The Things We Do for Lincoln Green
Author: Donald Hafner	Date Published: Unknown
When they were clothed in Lincoln green, They cast away their grey. So wrote the author of A Little Jest of Robin Hood in 1510. 'Twas said that “Lincoln anciently dyed the best green of England.” It cannot have been easy. A color-fast green dye is difficult to find in Mother Nature. Dock sorrel, foxglove, or nettle will yield a green, but not a very deep one. And different fabrics take up dyes in different ways. For silk, a green dye was made from powdered verdigris (copper acetate), the greenish crust that could be produced on sheets of copper by burying them in the vinegary grape mash left over from wine-making. But for wool, linen, and cotton, producing a green cloth meant dyeing it twice, first in yellow and then in blue. In ancient England, a blue dye was made from the leaves of the woad plant, a member of the mustard family. But the result was a rather pale blue. The tropical indigo plant, on the other hand, produces a deep blue and therefore a rich green. In colonial America, green was apparently a popular color for the tufted wool rugs used as bedspreads. But oh, what our colonial forebearers had to do to get the blue, so they could make the green. Laura Thatcher Ulrich describes the process in her book, The Age of Homespun: In the typical technique, a small cake of indigo purchased at the store was dissolved in stale urine, then steeped over low heat and allowed to ferment for about two weeks. A covered pot helped to control the stench; indigo smelled like putrifying flesh or feces even before it was added to urine. Yeast left over from brewing speeded fermentation. Through a complex chemical process, the bacteria in this mixture liberated hydrogen from the urea, changing the color as well as the chemical composition of the mixture. The liquid was ready for dyeing when it turned yellow or tan. In a process that must have seemed magical, yarn immersed in the pot became blue when exposed to the air. Now who do you suppose did this the first time and made the discovery — and what did they think they were doing?
About the Author: Donald L. Hafner is Drum Major of the Lincoln Minute Men. When he is not serving as a fifer in the ranks of the Minute Men, he is a Professor of Political Science at Boston College. His scholarly work has been principally in the fields of arms control and U.S. foreign policy.