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Chenille bedspreads [1] appear in some movies that are set in the early 20th century. Chenille or candlewicked bedspreads from Dalton, Georgia, also appear in the film, Gone With The Wind, though it is set earlier, in the 1860's. Hand-made candlewicked bedspreads would have been made on plantations such as Tara and Twelve Oaks, so it is appropriate for the producers to have used these bedspreads in films about the Civil War era.

The following movies have chenille or candlewicked bedspreads in at least one scene: Gone With The Wind (bedroom scenes at Tara and possibly Twelve Oaks); Test Pilot, in the Kansas farm scenes, when Lane (Clark Gable) walks into the guest room, and later, the other bedroom; A Beautiful Mind {the bedroom in the house where Nash (Russell Crowe) almost accidentally drowns his child, and possibly other bedroom scenes}; and Psycho, the Alfred Hitchcock film (where chenille spreads appear on the beds at the Bates Motel). No doubt, many other films, particularly those set in pre-1970's America, include screenshots of chenille spreads, and will be added here as I catch them.

Peacock Alley (chenille)       Folk Tufting       Chenille Chronology       The South      

FOOTNOTES:

1. Tufted chenille bedspreads were a traditional style of bed covering, popular in the United States from about the 1890's to the 1970's. Most chenille bedspreads were tufted in the Southern United States, with many of them being tufted in North Georgia, including Ringgold, Tunnel Hill, Dalton, and Calhoun. Bedspreads were sold off of spreadlines to tourists driving on the Dixie Highway (old U.S. Highway 41) on their way to Florida.

The date given for the popularity of chenille bedspreads is loosely based on the era that chenille was tufted in and around Dalton, Georgia. First hand-tufted bedspreads, and later machine-tufted spreads, were sold off of spreadlines in North Georgia from around 1895 (when Catherine Evans Whitener is said to have tufted her first spread) until the 1970's, when carpet replaced bedspreads as the local industry. In the 1960's many, if not most, households, would have had chenille bedspreads. By the 1970's, man-made yarns were being used. The bedspreads being produced began to have a gaudy, cheap appearance. The interstate highway by-passed the local highways where most of the spreadlines were located, and chenille production died out.