newsletter 2-1

Flour sacks, salt sacks, sugar sacks, meal sacks---no matter what you call them, they fall under the term of feedsacks. They were a large part of my life as a youngster and I still love them. I have a large collection of printed and white sacks, plus many articles made from them, even the “feedsack sheets” from my bed when I left home at 18.
The first textile bags were used around the middle of the 1800’s. They were homespun and stitched by hand. Prior to that time, wooden barrels, kegs, boxes or tins were used for all storage in and around the home. The wooden barrel remained the most popular way to package and ship goods until the 1880’s. The flour sack sewing machine was patented in 1864 and textile bags grew in popularity; by World War I wooden barrels were almost non-existent.
“Barrel weights” were continued after bags began to be used. A barrel size bag weighed 196 pounds; one-half barrel bags, 98 pounds; one-fourth barrel weight equaled 48 or 49 pounds; one-eighth barrel bag would weigh 24-24 1/2 pounds; and a bag that weighed 12-12 1/2 pounds was equivalent to one-sixteenth of a barrel. Textile bags ranged in size from a small one pound bag to a bag 9 to 12 feet long that was used for cotton. There were no set measurements for textile bags until the War Production Board, in 1943, ordered a standard of six sizes– 100, 50, 25, 10, 5 and 2 pound sizes. The only item sold today using the barrel measurment is cement.
Early cotton bags came in solid colors of white, browns and sometimes in colors.

During the 1930’s bag manufacturers began making brightly figured textile bags. The housewife loved these prints for their reuse value in their homes. Bags were very popular during the 1930’s, 1940’s and 1950’s and very valuable to the people who had so little during the depression and war years.
Early bags were printed with company logos and brand names directly on the cotton fabric, making it difficult for the housewife to remove the ink. It was often necessary to use lye soap and boil them in lye water to get the inks out. Later, water soluble inks were used, band-labels were sewn into the seams and some were glued onto the fabric. Cotton was very, very cheap with the beginning of textile bags but became very expensive in the early 1960’s, leading to the decline of the beautiful textile bags, and more and more use of paper bags.
In their popular times, sacks were sewn with a double-locked stitch which made them very strong. The stitching could be easily unraveled by unlocking the stitch and pulling from both sides. This string was also very useful in the home. Some of the things I remember using it for– crochet doilies, lace edging for hankies and dresser scarves, mending, to tie hair back, flossing teeth, flying kites and even to pull baby teeth. Articles we made from cotton textile bags were– shirts, dresses, under garments, dish towels, aprons, sheets, bedspreads, table cloths, pillow cases, diapers, sun bonnets, bandages, dresser scarves and infant wear.

In This Issue…

Aerial Photography………..3

WCHPS News…………….4

Hovis Opens FBHP……….5

Town Topics– 1863……….6

Blizzard Mansion………….8

Walk Down Market St. …...9

Julia-Ann Square News….10

Upcoming River Cruise….11