When I agreed to do a talk on two paisley shawls held by the King Manor Museum in Jamaica, New York, I had no idea how significant they were for women in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Researching the origin of these objects within the context of America and the world during the period in which they were created and first used proved rewarding and fascinating. These wraps joined east and west, Europe and America, hand weaving and early industry, and were a signifier for the rising power of urban merchants in early America.
Tracing the Origins of the Shawls
The particular shawls in question belonged to Mary Alsop King (1769-1819), wife of Rufus King, and to Eliza Gracie King Halsey (1811-1883), granddaughter of Mary and Rufus King, and Letitia and Archibald Gracie. I assumed that Mary King’s shawl would be the older of the two, and earlier records suggested that it was imported, while Eliza’s shawl was American made. When the latter was sent for conservation, however, this assumption was turned on its head. The conservator reported that Eliza’s shawl was a true Kashmir shawl, hand made using traditional eastern techniques, and created in the eighteenth century. I like to think that I would have come up with the same conclusion after researching and comparing images of the “Eliza” shawl with others made in Kashmir during that period. I have embedded an image of Eliza’s shawl (on top) along with another eighteenth century Kashmir shawl for comparison below.
The general aesthetic of the two shawls is very close, as is the shape of what became known as the “paisley” or pine cone pattern, which had begun to droop over in a teardrop shape and developed a stylized “vase” base by the mid to late 1700s. The reverse of Eliza’s shawl, shown below, also shows the short thread weft typical of the use of short, needle-like shuttles to create the pattern in traditional Tibetan weaving practice.
Mary King’s shawl, while also relatively early, is silk, not kashmir wool, and its pattern does not bear the hallmarks of Tibetan hand production on the reverse. It seems fairly certain that this shawl was an early product of western attempts to imitate the popular and wildly expensive Indian imports (Valerie Reilly of the Paisley Museum points out that Kashmir shawls could cost over £200). According to archivist Helen Taylor, the first of these imitations appeared in Edinburgh in the late 1790s, and production of them flourished in the region between 1800 and 1820 (www.scottishtextileheritage.org.uk), when the Paisley weavers took pride of place (hence the term “paisley” applied to the distinctive cone pattern). Again, according to the website cited above, it is possible that shawls produced in Edinburgh bear a distinctive black stripe in the border. Mary’s shawl has a very thin dark line in the border that might indicate Edinburgh production, but it is impossible to say with certainty. The aesthetic of the shawl, however, is quite different from that of Eliza’s. You can judge for yourself in the image of Mary’s shawl below. The black stripe shows up faintly at the top left corner of the picture.
Mary King accompanied her husband to England when he served as ambassador from 1796 to 1803, so it is quite possible that she (or he) purchased the shawl during this period. Of course, as members of several merchant families, the Kings also had access to a wide array of the newest English and Continental imports as well.
So how did Eliza Gracie King Halsey come to own a shawl made well before she was born in 1811? The admittedly speculative answer to that question lies in the merchant family into which she was born. As mentioned above, her father, Charles (1789-1867), was the son of Rufus and Mary King. Her mother, also Eliza (1795-1865), was the daughter of Archibald and Letitia Gracie. All four grandparents came from prosperous merchant families in New York and Boston. Mary Alsop was the only child of John Alsop and inherited his entire fortune. Archiblad Gracie trained as a member of the West India Shipping Company and at its peak, his business owned 21 trading ships. Any one of these prominent merchants could have purchased a genuine kashmir shawl for a wife or daughter in the 1700s. As I will discuss further, clothing often passed down from one family member to another, and, according to family stories, the “Eliza” shawl was indeed handed down from one Eliza to the next, although they only trace it back to Halsey. My best guess would be that, as her mother was also named Eliza, the practice originated with her.
The Passion for “Paisley”
Before I began my research, I was unaware of how significantly popular Kashmir paisley shawls were in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, before they became widely available (and even more “popular”). When I searched for images of women from this period with paisley shawls I was astonished by the number that I found. These were primarily formal portraits of wealthy and sometimes powerful women, all of whom specifically chose to be portrayed wearing paisley shawls. A sample of the portraits reveals the way in which the shawls added richness and a touch of the exotic to the scene.
These three portraits represent a small sample of elite women portrayed with their 
shawls in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Most of them are English or French, but the woman with the red shawl is Mrs. Harrison Grey Otis of Boston. She was also a member of a very wealthy merchant family, and her husband was a Federalist colleague of Rufus King. This suggests that the fashion for displaying Kashmir shawls appeared among the elite in America as well as across the Atlantic. It also places both Mary and Eliza’s shawls in a distinctive socio-cultural context.
The Empress Josephine, Napoleon’s first wife, may have provided the impetus for the spread of the Kashmir shawl’s popularity. As seen below, she was painted at least twice wearing a shawl, and, according to research by cultural historian Susan Hines, an 1806 inventory of her possessions included 45 shawls valued at a total of 36,000 Francs. It is worth noting that Napoleon’s wedding gift to his second wife, Marie Louise, included 15 Kashmir shawls.
The reclining portrait also suggests the way that exotic objects, such as the Kashmir shawl, could be a double-edged sword for women.
They signified that the women wearing them had access to wealth and items from the wider world, as well as an understanding of current fashion. This same luxury and exoticism, however, could also be turned against women as evidence of their indulgence and sensuality. This dual message may have resonated especially strongly in New York City, where the merchant class was challenging the established Hudson River planters for dominance, and where, according to historian Christine Stansell, women were increasingly becoming the target of male criticism. She posits that the growing expression of discomfort with public female display originated in part from a reaction to women’s role in the Revolution and to early feminist writers, such as Mary Wollstonecraft.
Among the women of the King family, these two shawls may have served as signifiers of a different kind. Historian Ellen Hartigan-O’Connor argues that during the revolutionary and early national periods gift exchanges between women helped “prove their affection and display their skills” in selecting the proper item for the recipient. Gifts of clothing in particular provided the means “for women to say something publicly about their knowledge, connection to international changes, and good sense” (TheTies that Buy: Women and Commerce in Revolutionary America, U.Penn. P., 2009, 145, 170). In the case of clothing, the selected item did not need to be new. Cloth and the garments made from it, frequently made up the most valuable part of a household inventory. That would have certainly been the case with the Kashmir shawls, even the “imitation” silk one. When Mary gave this shawl to her new daughter-in-law in 1818, they were not yet being mass produced in Paisley, and it would probably have been quite an impressive gift for a young woman from the then frontier state of Ohio. The other, genuine Kashmir shawl, became a link between generations of women named Eliza descended in the maternal line of the Charles Halsey family. Its roots undoubtedly go back at least one generation earlier, to Eliza Gracie, Archibald Gracie’s daughter, and possibly even earlier. Thus, both shawls stand as testaments of a bond between the women of an elite merchant family. In a world where women could not yet own property in their own name, this garment represented their standing in a concrete way.
Sources
Robert Ernst, Rufus King: American Federalist, Univ. of North Carolina Pr.Chapel Hill, N.C., 1968
Ellen Hartigen-O’Connor, The Ties that Buy: Women and Commerce in Revolutionary America, U.Penn Pr: Philadelphia, Pa.., 2009
Susan Hines, “Lust for Luxe: ‘Cashmere Fever’ in Nineteenth Century France,” The Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies, vol.55, no.1, Spring-Summer 2005
Michelle Maskiell, “Consuming Kashmir: Shawls and Empires, 1500-2000,” The Journal of World History, vol.13, no.1, Spring 2002
Valerie Reilly, The Paisley Pattern: the Official Illustrated History Peregrine Smith Books: Salt Lake City, UT, 1987
Christine Stansell, City of Women: Sex and Class in New York 1789-1860, Univ. of Illinois Pr.:Urbana-Champaign, Ill., 1986
The Museum Doctor 
very interesting to read all about your research and discoveries. Enlightening!
Glad you found it useful!