THE TIMMIE COLLECTION

David Serxner

The Gallery of Art and Design at North Carolina State University (www.ncsu.edu/gad) is home to a remarkable collection of late 19th to mid-20th century American textile history. In 1997 the Gallery acquired the contents of the William E. Roschen Museum, part of the Timmie Corporation of Wilmington, North Carolina. Timmie produced automotive and home furnishing textiles in its Wilmington mill from 1952-1983. Prior to 1952 Timmie was based in New York City. Two other mills were a part of the Timmie Corporation before their move to North Carolina: the Victoria Plush Mills in Swarthmore, PA (1897-1953) and the Woonsocket Falls Mill in Woonsocket, Rhode Island (1912-1957).

The Timmie Mills in the North produced fabric for the home furnishings industry, but from the 1960s until the Wilmington mill closed, the automotive industry was Timmie’s main source of business. The collection contains large sample boards showing automotive grade floor coverings and headlining fabrics for cars, trucks, and vans. It is possible to trace changes in automotive industry as Americans acquired more automobiles and automobiles changed from being almost solely utilitarian items to also being used for pleasure purposes.

Samples from the Timmie Collection

The Gallery also acquired the collection’s reference and research library and the interior furnishings of the museum. The library has textile industry journals, reference texts on textile production, and some business related journals. There is also a large collection of art history texts, showing how Timmie’s designers were influenced by the decorative arts of Europe and Asia.

Dr. Charlotte Brown, Hon. A.I.A., the Director of the Gallery, states that “the Timmie collection represents a snapshot of a particular kind of textile production in America by a company that produced from about 1890 to 1960. The swatches and accompanying records document methods of production, as well as consumer demand and personal taste. The collection’s significance will increase as fewer and fewer manufacturers produce in this country and as plants close and archives are lost.”

The collection is also an excellent picture of American interior decorating history from the Colonial Revival period through the Modern period of the 1960s. Major aspects of the collection are the quality books. These bound notebooks cover production history from the 1890s through the 1940s. The books contain fabric swatches, production cost information, pattern and repeat information, and some order information. Penciled notes in some of the books indicate that they were still being used in the 1950s and later. Correspondence between the main office in New York City and the mills is also included with some of the samples. A project to preserve the information in these books and the samples was begun in 1999.

Decorative Jacquard Velvet

This collection is a true treasure trove of American interior decorating history. Another remarkable portion of the over 5000 textile samples collection is the sample showcases themselves. Timmie primarily produced upholstery and other home furnishing fabrics until the 1960s, and the samples range from cabbage rose prints from the Colonial Revival period, Asian influenced designs from the 1920s, and swinging modern weaves from the 1960s. Timmie also produced fabrics for the funerary industry, and there is at least one sample of a casket lining from the 1920s in the collection.

For more information on the Timmie collection please contact Ms. Gregory Tyler, Registrar at the Gallery, at 515-3102 or David Serxner at david_serxner@ncsu.edu.

College of Textiles
P.O. Box 8301
Raleigh, NC 27695-8301
Telephone: (919) 515-6646
FAX: (919) 515-3733
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Last Site Revision:
January 16, 2004