Rita J. Adrosko Papers

Collection

Identifier: 2017-01

Staff Only

Dates

Existence: 1965 - 1993

Language of Materials

The materials are mainly in three different languages English, French, and German.

Extent

19.58 Linear Feet

Additional Description

Arrangement

Series I-VI, Contain Research Files, contains copies of material gathered by Adrosko in the course of visits to the library of the Musée Historique de Tissus, the Archives Nationales Françaises, the Bibliothèque Nationale, the museum of the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, and other libraries and archives in Paris, Lyon and London. It also includes numerous notes and information written by Adrosko herself in the course of her work. It contains sections on drawlooms and other pre-Jacquard devices; Jacquard’s life and work; the Jacquard mechanism in France, Britain, Germany, and America; applications and products; and the silk industry in general in France and Britain. It also contains copies of British patents, 1818-1868, for Jacquard and related looms, as well as copies of numerous articles about the silk industry in general and Jacquard in particular. Many files contain photographs.

Series VII. Contains bibliographic material gathered by Adrosko over the course of her research on textiles and looms.

Series VIII. Correspondence, Contains letters from publishers, publication details, trip information, and images.

Series VIX. Manuscripts, Contains Manuscripts and research on four unpublished books written by Adrosko.

Series X. Images, contains photographs collected by Adrosko over the course of her research.

Series XI-XIV, Notes, Trips, and Publication Details/Oversize Material/Miscellaneous/Notes Cards, contains material relating to the research and publication process which does not fall into Series I. Included is correspondence about Adrosko’s research trips and with prospective publishers, notes about significant sources, publication details, and six boxes of index cards recording details of her research.

Custodial History

This collection was a gift from Rita J. Adrosko in March, 2001 to the American Textile History Museum in Lowell, MA. In January, 2017 the collection was donated to the McCarl Gallary at St. Vincent.

Bibliography

Rita J. Adrosko is the Curator Emerita of the Textile Collection at the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, D.C. She received a B.S. in 1952 from Syracuse University and an M.A. in 1957 from Michigan State University. She was a Fulbright scholar in textile design at the School of Industrial Art in Helsinki, Finland in 1960-1961, and studied at the Cranbrook School of Art and the Haystack Mountain School. She also attended an individual workshop at the Philadelphia College of Textiles & Science (now Philadelphia University) with the head of their Jacquard program.

From 1963-1994 she served as the Supervising Curator in the Division of Textiles at the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution. Prior to that she worked as an Assistant Professor of Design at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and as an Instructor of Textiles and Design at Michigan State University. She also received Smithsonian grants in 1971 and 1972 to research the history of the Jacquard mechanism in French libraries and archives and a Smithsonian Foreign Currency Program grant in 1973 and 1974 to research Polish textiles.

Her interest in the Jacquard mechanism began in the late 1960’s while planning a new textile exhibit for the National Museum of History and Technology, as the National Museum of American History was then called. She was responsible for refurbishing the Museum’s 19th century French Jacquard-equipped loom for exhibit and for demonstrating weaving on the loom after the exhibit opened. Knowing little about the history or operation of the Jacquard loom and finding little fully-documented work about Jacquard’s life or his invention, she began to do extensive research on both the inventor and the mechanism. Her research led her to spend six weeks in Lyon and Paris in 1971 and 1972, visiting libraries, archives, and museums. She researched 19th century weaving and 18th and 19th century weaving industries in Lyon, Paris and other French weaving centers, as well as in London. She also visited places such as Jacquard’s burial place and sought photographs and documents showing examples of Jacquard weaving.

Adrosko’s research on Jacquard resulted in an article in the CIETA Bulletin de Liaison (No. 55-6, 1982) and an article on Jacquard woven silk pictures in Ars Textrina (Vol. 1, no. 1, 1983). She is also the author of Natural Dyes and Home Dyeing, published in 1971 as well as numerous introductions to works on weaving, exhibition catalogs, and articles for symposium proceedings.