ingenuity. With the invention of the cotton gin by Ely Whitney, British, French and American mills could produce cheap cotton cloth and no longer relied on importing Indian calico and muslin.

Calico and muslin are simple weaves. There are others. Twill is a weave where pattern of diagonal parallel lines is created by "by passing the weft thread over one or more warp threads and then under two or more warp threads and so on, with a "step" or offset between rows to create the characteristic diagonal pattern." (Wikipedia) Serge is a specific pattern of twill which is very durable.

Using worsted (the type of wool most used for weaving cloth), serge is used for overcoats and uniforms. Serge de Nimes, developed in Nimes, France, used cotton. De Nimes became anglicized to demin, a sturdy, hard-working cloth. Produced in American mills, it was the choice of Levis Strauss and his partner when they produced their new work pants. The cloth had been around, however, since the eighteenth century.

Jean, which takes it's name from Genoa (in French "Gene") is the same fabric and may be older than its French counterpart. Seventeenth century artwork has come to light showing common folk wearing clothes made of blue jean. (London Telegraph) Like our blue jeans, the cloth shows the indigo warp threads on the outside and the white weft threads on the inside.

Both calico and jeans are cotton fabrics, and both terms have evolved to mean more than material. Calico has come to mean the pattern, wherever it is used, as well as lending itself to calico cats and being used as a euphemism for women. Jeans are used to designate the pants made out of jean or denim. (However, denim jeans is a phrase that should be avoided.) Most of all (at least on this blog) they share a common bond in their connection to cowboys and their gals.


References:
Wikipedia entries for Calico, Muslin, Worsted, Twill, Serge, Denim
http://inventors.about.com/od/sstartinventors/a/Levi_Strauss.htm
http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/article/TMG8014040/Denim-jeans-originated-in-Italy-not-France-art-historian-claims.html