"Electricity," 1900
English (Nottingham)
Levers machine-made lace
Technical Glossary
English (Nottingham)
Levers machine-made lace
17 x 26 in. (43.2 x 66 cm)
Gift of Stern and Stern Textiles, Inc., 1964 (64.229.2)
This lace border incorporates images of modern transport and transmission of power with railway trains, hot-air balloons, telegraph poles, and electric lights. The motifs echo a preoccupation with the new electrical power, much in evidence at the Paris Exposition, and the lace won a medal. The machine-made lace industry, centered in Nottingham, was enormously successful since it replaced a declining cottage industry, the products of which had become so expensive that they were out of reach of most ordinary people.
