More than sixty dye recipes were written in a receipt book that also contains medical and culinary recipes. They introduce a wealth of new information about the production and use of color among early Quaker women.
The study, "Wine and Copper Color: Dyes by a Quaker Woman in Scotland, 1697–1723" by Sarah K. Rich, Marie Huard, Catherine Adams, and Carolyn Lucarelli was published in Heritage, 2025, 8 (8), 318.
This paper discusses dye recipes written after 1697 by Christian Barclay [Jaffray], a Scottish woman from a prominent Quaker family. The more than sixty dye recipes were written by Barclay in a receipt book that also contains medical and culinary recipes. They introduce a wealth of new information about the production and use of color among early Quaker women, demonstrating that many more hues were used than previously thought. They also specify previously unknown methods by which many hues were obtained by domestic dyers in the early modern British Isles.
(This article presents ongoing research on the Barclay manuscript and the authors’ efforts to recreate its dye recipes, interpreting them within the religious, socio-economic, and political contexts surrounding the Barclay family. Robert Barclay, a prominent Quaker theologian, and his wife, Christian Mollison Barclay, a respected healer skilled in the use of materials and equipment also found in dyeing, provide crucial context for understanding the manuscript’s content.)
