18th- and 19th-century dyers, for they too contained tannins and other 

 dyeing agents which would give woolens stable colors. 



Peter Kalm mentioned three different oaks that were used in mid- 18th- 

 century dyeing. Red oak produced yellows, chestnut oak was used in reds, 

 and white oak was utilized by New York dyers to color wool brown or 

 "Thee bou" (muddy tea) color. The latter dye was not bleached by the 

 sunshine (Hollberg, 1763, p. 3).^ 



Standard procedures for dyeing with bark called for stripping it from the 

 trees, chopping it into fine pieces, and boiling it. Alum-mordanted cloth 

 was usually immersed in the dye liquid when the barks were used for 

 plain yellows, drabs, or browns. Compound shades or black dyeing involved 

 complicated recipes which included the bark plus many other ingredients. 

 One such compound black recipe designed to color 16 pounds of cloth 

 (probably cotton) called for the following: 12 oz. argol, 6 oz. verdigris, 

 6 lbs. logwood, 2){ lbs. sumach, y^ lb. fustic, 7 lbs. white-oak sawdust, 

 and 3 lbs. copperas (Partridge, 1847, p. 57). Swamp-maple bark could be 

 substituted for the oak sawdust and sumach. For an unusually rich and 

 full-bodied color, the black cloth could then be put into liquid in which 

 alder bark and black-walnut hulls had been soaked. 



The various oak barks were certainly used by professional dyers during 

 the first decades of the 19th century; however, there is little indication 

 that they were in common use by any but home dyers after the 1850s and 

 1860s. 



nRON BUFF 



Each of the metals ... is capable, when dissolved, of becoming a basis or mordant, 

 for fixing and modifying some at least of the different adjective animal or vegetable 

 colouring matters, with more or less advantage, by dyeing. But besides this 

 property . . . several metals . . . afford coloured solutions or oxides, which are 

 capable of being united and fixed directly in the fibres of linen, cotton, silk, or wool, 

 and of thereby producing various permanent substantive colours (Bancroft, 1814, vol. 1, 

 p. 233). 



Of the above-mentioned compounds iron oxides were most important 

 for both mordanting and dyeing. They were a very common, albeit dull, 

 source of color in household dyeing throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. 

 Often bits of old iron, such as nails, were soaked in acid, such as vinegar, 

 before a buff dyeing session was planned. An 1811 source suggested that 

 iron liquor could be made by filling casks with scraps of iron and filings 

 on which vinegar or sour beer was poured and left to stand for several 

 weeks. 



8 HoUberg's publication, a Master's thesis, was based mainly on the observations of 

 his major professor, Peter Kalm. 



48 



