.. is that when one studies museum extant examples of American made garments, particularly of children’s clothing and women’s formal wear, one’s first supposition is that everyone wore tan or beige. This is wrong.
There was used commercially at the time a natural dye in America that made a bright pink color. We don’t know what it was. It could have been from berries, sumac, beets, cabbage, or many plant sources because the reds of the cochineal dye were not readily available in America at wartime.
Whatever it was, the color was not made fast, and if we believed things at outward appearances, our ancestors were pretty drab at a party. The silks, however, are intact.
(Photos: extant garments left: 1860’s cotton wrapper pink gone tan; 1870 New York ballgown in silk pink is intact)