‘Within the reach of everyone’: Tracing the Global Strands of Herrman, Sternbach & Co.’s 1880s Imitation Furs

Authors

Laura Johnson, National Museum of American HistoryFollow

Date of this Version

2024

Document Type

Presentation

Citation

Textile Society of America 2024 Symposium

Shifts & Strands: Rethinking the Possibilities and Potentials of Textiles, November 12-17, 2024, a virtual event

Comments

Published by the Textiles Society of America

Copyright 2024, the author. Used by permission

Abstract

Long before faux furs became trendy, vegan-friendly materials, weavers and textile designers in eighteenth and nineteenth century Europe developed a range of woven goods that offered the haptic qualities of animal pelts. Surprisingly, given their popularity, little research has focused on imitation fur production and consumption at the turn of the twentieth century and its earlier roots. This paper traces the strands linking a group of textile samples donated by New York merchant H. Herrman, Sternbach & Co. in 1884 to (what is today) the Smithsonian National Museum of American History through connecting threads of global production, innovation, and consumption. These fourteen swatches, each carefully labeled as made in either Huddersfield, England or Chemnitz, Saxony, imitate a range of fashionable materials, from astrachans to sealskin, fox fur to beaver. Each is meticulously woven with a cotton backing in a compound, supplementary warp technique first developed for velvets and other plush, piled fabrics. Imported by Henry Herrman to New York, these silk and mohair plushes satisfied an increasing market demand for luxury goods to trim coats, hats, mantles, and other clothing. Beginning with a careful analysis of these goods and their production, the paper slides along those connecting strands, examining the broad range of plushes and other imitation furs popular from 1880s to 1930 and in the process illuminates the social lives of Huddlesfield mill workers, the wealthy New York Herrman family, and finally the designers and dressmakers who embraced these new fabrics.