International Dyestuff Industry - ColorantsHistory.Org

*Dr. Peter J. T. Morris is Manager of Research and Residencies at the Science Museum,
London SW7 2DD, London, Great Britain. This paper was written while he was the
1991-1992 Edelstein International Fellow in the History of Chemistry and Chemical
Technology at the Sidney M. Edelstein Center for the History and Philosophy of Science,
Technology and Medicine.
** Dr. Anthony S. Travis is Deputy Director at the Sidney M. Edelstein Center for the
History and Philosophy of Science, Technology and Medicine, The Hebrew University of
Jerusalem, Givat Ram, Jerusalem, 91 904 Israel, and Senior Research Fellow at the Leo
Baeck Institute London.
In 1548, the first edition of the earliest book devoted exclusively to professional dyeing was
published in. Venice. This was Gioanventura Rosetti’s Plictho de larte de tentori che insegn
tenger pan[n]i banbasi et sede si Per larthe magiore com per Ie comvne [3] , which
included details of dye recipes and techniques employed in Venice, Genoa, Florence, and
elsewhere in Italy. In particular, it provided the most complete record of the dyers craft at
the time when the first South American dyewood was becoming available in Europe. [4]
Until then three primary colors were employed by dyers. Blue was obtained from indigo,
either from woad or the indigo plant. Reds were available from the Kermes insect, from the
root of the madder plant, and from so-called brazilwood imported from the Far East.
Yellows were extracted from weld, Persian berries, saffron and dyers broom. These colors
were combined to afford greens, browns, violets and other compound shades; they could be
varied with the aid of mordants.
Rosetti’s publication did not include cochineal, which only later in the sixteenth century
displaced Kermes, mainly as a result of the voyages of Cortez (from 1523). Cochineal
dyeing was improved in Holland around 1630, and the secrets of the new process were
stolen by a German who carried the details to London.
Madder was the basis of Turkey red dyeing, introduced to Europe with the aid of Greek
technicians in the eighteenth century. Madder was also important to the emerging calico
printing industries of Amsterdam, Basle, Berlin, Elberfeld, Glasgow, Manchester and
Mulhouse. Textile printing made great demands on the expertise of the colorist, and
encouraged the publication of manuals on calico printing, the first of which was Charles
Obrien’s, The British Manufacturers Companion and Calico Printers Assistant, which
appeared in London during 1790. [5]
Occasionally, an intrepid explorer would return with news of new discoveries. Chinese
green, Lo-Kao, was not encountered by the Europeans until the end of the eighteenth
century, and attracted much attention in the 1850s. [6] Sometimes, colors had fallen out of
use, and their secrets had been lost, like the fabled biblical blue and Roman purple, first
extracted from the murex snail by the ancient Israelites on the Levantine coast, and then
adopted by the Phoenicians and Romans. During the nineteenth century many dyers and
scientists attempted to discover the secrets of the colors of antiquity which were imitated
using lichens and the New World’s products.
While the new dyewoods enriched the ranges of European dyers, the American dyer’s needs
were met by madder, indigo and other vegetable dyes that were newly cultivated in Virginia
from around 1650. Dyes from American woods also displaced those that had been
imported. Fustic, cochineal and dyewoods were brought in from the West Indies, while
South Carolina and Georgia became significant sources of cochineal. The inner bark of the
common ash tree afforded an indigo substitute, while from around 1770 Edward Bancroft
found that the inner bark of the American black oak gave the yellow colorant soon known as
quercitron. [7]
The development of the colonial natural dye industry in North America coincided with a
transatlantic revolution in methods of manufacture, especially of textiles. The rapid growth
of the textile industry from the end of the eighteenth century came about through the
introduction of mechanized processes, improvements in bleaching, and by the
mid-nineteenth century multi-color roller printing. Notably, chlorine became the bleaching
agent of choice. These new processes, and the introduction of steam power, enabled rapid
and large scale production, and were accompanied by unprecedented demand for dyes. This