The History of Blankets

The first time any piece of cloth or bedding was called a blanket
was in 1340, when Thomas Blanquette, a Flemish weaver living in
England, developed a heavily napped woollen weave. In the early
days, all blankets were made of wool, which provided warmth
and was resistant to fire. Thinner, skin-friendly sheets were made
of cotton or linen.
These days, though, the term blanket may be applied to quilts,
bedspreads, comforters, and duvets. These blankets are made of
all sorts of materials, including cotton, linen, silk, synthetic fibers,
goose down, and even old clothes.
Blankets have come to serve all sorts of purposes, too. Decorative
throw blankets are designed to keep one warm outside the bed,
while security blankets or blankies give little children comfort.
Native Americans would wear wool blankets as coats or robes, and
in Mexico, colorful blankets called zarape, or serape, are often
worn by men like shawls.
Blankets are also used to spread on the ground during picnics, at
the beach, or to protect furniture during moves. Horse blankets
are placed on the animals to prevent them from growing a shaggy
winter coat of hair; saddle blankets keep their skin from chafing.
Firefighters also use specialized blankets to protect furniture from
water damage and themselves from flames.
Among collectors, the most popular blankets are those associated
with the North American fur trade between Native Americans and
Europeans. These include the Hudson Bay Companys pointed
blankets and Pendleton blankets. While these Indian trade
blankets may feature patterns inspired by Native American
designs, they were actually made by Europeans and
white Americans to sell to the tribes.
In 1670, French explorers Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Mdard
Chouart des Groseilliers, with the blessing the government of
England, established the Hudson Bay Company on the north side
of the Great Lakes in what became Canada. Native Americans
would bring them furs in exchange for manufactured items like
knives, kettles, beads, needles, and, eventually, blankets.
European wool blankets were coveted by the Native Americans,
who had previously worn hides, stitched fur pelts, and handmade
clothes made of wool, down, feathers, shredded cedar bark, or
cotton. European blankets were so prized by the tribes people that
in 1763, Lord Jeffrey Amherst, commander of British forces in
North America during the French and Indian War, discussed
seriously the idea of giving enemy tribes smallpox-infested
blankets, although there is no way of knowing if this plan was
ever carried out.
It was M. Germain Maugenest who proposed to the Hudson Bay
Companys board in England in 1779 that blankets (non-diseased
ones) should be a staple of the North American trade. Blankets
had long been exchanged in bartering, but it wasnt until 1780
that the company received regular shipments of large numbers
of wool blankets from Europe.
These pointed blankets, first produced in Witney, Oxfordshire,
were hugely popular with the Native Americans, thanks to their
insulating and water-repellent qualities. Since blankets were
felted or shrunk during manufacturing, during the mid-1700s
French weavers developed a point system to indicate the final
size of the blanket, which Hudson Bay Company indicated with
indigo lines woven into the side of the blanket. (Point is thought
to come from the French word empointer, meaning to make
stitches.)
These were traded in a range of one to four points, in increments
of half points. While the number wasnt intended to indicate how
many beaver pelts a blanket was worth, thats how they were used.
A half point, for example, meant half a pelt or an imperfect one.
Hudson Bays popular off-white multistripe blankets, which
became known as chiefs blankets, are characterized by their
headings, which are bold stripes of bright colors like green, red,
and yellow, at either end. The off-white base color made them
excellent camouflage in the snow.
Blankets were also offered in solid colors like indigo, scarlet,
green, and light blue. The Native Americans would wear them
instead of buffalo robes, or sew them into coats. The colors
were important to the Native Americans, as variations in shade
could telegraph spiritual meaning or the mood of the wearer.
The Navajos had taken up textile weaving in the early 1800s,
producing their own stunning, colorful wool blankets with
spellbinding patterns in stripes, diamonds, triangles, and
diagonal lines that created optical illusions. These blankets were
coveted by Victorian tourists, who traveled by train on tours of the
Southwest and were in the market for souvenirs.
However, when these tourists got home, they would put the
blankets on the floor, using them as rugs instead of bedding or
clothing. In response, the Navajo crafted the same patterns in
sturdier fibers to be used as rugs in the homes of white
Americans. When the Indian Wars ended and the reservation
system was established in 1890, the Navajos quit making wearing
blankets all together and only sold rugs at federally licensed
Indian trading posts.
Pendleton Woollen Mills, which was established in 1909 along
the Oregon Trail in Pendleton, Oregon, saw the Native American
population as a new market. The company took great care to
learn about traditional Native American designs and patterns, the
important mythology and spiritual symbols, and the preferred
colors of their customers. Company pattern designer Joe
Rawnsley, in particular, who was gifted with the jacquard loom,
worked with many of the tribes people of northeastern Oregon to
get his blankets just right. He also took six months to travel
the Southwest and visit with the tribes there and learn about
their traditions.
These blankets were embraced and treasured by Native
Americans, who used them in rituals and ceremonies, as a part of
dowries, in weddings, at pow wows, for gifts and prizes, and even
to line coffins of the deceased. As a result, the name Pendleton has
become synonymous with Indian trade blankets, even though
Pendleton was not the only producer of these blankets.
In the 1920s and 30s, Indian trade blankets grew in popularity
with non-Indian interior designers. Hudson Bay Company
responded by expanding its blanket manufacturing to Yorkshire
and introduced its line of Pastel Tones, Deep Tones, and Imperial
Tones to match popular design schemes.

From Collectors Weekly