For A Few Sacks More

For a few sacks more

For a few sacks more.... How feedsacks clothed and warmed Americans during the Depression, and later.

This was the name of an exhibition set up and hosted by the Textile Research Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands, between January and July 2018. The idea for the exhibition came as a result of a donation to the TRC in 2017 of 35 feedsacks made of printed cotton cloth. These and items collected since then reflect a story of resilience, female ingenuity, thriftiness, sustainability, art and design, national awareness, as well as economic and commercial insight for nearly fifty years, from the 1920’s to the 1960’s. It is an amazing story, and one that is now barely known outside of the USA.

The decorative versions of the feedsacks became very popular and were used for a wide range of items, including men, women and children’s clothing and household items, such as bedding (sheets, pillowcases, quilts), curtains, tablecloths, and clothes pin bags. In fact, they were used for just about anything. The exhibition includes examples of actual feedsacks, as well as clothing, toys, curtains and bags, made from them. In addition, there are numerous bed quilts made from feed sack materials, which reflect the creative use of the sacks and cloth scraps.

The exhibition was made possible thanks to the generosity of the Small Grant Program of the USA Embassy, The Hague.

The actual exhibition is available for loan by other museums and institutions. Click here for more details about the package.

 

Further reading:

Jones, Lu Ann and Sunae Park (1993). “From feed bags to fashion” Textile History, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 91-104.

Nixon, Gloria (2015). Rag Darlings: Dolls from the Feedsack Era, Kansas City: Kansas City Star Quilts.

McCray, Linzee Kull (2016). Feed Sacks: The Colourful History of a Frugal Fabric, Calgary: Uppercase Publishing Inc.

Walton, Frank L. (1945). Thread of Victory, New York: Fairchild Publishing Co.

 

For this online exhibition:

  • Author: Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood
  • Web-design: Joost Koopman
  • Exhibition design: Willem Vogelsang
  • Publisher: TRC Leiden.
  • Year of publication: 2018
  • Copyright: All illustrations of objects housed in the TRC collection can be used free of charge, but please add to the caption: "Courtesy Textile Research Centre, Leiden" and the pertinent accession number of the object.

Postage Stamp variation quilt, USA, 1930's-1940's.

0. Cover page

"For a few sacks more.... How feedsacks clothed and warmed Americans during the Depression, and later." This was the name of an exhibition set up and hosted by the Textile…
Marylin Monroe dressed in a potato sack.

1. Introduction

When Marilyn Monroe donned a burlap potato sack in 1952, she was making various statements about herself, her wardrobe and her ability to wear anything glamorously. But she was following…
Small notebook made especially by the Gingham Girl Flour company, USA, c. 1925.

2. The Early History of Decorative Feedsacks

Cloth sacks for feed started to be produced in the mid-19th century, following the development of industrial sewing machines that were capable of producing strong seams that did not burst…
Dyed corn meal sack from the 1920's.

3. Feedsacks and the Great Depression

The 29th October of 1929 witnessed the Wall Street Crash. It was followed by a series of droughts and harvest failures that resulted in the ‘Great Depression’, which was to…
Booklet entitled "Make and Mend for Victory". It contains information about sewing, mending, alterations, re-modeling, accessories and so forth. USA, 1942 (TRC 2017.4030).

4. Feedsacks during and after WWII

The Second World War (1939-1945) saw the rationing of various items in North America. Feedsacks were exempt from rationing in order to persuade people to move from the more robust…
Booklet entitled "1953 Pattern Service for sewing with cotton bags" produced by Simplicity Patterns.

5. Feedsacks in the 1950’s

The popularity of the feedsack textiles continued well into the late 1940’s, but their use was slowly coming to an end. Cloth feedsacks were replaced by paper versions, which were…
Large sack made from cotton with a printed checked design in brown, dark red, green and orange. With barcode. USA, 1960's (TRC 2017.3013).

6. Feedsacks in the 1960’s and later

By the 1960’s, the increased diversity and cheapness of paper and plastics for commodity packaging meant that feedsacks were no longer widely used. Slowly most of the sacks vanished from…
Length of cotton cloth with a design of orange pigs of various sizes eating at brown troughs. USA, mid-1950's (TRC 2017.1366).

7. Feedsack Designs

It has been estimated that between 15,000 and 20,000 different designs were created and used to decorate feedsacks between the 1930’s and 1960’s. The scale of production, both in terms…
A pattern mentioned in the 'Simplicity Pattern Service for Sewing with Cotton Bags' 1953 (TRC 2017.4038).

8. Feedsack Garments

One of the most important and widespread uses of the feedsack cloth was the making of garments for men, women and children, although the vast majority of surviving garments seem…
The 'Rag Darling' cloth doll was registered by the Department of State, Oklahoma, USA, in June 1937 (TRC 2017.3232).

9. Feedsack dolls, toys and household items

Various feedsack manufacturers produced a range of cloth toys from the 1930’s onwards. The toys were printed on both sides of the cotton bag and could be cut out, sewn…
Detail of a bed quilt top made from a series of squares with a central mofit of eight-pointed stars. Each point of a star is made up of numerous small pieces of cloth. The stars are separated from each other by lines in plain pink cloth. USA, mid-20th century (TRC 2017.3349).

10. Feedsack Quilts

One of the iconic uses of feedsacks is the making of quilts used on beds. A bed quilt is basically made up of three or more layers of cloth. The…
Bibbed apron with a small pocket made from bleached flour sacks. Parts of the bib and the pocket have been decorated with applied cotton cloth in pink (TRC 2017.3307).

11. Flour sack underwear: A poem

There is a beautiful poem about undergarments being made from feedsacks. The poem was written by Ada Marie Shrope from Kansas, USA (1899-1988). The writer obviously had some very vivid…

In this exhibition:

All exhibitions