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VINTAGE BEACON NAVAJO AMERICANDESIGNED CAMP BLANKET
Vintage Beacon Blanket with Navajo Design.Blanket has a few blemishes and an old repair but in my opinion.only adds to the character of the piece.Measures approx. 64 inches by 55 inches. I believe this is a cotton blend blanket but I am no expert.I have not attempted to wash or clean the piece and is in exactly as I found it, nestled inside an old steam ship trunk, buried in a dark corner of a Michigan Barn.If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
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Beacon Blanket History:
The Beacon ManufacturingCompany was located in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and originally, they made yarn.In 1904, the company was bought by the Charles D. Owen family, who really beganthe blanket and fabric company. In 1923 they went in search of a location inthe South in which to locate their spinning operation. They settled onSwannanoa, a farming community ten miles east of Asheville, North Carolina.
So why did Beacon leave Massachusetts for the South? The simpleanswer is that it was cheaper to do business there than in the North. Theywould be closer to the source of their raw material – cotton, so that savedtransportation costs. Also, wages were much lower in the South. Labor unionswere almost unheard of, and jobs were so hard to come by that workers often developeda strong loyalty to the company and to the owners.
Beacon used images of American Indians at looms weaving blanketsin their advertising. In 1930s the Navajo Indian tribe filed a complaint,saying the advertising was misleading and injurious to Indian weavers.The company was ordered to stop using Indian images, and they had to make clearthat the blankets were not woven by Native Americans.
During WWII Beacon converted to making wool and wool/cotton blendblankets for the war effort. So many of the workers left to join themilitary that the jobs were filled by the women of the community, Rosie theRiveter style.
After the warBeacon revertedback to cotton. In the 1950s, however, the company began adding rayon to thecotton. At the same time, the ombre weaves were discontinued, as theycould not be woven on newly installed machinery.
