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America's National Parks celebrated on silk
Mallinson's Printed Pussywillow—This excellent quality is ideal for blouses, scarfs, and coat linings, offered in a large selection of gorgeous colorings and designs, yard $4.50.
So read an ad run by one of Chicago's leading department stores, Madigan Brothers, for a sale of silk fabrics and dress patterns in October 1926 in the Chicago Tribune. A variety of solid-colored silk fabrics not identified by manufacturer or tradename were for sale from $1.79 to $3.95 per yard. The average annual wage in 1926 was about $2,000, or slightly less than $39 per week. A seamstress in a small workshop might earn $20 in a 54-hour workweek. What could justify an expenditure of $4.50 for a yard of printed silk? The opportunity to wear scenic landscapes and sophisticated colorations inspired by our national parks.Garden of the Gods, Colorado (Dutch Wedding rock formation). Click the image to see a larger version.
In 1872, 2.2 million acres of land was designated as the first of America's National Parks—Yellowstone. In August 1916, Congress established the National Park Service, a federal agency whose role is "to maintain and preserve the landscapes and historical sites and monuments that embody the nation’s physical and cultural history."
In the autumn of 1926 one of the leading American silk textile manufacturers, H.R. Mallinson & Co., Inc. introduced a new series of printed dress silks for the Spring 1927 season. Inspiration for the series was drawn from the magnificent landscapes of several American national parks. Customers could choose from 12 different designs, each available in from eight to 12 colorways (combinations of colors) on three different fabrics (Mallinson’s trademarked fabrics: Pussy Willow, Khaki-Kool, and Indestructible Chiffon Voile). The silk fabrics were sold by the yard through specialty shops and department stores, and to custom dressmakers and ready-made clothing manufacturers. In the 1920s the ready-to-wear apparel industry was beginning to elbow aside the small dressmaker, tailor, and home sewer, but it had not yet taken over the market completely. Textile manufacturers still appealed to the ultimate consumer of their products through originality and quality, not just to the garment maker middlemen through price.
The genesis of the idea to create a National Parks themed set of printed silks likely stemmed from the tour of the Western parks that Mallinson's vice president, E. Irving Hanson, took with his family in 1923. Hanson's responsibilities included oversight of the firm's Design Department, the output of which ensured that the company set the trends for others to follow. Hiram Mallinson had hired Hanson away from another American silk manufacturer in 1913, with the goal of producing the nation's most innovative silks and competing successfully with the best European makers. Their first foray into silk designs inspired by American art and culture was a line called "Mexixe" in 1913, based on objects from Mexico and the American Southwest studied at New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art, American Museum of Natural History, and Brooklyn Museum. The company was at the forefront of the "Designed in America" campaign that swept the country during World War I, sponsored by industry and cultural institutions who felt that the U.S. had outgrown the need to follow European styles in consumer goods. By 1926 Mallinson's was a recognized leader in American design and in textile manufacturing.
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