combined with tartar or an alum mordant used either in a separate bath 

 or in the dyebath. The color could be blued by adding a little alkali — 

 ammonia or sodium carbonate — to the dyebath. 



Sometimes professional dyers reduced costs by using part cochineal and 

 part brazilwood or a yellow dye to stretch the cochineal. It was not always 

 considered legitimate, but one dyer cautioned that it was better to comple- 

 ment the cochineal with red dyewood than to overboil pure cochineal in 

 attempting to extract the maximum amount of color. 



Cochineal was used even on a commercial scale until the turn of the 1 9th 

 century when azo-scarlet dyes were introduced. None of the new synthetic 

 dyes offered a perfect substitute, for as late as 1910 azo reds tended to bleed 

 and stain neighboring colors. Because of more predictable quality, supply, 

 and lower costs, azo reds eventually superseded natural cochineal red. 



Other Red Dyes 



Madder and cochineal were the most important red dyestuffs used in 

 1 8th- and 1 9th-century America. Next in importance were brazilwood and 

 other red dyewoods. Although the colors they produced were fugitive these 

 woods were known and used by most professional dyers, probably because 

 they were cheap and readily available. The remainder of the reds were 

 extracted from alkanet, annatto, lac, safflower, and local plants such as 

 pokeberries. 



BRAZILWOOD (mainly Caesalpinia echinata) 



Also known as Pernambuco; Fernambouc; Santa Martha wood; Bois de Bresil (Fr.); 

 Peach wood; Queen's wood; redwood; das Rotholz (Ger.) 



The general term brazilwood refers to the wood of several different 

 trees from which red dye was obtained. The common names listed usually 

 denote the trees' place of origin. The South American country, Brazil, 

 received its name from the forests of red dyewood trees encountered by 

 its discoverers when they landed about 1500. These trees were a Western 

 Hemisphere species similar to the sappan (C sappan) that grew in the East 

 and had been known in Europe for over two-hundred years. The Brazilian 

 dyewood yielded a commercial quality of red dye that became a profitable 

 article of trade throughout the American colonial period. By the beginning 

 of the 1 9th century the supply of these trees had diminished considerably, 

 and other available dyewoods of equal quality took their place. 



Caesalpinia sappan 



During the Middle Ages this brazilwood (C sappan) was an important 

 article of European commerce obtained from India, Malaya, and Ceylon. 

 Eventually it became known in Europe and America as "sapan," its 

 Malay name, and was thus distinguished from other brazilwood. One 



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