Rita J. Adrosko - Natural Dyes and Home Dyeing

Common Names of Chemicals Used in Dyeing

Dyes Occasionally Mentioned in Dyers Manuals Printed in America

Excerpt from David Ramsay, The history of South-Carolina . Charleston: David Longworth, 1809, 2 vol. (vol. 2, pp. 249252).

The art of dying ought to make a conspicuous figure among the arts of the carolinians; for nature has blessed them with a profusion of materials for that purpose. To encourage their attention to this subject, the following facts are mentioned: captain Felder, near Orangeburgh, procured a paste from the leaves of the sweet leaf, hopea tinctoria, and those of the yellow indigo, a species of cassia, for which he obtained one guinea per pound during the american revolutionary war. Unfortunately his process died with him.

Doctor Bancroft, the ingenious author of experimental researches concerning the philosophy of permanent colors, informed the writer of this history that his patent for introducing into England several dye-stuffs gained for him 5000. per annum for some of the last years of his patent. In the course of his experiments, doctor Bancroft found that some materials for dying could be procured in the greatest abundance from the woods of America, which were of equal efficacy with others which commanded a high price in England. This was particularly the case with the bark of the quercus tinctoria or black oak, which is very common in Carolina. Of this he annually imported and sold as much as gained him the above sum.