July 16 – November 15, 2016
American Indian trade blankets are commercially-made wool blankets with bold geometric designs. In the late nineteenth century, enterprising American woolen mills—J. Capps & Sons, Racine, Oregon City and Pendleton among them—began making brightly colored blankets for sale to Native peoples. Trade blankets soon became an important part of Native culture; by the 1940s, Pendleton-brand blankets had assumed most-favored blanket status, while all other American woolen mills had ceased operations. The exhibition features more than 20 pre-1925 blankets from a variety of historic manufacturers.
Click here to read the gallery guide for this exhibition.
Image: Oregon City Woolen Mills (Oregon City, OR, 1864–1932), Happy Hunting Ground blanket, c. 1920s, wool with cotton warp, 71½” x 54½”; Collection of Mark Pigott.