material used. Thus the very characteristics of natural dyes that often made 

 them the despair of earlier dyers appeal to today's craftsmen searching for 

 the unique. 



Textile Dyeing Before the Discovery of America 



The first western dyers were probably the Swiss Lake Dwellers who 

 lived about 2000 B.C.; in the East a Chinese chronology dated a thousand 

 years earlier mentioned dye workshops, so the craft must have originated in 

 China some time before 3000 B.C. Among other ancient peoples, the 

 Egyptians of the Middle Kingdom not only dyed textiles but also under- 

 stood the use of mordants (metallic salts with an affinity for both fibers 

 and dyestuffs that improved the colorfastness of certain dyes). The Phoeni- 

 cian dye industry, begun in the 15th century B.C., was renowned for its 

 purples obtained from a species of shellfish processed in the city of Tyre 

 until 638 A.D. when the Tyrian industry was destroyed by conquering 

 armies. 



India, the country whose dyeing practices have exercised the greatest 

 influence on European dyers from the 16th century, appears to have had 

 a dye industry long before its transactions were recorded in writing, 

 perhaps extending to the period of the Indus Valley civilization ca. 2500 

 B.C. Marco Polo described in detail its indigo manufacture during the 

 13th century A.D., about three hundred years before the Portugese in- 

 troduced it to Europe. 



European dye techniques improved slowly before the 18th century — ■ 

 mainly through trial-and-error. During the second quarter of the 18th 

 century a number of French chemists began to organize contemporary 

 information on textile dyeing and through experimentation gradually 

 developed an understanding of the chemical and physical mechanisms of 

 dyeing. Application of these theories gave impetus to the French textile 

 industry and encouraged dyers in other parts of Europe and the United 

 States to apply scientific methods to their own work. 



The American Indian contributed comparatively little to the European 

 settlers' knowledge of textile dyes. Scattered references suggest that while 

 the Indians obtained some coloring materials from their natural surround- 

 ings which abounded in dye plants, the colonists generally depended on 

 traditional methods and imported dyes whenever they could be obtained. 



Textile Dyeing Among European Colonists and Their 

 Descendants 



No matter how seriously the subject of textile dyeing is discussed, one 

 miist inevitably acknowledge that the basis of the whole business is a 



