There is an interesting description of a machine knitting industry producing Orenburg Shawls in the vicinity of Nottingham, England. _http://www.hucknall-torkard.com/shawlstwo.html_ (http://www.hucknall-torkard.com/shawlstwo.html) Perhaps Queen Victoria was patronizing this industry in her gift to Harriet Tubman. Lyn, did the woman from the Smithsonian have any information about the shawl? For instance, was it described, along with details of its manufacture, in the letter which accompanied the Diamond Jubillee award? From reading the description of the donation, it was left to a scholar and collector of Underground Railroad items, by Harriet Tubman's great grand niece. (Harriet Tubman died, indigent, in an institution in Auburn, New York, in 1913.) The collector is the donor to the Smithsonian. There are other items including a hymnal. It would be interesting to know how the Smithsonian has established that this is a/the shawl given to Harriet Tubman by Queen Victoria. Were there contemporary pictures? Did Queen Victoria give out a lot of shawls that looked like this? Was there an explicit description of it? Is there a dedicatory tag on it? It is sometimes described as silk, sometimes as silk and linen. Would this be the result of a fiber test or of a contemporary description? I am certainly eager to see it when it goes on display in 2015, Devon
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