Collection: Loan Collection

Title: The “Queen Elizabeth” Bedspread

Barcode: 4000519

Image Number: 4000519.0001

Brief Description: This physical item is on loan from the Museum of Lewiston Auburn and is NOT part of the Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education collections. With the permission of the owner and/or their respective institution is the digital image displayed only for educational purposes.

Creator: Bates Manufacturing Company

Date/Date Range: circa 1952

Notes: This bedspread was produced in the 1950s at the Bates Mill in Lewiston, Maine, by the Bates Manufacturing Company. Carmen Giguere, then a secretary in the Bates Division, proposed the name for the bedspread, and the “Queen Elizabeth” bedspread was introduced and dedicated to the young Queen Elizabeth II in1952, the year of her coronation. This bedspread was woven using Bates' new patented extra puffy technique known as metalasse featured in the central medallion. The medallion design and the puffy, trapunto-type Marseilles weave was applied to white quilted cotton fabrics. The name ‘Marseilles’ was chosen for the weave because the French city had a long association with expensive, hand-quilted, and early quilted-look machine-made fabrics and bed covers.

Permanent URL: https://oshermaps.org/map/4000519.0001