Silk Ribbon Textile Sample Book

According to the book seller, Martha (nee Miller) Bander was the creator of this ribbon sample book. She was from Emmaus (Emaus), Pennsylvania. She married Edwin H. Bander in 1907, listing her occupation as seamstress on their marriage certificate. He was listed as a hot house planter. In 1912 Martha Bander was listed as a chaplain and patriotic instructor with the Ladies’ Auxiliary of the Col. Tilghman H. Good Camp 208, S of V, a civic organization celebrating their second anniversary of formation according to a 1918 article in the Morning Call. Her husband Edwin was listed as a charter member of the group.

As early as the 1750s, among the Moravian community in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, was a dominant industry. Silk worm cocoons were grown in the attic of the Brethren's House. The silk industry flourished in the Lehigh Valley after the Civil War. Access to water, power (coal), railroads and nonunion labor that attracted the silk industry from Paterson, New Jersey to the Lehigh Valley. In 1880 a group of Allentown businessmen including Col. T. H. Good persuaded the Phoenix Manufacturing Co. in Paterson, New Jersey looking to relocate to build a silk mill in Allentown. This first silk mill in the Lehigh Valley opened in 1881 as the Adelaide Silk Mill. In 1886 the Bethlehem Silk Mill as the first silk mill in Bethlehem [closed in 1953] came to Goepp Street in North Bethlehem [renovated by Moravian University used as dorms] and the Lehigh Valley Silk Mill [originally named Lipps and Sutton, now utilized as the Municipal Building for Fountain Hill borough] in South Bethlehem opened shortly thereafter. However, it was the Adelaide Silk Mill that became the cornerstone of the area’s burgeoning silk industry following the Panic of 1873 in the iron and steel industry and a catalyst for the Lehigh Valley’s silk industry. By 1900 there were 23 silk mills operating in the Lehigh Valley surpassing Paterson, New Jersey as the world’s premier silk manufacturing location. Some of the mills made the silk thread and some wove fabric and narrow fabric and ribbon.

Women’s fashion in the American Gilded Age or British Victorian Age dictated the use of ribbon. Ribbon was touted as the conscientious choice in millinery trimmings over bird feathers. There was an overwhelming selection of ribbon styles to choose from.