Skip Navigation

Spinning & Weaving as a Home Industry

DATES December 11, 1936 through June 30, 1936
ORGANIZING DEPARTMENT Costumes and Textiles
  • December 12, 1936 The new lamps installed in the ground before the Brooklyn Museum were lit on Friday evening for the first time for the reception and preview opening four exhibitions, The Rayon and Synthetic Yarns in Textiles, Spinning and Weaving - A Home Industry, Prints and Drawings by Segonzac from Mr. Frank Crowninshield’s collection and Photographs of Contemporary Dancers by Thomas Bouchard. The Entrance Hall was decorated with a tall Christmas tree lit with blue lights and hung with strands of rayon simulating Santa Claus snow. A massive table carried a huge crystal bowl of poinsettias,and streamers of rayon hung in folds from the ceiling of the spacious hail to the floor twenty feet below.

    Among those present were:

    Mr. and Mrs. Edward C. Blum
    Mr. and Mrs. Philip N. Youtz
    Miss Anna Billings Gallup
    Mr. Herbert B. Tschudy
    Mrs. Alexandrina H. Harris
    Mr. Thomas Bouchard
    Miss Sophia Deiza
    Dr. and Mrs. Vinal
    Miss Stella Epstein
    Miss Anne Epstein
    Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Chase
    Mr. and Mrs. Sheldon Keck
    Dr. and Mrs. Herbert J. Spinden
    Mr. Carl 0. Schniewind
    Miss Elizabeth Haynes
    Miss Louise Chase
    Miss Helen Wallace
    Mr. Edward Krehbiel
    Miss Martha Krehbiel
    Mr. and Mrs. William Lloyd Garrison III
    Mr. Harold E. Garbarino
    Mr. David Robinson
    Mr. A. Schwartz
    Mr. Ernest Knaufft
    Miss Mary Hubbard
    Miss Mary Ferrese
    Mr. Harvey Parker
    Mr. and Mrs. Judas
    Miss Virginia Enfield
    Miss Virginia Montgomery
    Miss Cynthia Root
    Mrs. Howard Aidridge
    Mrs. Michelle Murphy
    Miss Elizabeth Cameron
    Mr. Harold Dusseldorf
    Mr. and Mrs. Herman de Wetter
    Mr. and Mrs. Donald Shelley
    Dr. and Mrs. Harold Smith
    Mr. and Mrs. Milton Schumann
    Mr. and Mrs. William Gardner
    Miss Mary Dorwood
    Miss Keith Wallace
    Miss Olivia Fancy
    Mr. Jerry O’Connor
    Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Suarez
    Miss Virginia Parker
    Mr. H. N. Westover
    Mr. Richmond Williams
    Miss Mildred C. S one
    Miss Helen McGrath
    Miss Marian C. Lepper
    Mrs. R. Edson Doolittle
    Mrs. Burgess Osterhout
    Miss Flora E. Zahn
    Mr. Harry V. Allison
    Mr. George K. Allison
    Mr. Lew Durante
    Miss Adele Owens
    Miss Jeanne Winham
    Mr. Albert Edward Windham
    Mr. James Owens
    Miss Adelaide Morris
    Mr. Fred Gardner
    Mr. Walter Grant
    Mr. F. Newton Price
    Miss Adele Robinson
    Mr. David Robinson
    Mr. W. S. Gilmore, Jr.
    Mr. and Mrs. Jean Goriany
    Mr. D. S. Brady
    Mr. J. Hadley
    Mr. Barash
    Mr. and Mrs. Edward P. Helwig
    Miss Hannah T. Rose
    Mr. Frank Crowninshield
    Miss Mary Ann Farley
    Dr. Joseph Kennoy
    Mr. and Mrs. M. D. C. Crawford
    Mr. Fred Levinthal
    Dr. L. J. Morton
    Mrs. Grace Turner
    Miss Dorothy Woods


    Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1931 - 1936. 10-12_1936, 145.
    View Original
  • December 12, 1936 The Brooklyn Museum will open four exhibitions simultaneously on Saturday, December 12th, and there will be a reception and preview for members and guests of the Museum on the evening of Friday, December 11th. The Department of Industrial Art, Christine Krehbiel, Acting Curator, will occupy the special exhibition galleries on the first floor with a large exhibition of Rayon and Synthetic Yarns in Textiles, showing processes of manufacture as well as finished products. The Division of American Rooms, Elizabeth Haynes, Assistant Curator, will occupy the neighboring sub-balcony gallery with an exhibition of spinning and Weaving as a Home Industry. At the opening, students from Pratt Institute will give practical demonstrations in this gallery. The Dance Center, Grant Code, Acting Director, will present an exhibition of Photographs of Contemporary Dancers by Thomas Bouchard in the Balcony Gallery, Second Floor. In the adjacent Print Gallery, the Department of Prints and Drawings, Carl 0. Schniewind, Curator, will show Drawings and Prints by Andre’ Dunoyer de Segonzac from the collection of Frank Crowninshield. During the reception on Friday the 11th, Mr. Crowninshield will give an informal talk on the collection in the Print Study Room.

    Exhibitors in the Rayon Show are American Bemberg Corporation, American Enka Corporation, Delaware Rayon Corporation, Rayon Department of E. I. DuPont de Nemours Company, Inc., Industrial Rayon Corporation, North American Rayon Corporation, Skernandoa Rayon Corporation, Tubise Chatillon Corporation and The Viscose Company.

    In connection with this exhibition the Museum is publishing a Handbook of Rayon and Synthetic Yarns to which the following articles have been contributed by experts in the field: Introduction by M. D. C. Crawford, The Scope of Rayon by Stephen S. Marks, Texture of Rayon Fabrics by Alexis Sommaripa, The Fashion Significance of Rayon by Anne Mullany, Rayon Yarns in Knit Fabrics by E. D. Fowle, Decorative Rayon Fabrics by Virginia Pegram, Science Looks at Rayon’s Serviceability, by Charles L. Simon, Spun Rayon by Alexis Sommaripa, Statistics by Stanley B. Hunt, The History of Rayon by S. A. Salvage, and technical explanations of the various processes by which rayon is fabricated, Viscose, Acetate and Cuprammoniun, by H. W. Rose, H. De Witt Smith and Theodore Wood respectively.

    The exhibitions will be available for press preview Tuesday December 8th.


    Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1931 - 1936. 10-12_1936, 146.
    View Original