Name/Title
Trade Card, Willimantic Linen CompanyEntry/Object ID
2023.12.1Description
Trade card published by the Willimantic Linen Company of Willimantic, CT, advertising its six-cord spool cotton thread. The advertisement either notes that the product won "all the honors" at the 1881 International Cotton Exposition (I.C.E.) in Atlanta, Georgia (held Oct. 4 - Dec. 31), or was meant to be distributed at the I.C.E. The advertisement also notes that the WLC produced enough thread to "put a girdle" of its thread "round the Earth in forty minutes." The trade card is printed on thin white cardboard and measures 11.4 mm wide by 7.2 mm high.Context
The I.C.E. was the first world's fair held in the South since the Civil War and was intended to show the progress since the destruction of Atlanta during the war. It celebrated the end of Reconstruction and the vision of an agricultural "white" New South allied to an industrialized "white" North, the reconciliation of North and South, and an economic/social agreement where Northern capital was welcome in the South but Northern "moralism" was not, where the North provided a market for the South's raw cotton as well as investment capital for agricultural expansion. The I.C.E. has also been described as the opening act in the migration of cotton manufacturing from New England to the South, although the Northerners who participated in it did not realize it the time. The I.C.E. featured exhibits of industrial machinery powered by a giant Corliss steam engine and encouraged joint Northern/Southern business ventures to open cotton mills in the South. The vast building used for the I.C.E., located alongside the tracks of the Western & Atlantic Railroad was designed to be converted into a cotton mill after the Fair, as indeed it was, as the Exposition Cotton Mills.Collection
Trade Card CollectionLexicon
Nomenclature 4.0
Nomenclature Secondary Object Term
Card, TradeNomenclature Primary Object Term
Card, AdvertisingNomenclature Class
Advertising MediaNomenclature Category
Category 08: Communication ObjectsPublication Details
Publication Type
Flyer or HandbillDate Printed
circa 1881Publication Language
EnglishLocation
Location
Room
Archives* Untyped Location
Main Museum BuildingDate
April 15, 2023Provenance
Provenance Detail
Mystic Seaport Museum 1Acquisition Method
Donation, MSMAcquisition Date
Mar 28, 2023Notes
This was one of 13 Willimantic-related trade cards donated together, all probably published c. 1880s.Copyright
Copyright Holder
Public DomainCreated By
historian@millmuseum.orgCreate Date
April 15, 2023Updated By
historian@millmuseum.orgUpdate Date
April 15, 2023
