Examining an Antique Length of Warren's "Skirtbone", Boning for the Hems of Mid-1890s Skirts!

Edited April 23, 2021

Today I have something special to add to the research on period methods of adding skirt fullness in the mid-1890s. A length of antique, unused "Skirtbone" produced by the Warren Featherbone Company of Three Elms, Michigan.

At just a quarter of an inch wide and about 1/16 inch thick (NOT 1/32" as I have it in the video), it's a springy, sproingy boning. It weighs, well, a feather, and you'd not notice any additional weight in your skirt, I believe.

To understand it, you really have to see it close up, see it move, and see the insides. It's really remarkable, and perhaps the most interesting thing about it, is that it's not made of wire, but the quills of poultry feathers, set parallel to one another. I hypothesize that the quills were woven together with black thread and probably glued in place, and then covered by interwoven black threads that are again glued or perhaps starched.

I've made a YouTube video so you can get as close as possible to experiencing the real thing.

Here's the reel that the length actually came from, below.

Warren Featherbone Company's "Skirtbone" hem boning. Photo from Annie's Antiques on Etsy.

The skirtbone in detail. The actual boning in only 1/4" wide, so the photo is quite magnified.
It's really quite small. Photo from Annie's Antiques on Etsy.

How would Skirtbone would be actually used? For that, if you haven't read it already, please see "1895 Outfit: Period Methods To Add Skirt Fullness, Part 5, Steels, Rattan, Candlewicking, and Dust Ruffles".

Skirtbone and Warren Featherbone's other products are a clever use of easily available and renewable natural materials. Back in the day, Featherbone was an alternative to whalebone, and made from materials not otherwise used, say in feather dusters. Skirtbone would have been an alternative to wire-based skirt hem products, too, which would have been subject to rust; somehow I can't see folks using stainless steel for a stiffened hem tape, do you? 

Warren's Featherbone was invented in the 1880s by Edward Kirk Warren. His application for a patent is copied in full at the bottom of this post, and it explains the construction of the first featherbone product. As Randy Miller of the Michigan newspaper The Herald-Palladium explained it,

"The process for making featherbone was published in magazines and newspapers across the country in 1883 and was described as follows:

'The first thing is to strip the feathers of their plumage. Rollers, with knives attached, split the quills in half. Sandpaper rollers revolving rapidly removed the pith. Then, a series of interlocking knives reduced the quills to fiber. In this state, the material is fed into a machine that forms it into a strong fine cord; at the same time it is being wound with thread. In another machine, four of these tightly wound cords are wound together with thread, in such a manner as to form a flat tape.'"

Here's an advertisement for it that appeared in towards the back of the August 1895 issue of The Ladies Home Journal (p. 27).

Warren's Skirt Bone advertisement, August 1895.
It appears that the product was pretty new. Other Warren's
products were already popular.

The sample of Skirtbone is still amazingly flexible, as we have seen. No, we don't know how how it stood up to sudden breakage or repetitive stress breakage. We do know that whalebone tended to become brittle, while this product isn't brittle at all, even now. That's some pretty good longevity, no? Am I going to bend it wildly or bash it to see how it takes rough treatment? Um, no. It's antique and a small but significant part of dress history. It goes into the collection.

Skirtbone wasn't the only mid-1890s skirt aid that Warren's produced. They also made "Bustle Bone", a wide bone strip that dressmakers were urged to shape into small hoops and install inside godet plaits to help hold the rounded funnel form. Here is an advertisement for it from December 1896, towards the end of the godet skirt's popularity, in The Delineator (Vol. 48, No. 6, , p. 108)

Warren's Featherbone Company "Bustle Bone" advertisement
December, 1896

For those among us who are vegetarian or vegan, the prospect of reviving the use of feathers for boning likely doesn't appeal. However, it is a nice alternative to plastic. I sure wish Warren's would consider bringing it out again. Are you listening, ladies and gentlemen of the Warren Featherbone Company? 

More About Warren's Featherbone Company and Its Products

The Warren Featherbone Company is still in business, although it's no longer in Three Elms, Michigan, but in Georgia. There's quite a bit out there about the company and its history. Here are a few good examples, and if you run a search, you'll find much more:

How turkey feathers changed Three Oaks' destiny (The Herald-Palladium;
Aug 20, 1999 Updated Nov 15, 2011)
• The Legacy of Warren Featherbone
• Exhibit - From Corsets to Philanthropy: The Warren Featherbone Company
• Information from the archives of Western Michigan University

Warren Featherbone US Patent Application

Copied from Google Patents, number US286749A. Text is optical scan from original document, available from that page as a PDF file.

(Model.)

E. K. WARREN.

CORSET STIPFENER. No. 286,749. Patented 00's. 16, 1883.

' iff/y1.

WITNBSSES www# BY uw ATTORNEYS.

NITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

EDWARD K. WARREN, OF THREE OAKS, MICHIGAN, ASSIGNOR lOF ONE-HALF TO GEORGE R. yHOLDEN, OF MICHIGAN CITY, INDIANA.

CORSET-STIFFENER.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 286,749, dated October 16, 1883.

Application filed January 9, 1883. (No model.)

.T all whom it may concern.'

Be it known that I, EDWARD K. WARREN, of Three Oaks, in the county of Berrien and State of Michigan, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Corset-Stiffeners, of which the following is a full, clear, and exact description.

This invention has for its object the utilization as a rib or stiffener for corsets and other articles of dress or fabrics of the stalks, stems, or quill portions of feathers after they have been stripped-as, for instance, the feathers of turkeys, geese, chickens, and other fowlsmuch of which kind of stock has heretofore had little or noK commercial value. These I propose to use, among other purposes or uses, as a substitute for whalebone in corsets, Waists, dresses, abdominal supporters, surgical appliances, and other articles of wear and use. The growing scarcity andfincreased cost of whalebone for these and other purposes has led to the employment of various substitutes, including bones, horn, rubber, steel, and rat tan; also, the fibers of tampico held together by an exterior binding-as, for instance, by a wrapping of wire or thread. Many of these are expensive and much inferior in numerous respects to whalebone. My improved bone or rib, which I term featherbone, has many advantages, and the same may be made to form a compact stay or bone, which in some respects is better and has more enduring elasticity than whalebone, as it 'is not so liable to breakv or Warp, nor will it be injured by prespiration or boiling Water in washing. Such elastic substitute for whalebone I generally propose to make by splitting or otherwise reducing, either by hand or machinery, but preferably by machinery, the quills, into splints. These splints or bers may be held together by any suitable external binding. Thus I wrap them with either wire or thread by winding, braiding, twisting, or they may be cemented or be otherwise put up together to form a featherbone of any desired shape in` its transverse section, and may either be simply inserted in the article to which they are applied or be Woven therein, or they may be woven together, so as to form an elastic or 5o iiexible fabric.

`their entire form.

Reference is to be had to the accompanying drawings, forming part of this specication, in which similar letters of reference indicate corsponding parts in all the figures.

Figure 1 represents any exterior longitudinal 55 view of a featherbone in which a number of quill splints are held together by winding a wire or thread around them. Fig. 2 is a similar view of a number of quill splints held together by a woven covering. Fig. 3 is a View 6o in perspective, upon an enlarged scale, of a portion of one of the quill splints detached; and Fig. 4 is a cross-section of Fig. l, and Fig. 5 a crosssection of Fig. 2, both being on an enlarged scale. Fig. 6 is a perspective view of 65 a stiffener made of the entire quills in a suitable wrapper.

In the drawings, b b represent a number of split-quill splints arranged longitudinallyto-` gether in any suitable manner to form afeathl 7o erbone, A, of any desired form in its trans versesection, and which maybe held together either by a wound wire or thread external binding, c, as in Figs. l and 4L, or by a woven external covering, c', as in Figs. 2 and 5, or 75 which may be otherwise held together, as hereinbefore specified.

By using the separated fibers or splints of the stripped quills or stems of feathers, produced by splitting or disintegrating them, the 8o resiliency of the quills is preserved without exposing them to breakage` in bending, to which they would be more or less liable if used in However7 the entire quills make avery good stiifener lwhen stripped and 8 5 bound together, as shown in Fig. 6 ofthe draw-- ings.

Having thus fully described my invention, I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters- Patentl 9o A corsetstiffener formed of quills or quill splints stripped of the feathers and bound together, as shown and described.

EDWARD KIRK VARREN.`

Vitnesses:

HENRY A. MOGANN, RETTA HOLLETT.

Additional Research

Extensive research on mid-1890s skirt stiffeners is contained in a series of related posts available on this blog's 1890s Costumes & Research page. Primary sources include books, magazines, newspapers, film clips, and extant garments.

Okay, I've interrupted the petticoat project. Unless something else interesting shows up, which as we know from this blog sometimes occurs, we're back to it next time.

Wishing you all health and safety during very dark days, literally and figuratively...