A unique group of eighteenth-century textiles patterned with blue designs on white cloth are called American blue resist prints because, with few exceptions, they are found only in American museums and collections. Many aspects of their history have been intriguingly elusive, including their provenance and production. After examining thirty-eight indigo-resist print fabrics for clues left by printers and printing technology sources from several centuries, we concluded that the white grounds on the majority of fabrics had been created with blocks that outlined the edges of patterns using a print paste containing a chemical resist. The resist for the ground inside those outlines was painted in by hand or printed by felt that filled in the outline. The white grounds on the other fabrics resulted from solid wood blocks’ printing on the resist paste. These indigo-resist printed fabrics were not produced in a single workshop but were produced by different people.
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