Go ‘Between the Sheets’ with new Springmaid exhibit in Lancaster

The risque artwork of an advertising campaign credited with reviving business for Springs Industries for a time has come home.

A collection of original illustrations and associated ads by internationally known artists are featured in the Lancaster County Council of the Arts' latest exhibit, “Between the Springmaid Sheets," now on display at the Springs House in downtown Lancaster until Dec. 30.

The Springs House was the family home of Leroy Springs, founder of Lancaster Cotton Mill, and where the originator of the ad campaign and Fort Mill icon, Col. Elliott White Springs, was born. The house is now the home of the arts council.

As the ad campaign did during the mid 20th century, the exhibit has created a buzz in Lancaster. Debbie Jaillette, executive director of the arts council, said a woman who retired from Springs after 41 years stopped by the Springs House even before the show opened.

"Before the show was even hung, we had people who wanted to see it, and that's just great," Jaillette said.

During a reception, someone pointed out a model in one of the illustrations.

"It was good to see the Springs folks there, the legacy employees," Jaillette said. "They knew the people on the walls."

Col. Springs commissioned well-known illustrators, including James Montgomery Flagg, George Petty and Rockwell Kent to create “Springmaids” and female employees sometimes modeled for them. The first illustrations were created in 1943 and spoke of the textile company's contributions to World War II, said Ann Evans, archivist and curator for the Springs Close Family Archives in Fort Mill.

After the war, the campaign's purpose was to advertise the company's move to producing finished goods, including bed sheets, Evans said.

Spring’s vision for the campaign was risque and "eye catching," and not something Leroy Springs would have approved of.

"He (Elliott Springs) couldn't get the Madison Avenue ad companies to go along with him," she said.

"Leroy Springs disapproved of that kind of advertising – he thought it was tasteless. I think it's ironic that it's now (on display) at the Springs house in Lancaster."

The first ad appeared in Esquire magazine, Evans said. Poster-sized illustrations from the campaign were distributed to Springs workers in their employee bulletins. Calendars, first created in 1946-47, showcasing the illustrations were also popular.

With Col. Springs' business strategy of modernization and expansion, which included the production of finished goods at Grace Bleachery in Lancaster and the naughty ad campaign, the textile company experienced a boom by the 1950s. The company's sales division began operations in New York City in 1948, occupying a small space in an office building, Evans said. The textile company grew so much over the next couple years that the sales division eventually occupied the entire New York office building and eventually bought it.

The "Between the Springmaid Sheets" exhibit is on loan from the Springs Close Family Archives, and curated by Karen Derksen, director of Winthrop University Galleries. The exhibit was also shown at the S.C. State Museum in 2012.

The ties to the textile industry, the artwork and the innovative ad campaign itself make the exhibit important to Lancaster and surrounding areas where Springs Industries is woven so tightly into community history.

"Really significant illustrators worked on the campaign," Derksen said. "(Elliott) Springs knew how to use the innuendo. He knew the power of the female image and what that could do. I hope people get to see the exhibit at the Springs home.”

This story was originally published December 4, 2015 at 2:27 PM with the headline "Go ‘Between the Sheets’ with new Springmaid exhibit in Lancaster."