Cotton and Thrift: Feed Sacks and the Fabric of American Households

Printed cotton sacks are currently fashionable aspects for material culture research, particularly in the costume and quilt history communities. Beginning in the late nineteenth century through the 1960s, these mass-produced sacks were relied upon by rural America as a valuable source of free fabric for clothing, quilts, and home décor. White cotton sacks were ubiquitous beginning in the last half of the nineteenth century; sacks printed with designs would come onto the market in 1937. Larg...