Tufted Chenille Bedspreads

Tufted bedspreads, which proved popular not only locally but also regionally and nationally, consisted of cotton sheeting to which Evans and later others would apply designs with raised "tufts" of thick yarn. These tufted bedspreads were often referred to as chenille products. Chenille, the French word for "caterpillar," is generally used to describe fabrics that have a thick pile (raised yarn ends) protruding all around at right angles. Most tufted bedspreads did not meet the strict definition of chenille, yet the term stuck.

The handcraft of tufting played an important role in the economic development of northwest Georgia. Evans and others who learned the technique stamped familiar patterns onto blank sheets, and then filled the patterns with yarn. As the products grew in popularity, merchants in the Dalton region took an interest in marketing the spreads. By the 1920s tufted bedspreads appeared on the shelves of department stores in Atlanta, New York, Philadelphia, and other major cities.

Merchants organized a vast "putting out" system to fill the growing demand. They established "spread houses," usually small warehouses (or homes) where patterns were stamped onto sheets. Men called haulers would then deliver the stamped sheets and yarn to thousands of rural homes in north Georgia, Tennessee, and the Carolinas. Families then sewed in the patterns. The hauler would make another round of visits to pick up the spreads, pay the tufters (or "turfers," as they sometimes called themselves), and return the products to the spread houses for finishing. Finishing involved washing the spreads in hot water to shrink them and lock in the yarn tufts. The tufted spreads could also be dyed in a variety of colors.

Exhibits related to the old bedspread industry can be found at Crown Gardens and Archives in Dalton. Crown houses a number of bedspreads from the period, as well as other exhibits related to the history of the Dalton area.

The history of textiles of this type begins about 1895 when Catherine Evans stumbled across a Civil War-era tufted bedspread and was inspired to try to make one of her own. She stretched cotton fabric on a quilting frame, drew in the design and then hand- stitched it with thick yarn to create the desired tufted look. Next, she boiled the fabric to shrink it so that the yarn would be tightly bound to the fabric backing.

In the early years of the 20th century, the making of these bedspreads became something of a cottage industry when Evans began employing her Dalton, Ga., neighbors to help her in the manufacturing process. The local cotton mills produced sheeting for use in this process, and the popularity of these items spread up and down the East Coast.