Posted 7 years ago
NSatticadd…
(2 items)
This is another item I have been storing forever. I looked on the internet to see if it was worth passing on to my kids but there were no blankets with that pattern. It was always somewhere in the house when I was growing up. Most often on my brothers' beds. They said it came from my grandmother Stricklands' second husband Grampa Earl. He was quite the story-teller. He kept us all entertained telling us about his younger years living with Indians, how they taught him to hunt and carve. He said he worked on boats that went to Alaska. He left us abalone shells that he said he dove for in the ocean and he was going to mount them in gold for us to wear as jewelry. I still have the shells. He also claimed he was in the Klondike gold rush and climbed a mountain with a buddy to stake a claim but his buddy got sick and died so he came home. That was when he met my gramma and they got married. So I decided to keep the blanket after my Dad died.
This isn't a Pendleton blanket. Pendleton always had a blue and gold, rectangular label. (Nor is it a blanket, the fringed textiles are technically classified as shawls.)
The remnants of the label clearly identifies this as an Oregon City Woolen Mills product. The black tag originally said "Jacobs' Oregon City Woolen Mills" and featured their trademark winged emblem. You can still see the "..ac.." part of the Jacobs' on the left, and the wings on the right. Here is an on line image of a label (on a coat) from the same time period: https://vintagehaberdashers.com/tag/jacobs-oregon-city/
Oregon City Woolen Mills was founded by the Jacobs brothers, Jewish immigrants from Poland, in the late 1800s, and continued as a family 0perated organization until the 1930s. It was one of five companies that produced trade blankets and robes, and was Pendleton's chief rival. They had retail outlets all over the country, but their Indian blanket production didn't survive the Great Depression. Of the five companies, only Pendleton is still in business. They have recently created several "tribute" blankets to their former rival, featuring Oregon City designs.
The best reference on this topic is "Chasing Rainbows" by Barry Friedman, who also has a web site: http://barryfriedmanblankets.com/wool-trade-blankets/