Archival Reissue: Steele Canvas Janitor's Bag

Scene from the Archival Clothing Janitor's Bag release party

We're happy to announce the release of our new Steele Canvas Janitor's Bag. Steele Canvas has been making industrial canvas baskets, hampers, trucks and buggies since 1921. We've been working with Steele on a re-issue of the original, square bottomed janitor's bag that we spotted in a vintage company catalog. We love the enormous scale of this bag. It eclipses even the extra large L.L. Bean Boat and Tote. We use ours for laundry, trips to the post office and open storage around the house. We've specified two different handle lengths for your preferred carrying method. The long strap permits you to carry the bag over your shoulder. Great for trips to the laundromat. The shorter handles stay out of the way and let you carry the bag by your side.

While stock Steele bags are made from #6 (21 oz.) canvas duck, ours is produced in natural, untreated #4 (24 oz.) canvas duck. We prefer this weight of canvas duck for its rigidity and durability. Like Brink's money bags, our janitor's bags will stay open even when empty.

Shopping from the Steele Canvas print archives

Steele Canvas Basket for Archival Clothing Janitor's Bag (6" handle)

Steele Canvas for Archival Clothing Janitor's Bag (12" handle)

Field testing an earlier prototype

Laundry eye view of square-bottom construction

Non-standard, super stout, #4 canvas cotton duck

Part of the project for the janitor's bag was to source an original vintage stencil to match the catalog version. Most of the vintage Steele stencils were no longer in good enough condition to be used for the project. Paul at Steele worked with me and a local stencil maker to produce a new stencil based on an old pattern.

Original Steele stencil

Stencil revision

We have also received a restock of our 17" Steele Canvas tote w/the new old Steele stencil:

The original