At first glance, we do not denote the same importance to quotidian objects that we designate for art, music, and even literature. We surround ourselves with tangible possessions, belongings for which we provide ourselves reason for purchase without understanding the depths of why we feel compelled to have them. We use these ordinary, seemingly unremarkable, objects throughout our lives without once stopping to analyze the way they create a tangible space for us in society, explaining our economic status and social constructs, our hopes and dreams. Though we may buy a car with the assumption that its value and appearance will carve out a special stage for us, it

soon becomes merely a vessel by which we transport ourselves to places otherwise out of reach. The things within reach, however, remain despondently overlooked, overused, and undervalued. Dresses are worn until fashion forces them out of style, catching dust at the back of a closet or in a cedar chest. Quilts remain folded at the foot of the bed; creases become permanent designs as comforters and mass-produced linens take the place of handcrafted coverlets. It is only with time that these belongings lose the simplicity of the everyday and gain an important role in history. Memories, lifestyles, and expectations are woven in with the inanimate threads compiling a threadbare, Paisley shawl. A once elegant and lavish piece of panache, the shawl is a feeble remembrance of a lineage of determined, successful men and women. Though its existence cannot tell us a complete narrative of their lives, it is capable of giving insight into their relationships, ideals, and, largely, their identities.

The Paisley shawl from the Kansas State Historic Costume and Textile Museum embodies the lifestyles of four generations of women across four separate states. From New York to Minnesota to Kansas to Oregon and back, the shawl passed from hand to hand, daughter to daughter, symbolizing a singular thread that binds the family together across time and space. From its birth overseas as an exquisitely elite wrap, it found its way into the lives of a family who both admired its beauty and used it for a more practical purpose. This piece of apparel emanated from a cultural upheaval in the early fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, overtook a highly-evolving period of fashion in the nineteenth century, and landed in the laps of the family of a physician and surgeon in New York in 1863.  The shawl presents a story of unconventionality; the shawl itself resides in the liminal space between essential and accessory, just as the women who preserved it resided in the space between familial and academic. The manufacture of the shawl, its purpose, and the lifestyles of the women it encountered seamlessly come together presenting a family who, despite appearances, made their own space in society.

Shawls were simple constructions in the 1800s; in fact, they still are. They mainly consist of a single layer of fabric, sometimes a double layer, front and back, if durability is its main affect. It is simplistic in its shape, taking on the form of a rectangle, both easily wearable and transportable. Nearly any material can be fashioned into a shawl because of its simplicity in structure; however, wool, silk, and, and, more recently, cotton are the most prominent textiles by which they are formed. While the materials are important aspects by which shawls are defined, their most appealing and thus demarcated details reside in the colors and patterns that make up each individual shawl. Innovations throughout history have allowed for the mass production of shawls today in many different colors, patterns, and materials, which have effectively raised the level of production while synchronously lowering product value. The Paisley shawl is at the beginning of this mass production; one of the first jacquard looms that replaced the busy hands of weavers generated this shawl only a few short years before its proficiency stole its profit and popularity.

The Paisley shawl measures in at a length of 79.5 inches and a width of 58 inches, weighing in around 10 ounces. At a little over 6 feet (1.8 m) long and just under 5 feet (1.5 m) wide, this shawl fits within the category of shawls being produced between the years 1840-1875, which is consistent with the year it was purchased by its family in 1863. The three leading sizes for shawls during that period were 5 feet (1.50 m) square; 5 feet (1.50m) by 8 feet 4 inches (2.50 m); 5 feet (1.50 m) by between 10-12 feet (3-3.60m). At the height of its style, this shawl would have been both light and full-coverage. If used the way fashion dictated, folded into a triangle and pinned around the 

shoulders at the base of the clavicle, this shawl would have fully enveloped a woman of between 5 and 5.5 feet tall. With the average crinoline frame of a woman’s dress ranging between 90-105 inches, this shawl would have been displayed at is fullest around the length and circumference of a woman’s dress (Andrews). The structure of the shawl is tenuous. Because of its age and use, much of the shawl is backed with interfacing added after its donation to the museum in order to salvage the remnants of its original construction. Though the interfacing bolstering the shawl is nearly unnoticeable, constructing most of the wrong side of the material, it is still apparent in its design. 

Though the interfacing allows the shawl enough structure to be moved and thus appreciated, it also means that the structure of the weave is degraded almost beyond dissection. From what is left of the shawl, it is determinable that it has, or had, a thread count near 50. That is to say, within a singular square inch of this shawl, 25 lengthwise threads (warp) and 25 widthwise (weft) threads combined to justify a thread count of 50 (Price-Robinson). But, because of its fragile appearance, that number comes within a margin of error.

The Paisley shawl is constructed of high-quality spun wool, a product of the fleece from the underbelly of goats living in extremely cold central Asian climates. Though its elegance comes namely from its pattern and colors, the element of material was essential in differentiating the truly fashionable and desirable shawls from their imitators. The fleece from these goats, Pashmina from the Persian pašmina meaning “from the wool,” acts as a lightweight insulator, making these shawls both wearable and warm; this shawl is particularly thin with an approximate width of 1/32 of an inch (“Pashmina”). Its microfiber structure weighs roughly 10 ounces, nearly 1/5 the weight of its less expensive counterparts, many of which weigh in at closer to 50 ounces, or about three pounds.

Although the material accounted for the expensive nature of the shawl, it is the pattern now known as Paisley that brought these shawls to fame. Back in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Kashmir (now the property of Pakistan, India, and People’s Republic of China in the northwestern region of South Asia) was conquered by is neighboring Central Asia in 1586. It was during the Mughals insurrection that the Kashmir shawl industry truly began to flourish. Emperor Akbar, who ruled from 

1556-1605, brought in skilled weavers from Turkestan, Central Asia, India, and many other Middle Eastern countries; between these weavers and the Afghan and Sikh invasions, the Paisley design as it is known today with its sinuous floral designs was created. At the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries, travelers, military personnel, and the East India Trading Company all acquired Paisley shawls, lending them transport to Europe. Though the earliest design on the Kashmir shawls depicted a complete, flowering plant, the pattern was later simplified to the cone-shaped motif known as the boteh, which, ultimately, transformed into the tear-

shaped pear that appears on Mr. Beach’s shawl. Though there are many theories as to the origins of the boteh theme, the most fitting traces back to the earliest Babylon, where the shape of a tear drop symbolized the shoot of a date palm. Due to its multiple uses, the date palm stood first for the “Tree of Life” and later became a symbol of fertility (Eduljee).

Although the structure of the pattern remained relatively the same despite artistic liberties taken for regional tastes, no two shawls were made alike. Some shawls, 

unlike the Beach’s, were fashioned with lighter colored centers, either white or scarlet, intended for use in the summer. When folded as it was to be draped, the shawl would fade from top to bottom, soft to heavier colors, enhancing the lightness of the season. The consistently colorful designs were regularly used for winter and for mourning. Unlike the summer shawls, the Beach’s was covered in color and pattern from end to end. The town of Paisley, Scotland, described fully-decorated shawls such as the Beach’s as “filled harness” or “filled-in” plaids, defining consistent coloring throughout (Andrews).

Across our shawl, twenty-eight botehs can be seen in intricate patterns despite the worn quality of the wool. Making up these botehs are four different colored threads: red, light pink, cream, and green. The vertical, or warp, threads are made up of a deep sienna color, very similar to the burgundy color of the interfacing holding it together. While the warp threads run up and down the shawl from end to end, the weft threads follow a different pattern. The wefts, which form the Paisley pattern, are woven back and forth around the warps wherever a particular color is needed. These patterns are made up of the remaining colors, the crimson, pink, cream, and green. In the mid-nineteenth century, these colors would have been created by natural vegetable dyes. This explains why the shawl displays patches of discoloration and, in places, albinism. As stated by the Beach family, this was not the best shawl owned by Sarah Beach. We can then assume that this shawl saw more washing than her other one. Sarah probably used a lye- or bleach-based cleanser for the wool that, in time, wore down the quality of the coloration and the structure of the wool itself. Yet the intricate designs of the shawl are still gorgeous. Inside the circle of botehs are a series of floral representations that appear to be reaching across the shawl toward each other. These wispy tendrils seem to grow out of the circle of botehs surrounded by single plants with large cypress tree leaves. From within the ring of botehs bloom a series of flowers. Four clusters appear, each with just under ten buds produced, some in full bloom, others yet unopened. The fully-bloomed flowers appear in contrast with the others, decorated in more vivid shades of red and green, while the others appear in shades of pink and cream. Though similar images appear on either side of the shawl, it is not of a symmetrical design. The lack of scenes within the arrangement suggest a Middle Eastern origin, as its European counterparts tended to depict recognizable natural objects, such as exotic scenes, within the natural geometric shapes of the boteh. The orientation of the images as well as the vivacity of certain flowers in opposition to their counterparts suggests a link to the original ornamental Indian symbol of fertility (Moriarty).

Only one section of the shawl seems to have been affected by something other than the natural elements or the constitution of its cleanser. Perhaps a beverage of sorts had been set down upon it and leaked, creating a slight spherical stain. This unnatural treatment of an object of such great value merely lends credence to the idea that the Beach family used this shawl for more than just a fashionable addition.

The connection between this exquisitely expensive shawl and its original family can be traced back to the year 1828 in upstate New York. Samuel Tompkins and his wife, Thankful Sarah, were expecting their first child, a boy to be named Isaac. It had been a remarkably mild winter through which Thankful’s pregnancy had culminated; temperatures, on average, across the East Coast exceeded four degrees Celsius through the early months of 1828. “No snow, or frost, and the plough enabled to cut the furrows!” wrote JF Watson, one diarist of the anomaly (qtd. in Mock et al. 96). Ice supplies to the Northeast states had faltered, if not completely failed, as Thankful prepared to give birth to her son. And, as if his impending arrival to this world was a signifier, the great calm broke in the opening weeks of April, bringing with it the Great Killing Freeze of 1828. In the weeks prior to Isaac’s birth, crops and gardens alike were destroyed, the ground frozen three or four inches deep beneath an inch of visible ice. But while the South was devastated, Thankful and Samuel welcomed a healthy baby boy in their lives in Springport, New York. And, as though the great freeze at his birth was a sign, he was lucky to have been afforded the life of a scholar and the avoidance of a future working the earth as a farmer.

In 1856, by the time Isaac was 28, he had married Maria North Wood and had successfully defended his way through university and medical school in order to become a registered physician and surgeon in Summer Hill, Cayuga County, New York. To be a physician was difficult in the nineteenth century. Medical practices were carried out in patients’ homes as opposed to centralized work places. This meant that Dr. Beach spent most of his time traveling in order to attend to his patients (“19th Century Doctors”). Now, whether or not Dr. Beach and his wife earned their wealth through practicing medicine or if they were gifted it through family ties remains unclear. What is clear is that they did acquire significant wealth to purchase exotic and expensive goods and, perhaps more importantly, to send their daughters and sons to school.

It was the winter of 1862 and, perhaps, on one of his many visits to a patient Dr. Beach stopped in at an auction market at the request of his wife. She was pregnant, soon to give birth to their second daughter, Ellen, and apprehensive about the well-being of her children. Across the United States, by the 1860s, the infant mortality rate was nearing 20 percent and still rising (Haines). Maria wanted something warm and soft for her babies, which is probably why Isaac placed his money down on this red- and cream-colored Paisley shawl, most likely newly arrived from Paisley, Scotland. What Isaac may not have known, at the time, was that the shawl was not only an exquisite piece of work but also that its history was turbulent, at best. Shawls of this quality and style were just beginning to gain popularity in Europe. At the time of the Beach’s acquisition, paisley shawls could cost upwards of €210, or $7,500 with current inflation (“Historical Exchange Rates”). While this particular shawl might have cost much less at an auction, it was still more expensive than other, thriftier options. This shawl, constructed from the fine Kashmir wools of the Middle East, weft and woven to the most specific instructions, was still second to one other shawl owned by Maria. It is in this knowledge that I presume to explain the shawl traveling down through the lineage of, not the first, but the second-born daughter, Ellen.

Whether Alice, Ellen’s older sister, kept her maiden name for academic purposes is unknown. It is probable that she never married, as she used her younger sister, Ellen, and Ellen’s husband’s address as an intermediary to her own. Alice Marie, the eldest of Isaac and Maria’s children, graduated from Iowa State College in 1892 with a Bachelor’s of Science in entomology. Two short years later, she received her Master’s of Science from the same institution (“Semi-Centennial” 843). It is assumed, because of the lack of a known dowry, that she received her mother’s first shawl in regard to her scholarly accomplishments. She went on to teach at both public and private schools across New York, and to work as an assistant in the Museum at Iowa State College and in the Lab of Natural History at the University of Illinois (Creese 70-71). While Alice was traveling and teaching, Ellen met her future husband, Willet Martin Hays. Though Ellen’s scholarly history is more obscure than her sibling’s, she was educated by the regulations of census—she could read, write, and attended school throughout her adolescence. Her husband, Willet, had the same interests as her elder brother, Spencer Ambrose Beach. Spencer also attended Iowa State College, later to do graduate work at Rutgers College. He earned both his Bachelor’s and Master’s of Science, akin to his elder sister, while going on to author two volumes of Apples of New York, alongside numerous technical papers and reports. He ultimately settled down in the position of Vice Dean of Agriculture and Professor of Horticulture at his alma mater (Lawrence 16).

Ellen became Willet Hays’ second wife in 1897. He obtained his master’s degree in agriculture from her siblings’ alma mater in 1885, shortly thereafter becoming the first faculty member of the freshly-founded Minnesota Agricultural Experimental Station at the University of Minnesota, St. Paul. There he did years of research with his first wife, Clara Shepperd, a fellow post-graduate student of domestic science. Willet was born to a laboring farm family in Union Hardin, Iowa. By the age of 20, Willet was earning his wages as a farmhand while chasing his academic pursuits. After Clara’s death and Willet’s subsequent marriage to our Ellen, the couple, his two children, and their firstborn daughter Doris (b. 1899) moved to Minnesota where Ellen worked hard in the home to support their family, cleaning and properly running their mortgaged home while Willet made a name for himself worldwide (McGrath and Stoddard). Willet was the founding father of systematic breeding; he produced new varieties of plant life by cross-breeding varieties of superior flax, wheat, barley, corn, oat, and discovered winter-resistant alfalfa. Hays was appointed the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Agriculture during the Roosevelt administration, founding the American Breeders’ Association (ABA) now known as the American Genetic Association. He was a draft writer for the Smith-Lever Act and the Smith-Hughes Act; the former was associated with establishing a system of cooperative extension services connected to land-grant universities, and the latter was an act that promoted agriculture as a basis to promote vocational education for people preparing to enter work on a farm (Troyer and Stoehr 435).

The eldest daughter of Ellen and Willet took after her father. Though the majority of her young life is unrecorded, Doris graduated from university, like most of her ancestors, at Iowa State College by 1925 with a degree in English. At that time, she had already married her spouse, Frederick C. Fenton and given birth to their first child, a son, Franklin. Barely a year later, they welcomed their first daughter, Ruth, the donator of our Paisley shawl. By 1945, both Doris and Frederick were professors of English/History and Agricultural Engineering, respectively. Although Doris chose a degree outside of the sciences, dissimilar to both her relatives and her husband, she used her degrees in English and History as a weapon by which she fought for the preservation of soil and water conservation in Kansas. She wrote and collected papers on the Big Blue River floods and the Tuttle Creek Dam, later donating her entire collection in 1962 to the Kansas State University Library (“Doris H. Fenton Collection”). She worked hard alongside her husband, who wrote two books discussing the importance of natural materials: The Use of Concrete on the Farm (Iowa. State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts: Agricultural Extension) 1916, and The Use of Earth as a Building Material (Kansas State College Bulletin) 1941.

For generations, the relatives of Isaac and Maria Beach experimented in the world of the sciences. From medicine to entomology to horticulture to agriculture, nearly all of them partook in the reclaiming and reuse of natural objects. This family lineage was not lost in Ruth, the final heiress of our Paisley shawl. Ruth spent her childhood in Manhattan, Kansas, where her parents both enjoyed professorial positions at the university. She met her future husband, John Bascom, there in the sixth grade; they married 13 years later in 1950. They spent stretches of time in Illinois, New York, and Minnesota, the lands of her forebears, before settling in Eugene, Oregon, in 1960. Her husband, John, and all six of her children followed in Ruth’s great-grandfather’s medical footsteps, four of whom (not including John) became doctors, one who became a nurse, and one a pharmacist. Ruth, however, took great care to revive Eugene’s reputation as a great city of the arts and outdoors (Baker D3). She was elected the first female mayor of Eugene in 1993, after spending years as a strong proponent of pursuing a paved 12-mile trail for bicyclists the along the Willamette Valley River which would later be named the Ruth Bascom Riverbank Trail System in her honor. She was likewise a member of the Alton Baker Park Committee, which birthed a park that included a tree garden. Thirty years later, in honor of her late mother Doris (d. 1992), she initiated the Hayes Memorial Tree Garden, whose main features are trees with brilliant seasonal blossoms and foliage that will provide a quiet place for contemplation and natural beauty. The beauty of this park in bloom is reminiscent of the arabesque patterns on the family’s Paisley shawl and, according to a news article, Ruth herself claimed that “the root of her convictions was her desire to create a nurturing community for children and families” (KVAL.com staff). Ruth was close with her mother, Doris, both of whom were diagnosed with, and beat, breast cancer at the age of 74 (Baker D3). Presumably because they were so close, she donated the family shawl back to the Historic Costume and Textile Museum at Kansas State University in her mother’s name where it now resides a few buildings away from Doris’ life research.

The lives of the Beach family are reflected in the artistry of the Paisley shawl. Country to country, coast to coast, it represented one family’s connection to nature and the interconnectedness of stories. Beginning as a small bud, representative of fertility and the continuance of life, the Paisley pattern was altered by every hand that touched it; it bears the mark of the Mughals, the Turks, the Persians, and the Europeans—it is the genetic byproduct of assimilation while still clinging to its origins. Even in its creation it was not intended to be folded neatly into one categorical use: fashion. This shawl, in its design and use, embodied not only its own uniqueness, but also the bodies of those who inculcated great changes in society and even the world.

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