Update: The American Textile History Museum closed permanently in 2016.
The American Textile History Museum in Lowell, MA — grandly reopened after a $1.5 million renovation — is home to “the most significant collection of historic textile items in the Americas, possibly the world.”
I went with a couple of friends not knowing what to expect, and we ended up having a great time exploring the historic machine shop-turned-museum’s labyrinthine rooms and passages. The permanent exhibit is Textile Revolution: An Exploration Through Space and Time, and from what I understand, it is a huge improvement and expansion from the museum’s previous offerings.
There were so many things in this museum to become enthralled with: bales of raw fibers, bolts of fabrics, spools of ribbons, tapestries, clothing, looms, weaving and spinning machines, fabric printing tools, photographs, documents, and now (I believe this was part of the expansion), examples of modern textiles, like those used to make swimsuits, bicycles, astronauts’ uniforms, even planes.
The exhibit labels are extremely simple; to the museum’s credit, they are not themed — lord knows that could have turned ugly fast. There were some instances of type use I did not like at all but I’ll let them slide because of my overall enjoyment of the museum. And I like the label system more now that I've taken another look at photos of the visit — the black boxes have grown on me. The black bands reminded me of NY subway signage. The low-budget mounting system worked: the labels, printed on paper, are easily replaceable but still look nice behind plexiglass.
I loved studying the boxes of indigo cakes and jars of powdered dye. Those jar labels, and their chemical structure drawings — how neat are they?! I’d happily go back.
And here are a couple pictures from the temporary exhibit, Changing Landscapes: Contemporary Chinese Fabric Art. On the left is a detail of the gorgeous The Season of Fluorescence by Chen Yanlin, and on the right, a beautiful old counterpane (bedspread).
Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. Broken link has been replaced with an archived URL, courtesy of archive.org. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 11 January 2010.