Damaged red silk with light lettering and designs, and gold borders, fringe and tassels. The visible reworking on this banner provides more clues than we can interpret at this point in time. Someone seems to have removed the Un and part of the word Garment from United Garment Workers, possibly beginning to revise it to read United Clothing Workers. The number 153 appears to have been sewn over something else, as was the date July 28 1910. The words Canvas & Padmakers U also appear to have been sewn over some other title above the older lettering that reads United Brotherhood of Tailors. The rest of the lettering reads: U.C.W. of A. Affil with A.F.of L. Org. July 38 1910 New York.

The center logo, flanked by the words Our Label, reads: Issued by authority of United Garment Workers of America Central Executive Board org April 12, 1891, Guaranteed Union Made, Registered. The center image is of two hands shaking, one showing a men’s suit and shirt at the wrist, the other a women’s coat.

Whose needle began these changes? Why did they stop in the middle? Was it admiration for the fine work on the old banner that led to the attempt to re-use it? Were members taking on work on the banner that a banner-making shop would normally perform? Did the change in affiliation happen during hard economic times?

silk, cotton and synthetic
57″ x 39″

Kheel Center, Cornell University