Browse Items (115 total)

Standard US Army eagle button.
No letter appears on the shield to indicate a particular branch of service. The nap (brushed surface) of the woolen cloth has worn off with use and abrasion, revealing the warp and weft threads.

Greatcoat button hole created with silk twist thread in a standard buttonhole (or blanket) stitch, over a laid thread, to produce a solid line around the slit opening. Good workmanship meant closely spaced, even stitches that kept the thick, heavy…

Photograph of three soldiers in bed, two knitting with needles and one with another textile tool. Two nurses behind.

American Indian woman wearing trade blanket

Photograph of US Army woolen textile swatches from WWII

Photograph of swatches of women textiles used by the US Navy in WWII

Depicts men sitting and lying around the interior of hut. Photographic negative from an album owned by Gunner Clive Richard Balmer, Australian Imperial Forces, dated 5 June 1917.
Soldiers who are shivering from cold are inefficient fighters. Before…

Bales of wool ready to be transported for manufacturing.
Getting wool to market from all parts of inland Australia where it was produced was never easy, especially before motorized transport

Folder of sample uniform fabrics: War Department, Office of Quartermaster General, Washington D.C. Whether in peace or war, the world’s military forces required cloth of many different weights (tropical, medium, and heavy), types (flannel for…

Standard Uniform Army Fabrics US Army: box of wool samples

Boy’s Suit with Ribbon, “My Father was a Soldier,” ca. 1865
Wool and silk
Jacket length: 15" (center back); Pants length: 16" (waist to hem)
Atlanta History Center, Atlanta, Georgia
1985.252.M2487

Photograph of shearer and single, half shorn sheep in profile, in wooden shed with landscape in background

Photograph of wagon loaded with wool bales, pulled by 14 bullocks. Hilly landscape in background, one worker stands at the head of the first team.

Photograph of sheep being driven along a city street by several young women dressed as shepherdesses. Chicago, 1918.

Union infantry overcoat with shoulder cape and stand collar; made of new wool broadcloth, tightly woven in a plain weave, and heavily fulled (washed to prevent shrinkage and increase durability) with collar and brass buttons. This US Army Overcoat…

Fragment of officer's tunic collar: 16 Battalion, AIF, Bloody Angle, Gallipoli. Remains of a proper right side Australian officer's tunic collar. Attached to it are a Rising Sun badge and three other badges.

Photograph of display set up to instruct in ways to conserve wool and other textiles for the war effort. October 1918, Connecticut.

Soldier and woman in bathing suit walk on the beach. Caption "I'm conserving wool, this bathing suit's painted on."

parti-coloured convict suit

Woman using powered cutting machine to cut stripes of wool bunting for flags

Pages from a printed publicity piece published by the American Wool Council, 1450 Broadway, NY, NY; "Text Assembled from Reports of the United States Army and Navy." P. 1 - Cover; P.2 - "The Army and Navy Agree: Wool Has No Substitute"; P.3 - Spread…

An excerpt from a document by the US' organization The Textile Alliance; this page focusing on shipping troubles of getting wool from South Africa (unrestricted by the British) to the US.

Japanese government offer of guaranteed purchase of certain number of bales of Australian wool, in return for which they wish Australia to purchase a certain number of yards of their own rayon staple fiber cloth, weighing above 3 oz. per yard,…

P.2 of Japanese government document regarding trade agreement with Australia, detailing sticking points as to export restrictions on rayon staple (i.e. wool-like) fabrics. This page continues Japan's arguments in favor of allowing greater quantities…

Edith Cox wrote the Australian PM to express her views that rayon was not a suitable substitute for wool in clothing; that their had been many deaths already because of rayon's flammability; and that Australian wool would keep British citizens safer…

Memo - Cover letter to a secret report on German substitute and synthetic fibres. The report itself (one page reproduced herein) covers more than just the staple rayon industry.

Extract from Imperial Economic Committee document: Quotation at length from the Frankfurter Zeitung of 24 March 1939. "Further Improvement in Industrially Produced Textile Materials"

Typescript of cable describing Japan's prohibition of wool for civilian use in order to divert wool to export trade; a result of the conflict with China. NB: Diversion of wool to exports probably in order to earn hard currency necessary to support…

Typescript of cable describing shipment approved of wool shoddy to mill in Shanghai, November 1941. Question now is whether the shoddy was for use by the Chinese government or the Japanese?