Hooked rug with geometric dog motif

2005.138.2026

Hooked rug with geometric dog motif

Rug. Hooked, wool, green and beige geometric dog motif. Made on Cranberry Isles 1902-1905. One of two similar rugs from same donor. Donor inherited this rug and believes it belonged to Miriam Reynolds, one of several Mount Desert summer residents who established a rug-making cottage industry on Cranberry Island. Donor explained: "Reynolds was part of the family of William Reed Huntington, who spent summers in Northeast Harbor starting around 1886.  Mrs. Huntington died years before, leaving four small children, and her older sister, Miriam, moved in to take care of them.  The youngest of the four was Mary, who later married William Thompson.  They summered in Tamworth, New Hampshire, and this rug was in their house there.  The house was inherited by their second son, Charles G. Thompson.  When Charles's daughter Victoria married Dr. James S. Murphy, a Seal Harbor summer resident, she was given the Cranberry rug (by then quite worn) so that it might return to nearer its origin.  For forty years it lived in Seal Harbor, but when Victoria's daughter Alice married Cranberry Island summer resident Bill Bancroft, the rug came home!" This rug was repaired in the same manner as the crab-motif rug, but is in much worse condition. It, too, lacks the CR monogram that was usually worked into one corner or on the selvage at the back of rugs that were made specifically by the Cranberry Island Club rug makers at the turn of the century. From "Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor", #55 (Nov. 1904), pp 1573-1622, the article "The Revival of Handicrafts in America." by Max West, Ph. D. states: Cranberry Islanders ".... were already familiar with the process of hooking rugs; and they were fortunate in having the benefit of the initiative, moral support, and financial backing of Mrs. Seth Low, Miss Miriam P. Reynolds, and one or two other New York women whose summer homes are at Northeast Harbor, as well as in obtaining the aid of capable designers. The industry was started on a small scale in the autumn of 1901, under the supervision of Miss Amy Mali Hicks, a designer identified with the arts and crafts movement in New York City, who designed the patterns and gave instruction in dyeing, etc. ..."

1902

Fabric

TBD