Artifact: Bed Rug
Materials: Hand-tufted wool pile on a linsey-woolsey ground
Dimensions: OW: 86" x OL: 90"
Date: 1776
Origin: New England
Collection: Image Courtesy of The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
License: All rights reserved
Ledger Entry: Large Rug
Department: Household
Customer: Judith Lafferty
Ledger Page: 231
Imported From: While some rugs were produced locally, they were typically imported from Great Britain.
Product Description
Unlike in today's house, a rug was a bed covering that typically had a pile or tufted texture on one side. While the term rug was used for both a type of pile fabric which could be sold by the yard or a completed bed covering, all rug sales in the Ramsay databases were by quantity rather than yard, suggesting that they were completed bed coverings.
Citation: Gloria Seaman Allen. “Rugs-The Colonial Chesapeake Consumer's Bed Covering of Choice.” Journal of Early Southern Decorative Arts. XXX(Summer 2004): 1-86.; Florence M. Montgomery. Textiles in America, 1650-1870 : a Dictionary Based on Original Documents : Prints and Paintings, Commercial Records, American Merchants' Papers, Shopkeepers' Advertisements, and Pattern Books with Original Swatches of Cloth. (New York :Norton, 1984), 336
Historical Price: 21 shillings, 6 pence; Modern USD: $241
Product Variations
The databases record ten purchases of rugs. Qualifiers include large, mottled, coarse, and green. Their prices ranged from five shillings for a coarse rug to twenty one shillings six pence for a large rug.
