[As presented to the Golden Gate Weavers Guild in January 2013; a research project scholarship funded by the generous members of Golden Gate]
(c) 2013 Cathy Koos Breazeal
ONE WEAVER’S
JOURNEY: AN EXPLORATION OF
PRE-INDUSTRIAL AGE TEXTILE TOOLS AND FIBERS
A
PRESENTATION TO THE GOLDEN GATE WEAVERS
Cathy Koos Breazeal
January 2013
INTRODUCTION
Ever since
humans began their upright stroll through time, they have manipulated fur,
fleece and plant fibers in increasingly successful efforts to clothe
themselves, adorn their bodies, make tools and carry goods. Probably first noticing that a clump of fur
caught on a branch twisted and became stronger, they began to twist the fur or
fleece into cordage using the flat of the hand on the thigh: back and forth,
back and forth. Rotted stalks of bast
plants like nettles offered up long strands of fiber that could similarly be
twisted into cordage or thread.
As Anita
Osterhaug of “Weaving Today” tell us, “If you want to know a culture, look at
its cloth. The materials and tools speak to us of place, and the designs handed
down the generations tell us the stories of a people.”
I have
always been interested in the how-to part of history: old tools, old books, strange and mysterious implements
devised by creative individuals throughout time to do a job or streamline their
work. I am especially curious about
those tools of everyday life that created textiles. Particularly fascinating to me are the old
weaving drafts designed in an era before IPads, WeaveIt software, or even
printed graph paper. The creators of
those complex designs, if they lived today, would probably be engineers.
When I was
awarded this research scholarship from the Golden Gate Weavers Guild, I leaped
at the opportunity to delve further and satisfy my curiosity at least about
recent textile events of the early American colonists.
A
STEP BACK IN TIME
Let’s first take
a little step back in time to set the stage for those pre-Industrial Colonial
crafters.
Archaeological
evidence shows a surge of various crafts in Europe as long ago as 40,000 BCE during the Upper Paleolithic period. The
ice sheets were receding and humans were making tools such as chisels and awls. One neatly spun and plied piece of cordage
dated about 15,000 BCE has survived, displaying knowledge of fiber manipulation. About 26,000 BCE needles became a common
tool, along with shell and bone beads with drilled holes and evidence of sewing
found in burial sites. Metals produced
during the Bronze Age around 3000 BCE prompted another surge in crafting.
Manipulation
of fibers and creation of textiles has long been women’s work even back to
ancient times. This likely evolved because
textiles like cordage and baskets were needed by the community, and these items
could be produced by the women in the community concurrent with their
child-rearing and food production responsibilities. Cordage, thread making, and baskets could be
easily set aside and returned to as other chores permitted. Thus textile production remained mainly
women’s occupations all the way through to medieval times when the artisan
guilds arose and men began to take over the craft.
In the far
north, bark fibers also produced cordage for hunting and fishing nets. According to Dr. Elizabeth Wayland Barber,
the creation of string is probably the most important ancient invention.
In addition
to animal fibers, cordage was also spun from the many bast plants found in the
wild, including flax, hemp, nettle, and the stringy inner layers of cedar bark.
Cordage was
originally spun on the thigh. If a piece
of cord was needed while travelling, a few feet of cord could be quickly
thigh-spun from readily available plant materials by anyone in the
community. During resting times, various
lengths and grists of cordage were produced to have available for a variety of
needs.
Early
spindle spinning consisted of rotating the spindle with one hand and feeding
the fiber with the other, spinning and wrapping the product on the stick or
spindle. Introduction of the drop
spindle with a whorl greatly reduced wobble and increased production. Easily set down, a drop spindle could be operated
while walking or in later times, riding an animal. The addition of a distaff allowed the spinner
to carry larger quantities of prepared raw fiber, again increasing production.
Early
weaving began to take place using a technique like darning, and it took fully
several thousand more years to develop lifting of multiple warp threads at the
same time – about 6000 BCE. Likely first
were band looms, securing one length of warp threads around a nearby tree or
post and the other end around the weaver’s waist. We still see these looms today as backstrap
looms. These looms were really only
capable of weaving narrower textiles like bands.
[Backstrap
loom, Smithsonian Institute]
Next were
horizontal ground looms, but these took up valuable floor space and wall
mounted warp-weighted looms came on scene.
Early looms did not survive, but evidence abounds in the form of clay or
stone loom weights and loom post holes in ancient dwellings.
[University
of Michigan, Kelsey Gallery]
We also see
evidence of looms on wall paintings and pottery, giving us a good visual idea
of their appearance.
[Egyptian
weaving shop, 12th Dynasty, Metropolitan Museum of Art]
First
showing up in Hungary, these looms spread north and west across Europe and south into
Egypt. Nearly every dwelling had a wall
loom. By 4000 BCE, Hungary remained a textile innovation hub, adding bags and
baskets, as well as woven pattern designs like stripes, checks, triangles, and
fancy edges. Weaving had gone beyond
function and utility to an item pleasing to the eye.
[Greek
vase, ca. 560 B.C., Metropolitan Museum of Art]
In the late
Bronze Age, back around 800 BCE, Celts were residing in today’s Austria,
southern Germany and Hungary, attracted by the salt and metal ore mines. This was the beginning of Hallstatt
culture. In addition to mining and
trade, they were already gifted weavers, creating early twill textiles. This population later fanned out westward
into Europe and Britain, taking their mining and textile skills with them.
While
colored threads show up around 4000 BCE, colored cloth and intricate woven
patterns of spirals, hearts, and lozenges first appeared on textiles from the
island of Myrtos and Crete in about 2000
BCE. resulting in regional folk costumes.
In
Mediterranean countries, pottery bowls appear with a loop in the base of the
bowl. Research has shown that these are
linen-wetting bowls, with the loop being used as a guide for the fibers.
[Rosicrucian
Museum, San Jose, CA]
Sprang also
appears to surface in the Bronze Age, similar to netting and predating
knitting. The oldest surviving piece, found in a Norwegian bog, dates to about
1400 BCE. Worked on a rectangular frame,
the warp threads are manipulated by interlinking, similar to children’s Cat’s
Cradle.
[Wikipedia]
Early on,
fibers were combed, with carding only making an appearance in the Middle Ages,
using thistles set on boards. Flax, hemp
and nettle were primary bast fibers used, using streams for retting. Tools such as brakes to beat the stems, and
hackles have been uncovered in Swiss lakebeds, giving evidence of skill in
processing the fibers.
By
inspecting various Bronze Age woven pieces that have survived, it is apparent
that women helped each other with their weaving, evidenced by textiles with
crossed threads and row shifts. Women
are still working in pairs on warp-weighted looms in Scandinavia.
About 8000
years ago, nomads began to domesticate and raise sheep for both fiber and
meat.
Spinning
wheels make their first appearance in the early Middle Ages, possibly inspired
by travelers to China or India, and drop spindling became an away-from-home
endeavor, while heavier production spinning occurred in the home on spinning
wheels. Home textile production came
into full swing, with each cottage creating its own threads and yarn. It was
estimated that 10 hours of spinning production would be consumed in one hour of
weaving. In order to keep the weaver
supplied, spinning of one sort or another occupied any spare time a household
member had, but was usually the women.
MEDIEVAL
ESTATES
As medieval
times approached, towns became built up and demand for textiles both
utilitarian and fancy began to outpace supplies. The Black Death altered social structures
both in rural areas and towns. Crafts
and tradespeople – usually men -- began to set up shops in towns.
As the
towns grew, business-specific districts would evolve, known as medieval estates
or guilds. While men pursued the other
trades, frequently women were still weavers and dyers, even within the
guilds. These guilds were both professional
organizations and social groups, too.
The entire community of a specific trade such as weavers would be
embraced and protected – the professional as well as their family members, even
educating the children of guild members.
In addition to security, there were codes, rules, secrecy and
regulations bound up in these guilds and they became very powerful politically
and socially. Guilds ruled the European
textile trade from about the 13th to 18th centuries.
Coat
of Arms Wool Weavers Guild, Italy
For the
weavers guilds, specific drafts or patterns were developed within the guild and
these drafts were closely guarded, handed down from generation to generation. By the end of the 18th century,
the guilds fell out of favor and the trades became more independent.
THE
COLONIAL CRAFTSMEN AND WOMEN
I grew up in
southeastern Pennsylvania, right in the heart of Colonial America. Think Betsy Ross, the Liberty Bell,
Independence Hall and Ben Franklin.
As Europeans
immigrated to Colonial America beginning in the late 1600’s, many were drawn to
Pennsylvania, keen to take part in William Penn’s Great Experiment based on ideas
of equality and tolerance, public good, private enterprise and religious
freedom. By coincidence, Penn’s
community attracted not only farmers, but many skilled artisans to the new
colony, bringing their skills and knowledge to the new land. Huguenots fleeing religious persecution in
France; Anabaptist-Mennonites from Switzerland, Germany and the low countries;
as well as Moravians, and Schwenkfelders from Germany and Silesia came to
Penn’s Woods, liked what they saw, and stayed on.
The Shaker
movement emigrated from England right before the Revolution and took of
residence further north in New England, where they crafted clean-lined
furniture, weavings, and basketry.
Pennsylvania
was also attractive to loyalists of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette
escaping the bloody revolution, and the small planned town of French Azilum was
created along the Susquehanna River.
Originally intended for Marie Antoinette and her followers, Marie never
arrived, facing the guillotine instead.
Most of the refugees returned to France when Napoleon Bonaparte came
into power and offered repatriation. The
Queen’s Azilum is now a museum with some lovely period coverlets and textiles.
French
Azilum, Towanda, PA [C Koos Breazeal,
2012]
Often, to
save packing space when coming to the colonies, women immigrants would only
bring the flyer and maiden assembly of their spinning wheel, knowing that colonial
woodworking craftsmen could reproduce the wheel, table and footman assembly
once they arrived in the new land.
In a sense,
due to their isolation from Europe, the new colonists went back in time to
textile production in the home rather than in the towns, spinning fiber during
every spare moment and building immense timbered frame looms in the home. Then as towns built up and sprawled out,
these timber frame looms evolved into a more commercial use, with spinners
delivering their yarns to be woven into household goods and lengths of cloth
that would in turn be sewn into garments back at home.
ca.
1840 Barn Frame Loom, Orwell, PA [C Koos Breazeal, 2012]
Then as the
colonies increased in population, Britain began importing almost all the cloth
used by the colonists. Soon, Britain
disallowed any wool cloth production in the colonies, in an effort to salvage
their wool cloth industry in England.
Raw wool produced in the colonies was exported to Britain, spun and
woven into cloth, and then exported back to the colonies for sale.
There is some contradiction between informants
as to how prevalent itinerant weavers were in the colonial era, as well as
contradictions on other aspects of colonial textile production. By the 18th century, some women
still wove at home, but weaving was a male professional trade, with young boys
apprenticing at a young age. According
to Les Spencer of the Home Textile Tool Museum (HTTM) in Orwell, north-central
Pennsylvania, there was a contingent of men who were itinerant weavers,
dismantling their looms and hauling them in wagons from farm to farm, village
to village, staying with a family for several weeks while weaving goods for the
household.
However,
later interviews I conducted with both Marjie Thompson, of Complex Weavers, and
Bob Woods of the Goschenhoppen Historians Museum (GHM) in Green Lane,
southeastern Pennsylvania, contradict the itinerant nature of the trade. Thompson and Woods concurred that men became the primary
weavers in the professional trade, but very little was done on an itinerant
basis in southeast Pennsylvania partly because there were more villages, but
mainly because of the difficulty in dismantling these large looms with their
massive beams. Both informants state that
weaving became a village trade and local folk would bring their home-spun yarns
to the weaver.
Further
research at the library of the Pennsylvania German Cultural Heritage Center at
Kutztown University reflects both itinerant and village-based weaving
businesses. It is possible that a small
contingent of itinerants served those homesteading pioneers who moved further
west. The pioneer women would still
weave their basic household textiles, but the itinerant weaver, often
professionally trained in Europe, would come with his multi-harness or draw
loom, his book of samples and fancy patterns.
After poring over the choices, the weaver would settle in “for the
season” and create coverlets and other fancy textiles with names, dates and
pictorial designs. There is much
contradiction and this deserves further investigation.
Village-based weaving shops increased as the
population and demand for textiles increased.
To help fulfill this
increased demand, shopkeepers took advantage of the wave of indentured white
servants coming to the colonies. Unable
to pay their own way but desiring a life in the colonies, many young men and
some women had their fare paid by shopkeepers, tradesmen and farmers, and in
exchange they worked off their passage for a set number of years.
Well known
for carrying on their grandparents’ early 1800s weaving business are the Weaver
Roses of Rhode Island. William (1839 –
1913) and his sister Elsie collected and used almost 250 old drafts – many
recorded on scraps of paper and even pieces of wood. During the arts and crafts revival, Marguerite
Davison of southeastern Pennsylvania subsequently collected many of Roses’
drafts and salvaged other early American drafts and published them in 1944 in
an effort to keep these drafts from vanishing along with the old weavers.
Dyeing later
moved away from the households and the village weaver would also do most of the
dyeing. According to the Les Spencer
(HTTM), indigo was likely imported, but the source of madder is unclear. Colonial Williamsburg contradicts that
assertion, stating indigo came from the Carolinas. During early colonial days, in addition to
wild plants harvested for dye, colonial and pioneer households grew patches of woad,
bulls blood beets, onions, and coreopsis.
Bob Woods (GHM) tells us that red would not have been in local use in
southeastern Pennsylvania. More likely
colors would have been blues, browns and greens.
BAST AND ANIMAL FIBERS
Nettles were
heavily used by the earliest Neolithic weavers and spinners of cordage, but by
the time the colonists began to settle America, there were other bast fibers
that were easier to grow and use, such as flax and hemp.
While
dogbane is another bast fiber producer, it was general only used as a last
resort by early settlers because of its toxicity to livestock. Dogbane’s biggest users were the Native
People.
Hemp was a
critical fiber crop in the colonies, grown from New England down into
Maryland. Every colonial household had a
hemp patch in addition to their flax fields.
Used mainly for coarser fibers, hemp was turned into rope, sails and
caulking for ships and farms. Britain
required its colonies to grow hemp and British ships carried hemp seed with
them in order to have hemp available for repairs all over the world. With care, hemp was also spun and woven into
finer cloth and it is said that the first American flags were made from the
strongest fiber available: hemp.
In an effort
to reduce the need to import silk from Asia, early attempts at silk cultivation
in Virginia failed – silk was more difficult, while tobacco netted more
profit. So even though King James I
tried to compel the plantations to cultivate mulberry trees, tobacco
prevailed. Silk production in Georgia
gave way to King Cotton by the mid-1750s.
Other attempts in the Carolinas, Pennsylvania, and New England produced
novelty quantities at best.
In
addition to hemp, flax became the staple bast fiber in the colonies. Each household grew sufficient flax to net
enough fiber for the family, generally about ¼ acre per household member. The Orwell Museum stated that flax was only
processed by the men, but Goschenhoppen staff stated that flax preparation was
a family affair, each member having a role in the processing.
Colonists
processed flax into linen as had their ancestors in Europe, Britain and Ireland. Seeds were planted close together in early spring,
lightly raked and then harvested about a month after flowering. The entire plant was pulled for harvesting in
order to maximize fiber length. The stalks
were grasped by the handful and rippled or pulled through a threshing tool to
remove the seeds. Seeds were saved for
planting, used for cattle feed, and pressed for linseed oil. Then the stalks were left to ret or rot –
either using dew in the field for a month, or submerging the stalks in a stream
or shallow pond for up to two weeks.
Home
Textile Tool Museum, Orwell, PA [C Koos Breazeal, 2012]
Once
thoroughly retted and dried, the stalks were first beat with a flail, and then placed
in a wooden brake machine to further break up the wood outer stalk. From there, a wood scutching knife was used
to further peel away or knock off the outer stalk, beginning to reveal the
fibers inside.
Wedding gift, dated 1766, Goschenhoppen Historians Folk Life Museum, Green Lane, Pennsylvania [C Koos Breazeal, 2012]
The next
tool was the heckle, hetchell or hackle – a wood base with a bed of long,
sharp
spikes protruding. A handful of fiber
was drawn through the spikes multiple times to further clean the fibers of
woody stalk and orient the strands.
Several hackles would be used progressing from a coarse spacing to a
closer spacing of spikes, thoroughly cleaning and orienting the longer linen
fibers from the shorter tow fibers.
Tow
was used for coarser woven cloth or for stuff items. Tow fabric was differentiated from linen by
ends per inch.
Cotton
from the South flooded the markets in the early 1800s and flax production dropped
off because cotton production used cheaper slave labor. Then the Civil War halted cotton production
and flax surged again. By the late 1800s
with the end of the war, cotton has once again taken over and large scale flax
production completely died off.
Other
than silk, the only animal fiber used in colonial times was wool. According to an interview of members of the
Liberty Bell Encampment at the Rising Sun Inn, during colonial times sheep were
sheared and raw wool shipped to England for processing and return as whole cloth,
thus discouraging the colonial weaving industry and making the colonies more
dependent on England. While many
textiles were imported from England and other European countries to the
colonies, once the Revolutionary War erupted, all textiles were produced in
America.
During
the Revolution, British warships lay just off the coast, effectively cutting
off any cargo coming from France, Spain and other sympathizers. The need for cloth and thread for uniforms
was so great that tailoring shortcuts were employed. Woolen cloth was woven at 16 ends per inch
rather than 24 or 32. False cuffs, false
welt pockets and shorter coats required less fabric, so colonial weavers and
tailors could produce more uniforms with less cloth. Many colonists began to weave again, as it
was considered their patriotic duty.
LOOMS OF THE PRE-INDUSTRIAL COLONIES
In visits to
various textile and colonial history museums, I was reminded over and over
again that weaving looms have really not changed that much since those Bronze
Age backstrap, post, and warp-weighted looms.
Weavers way back in time knew that tension had to be placed on warp
threads and used pretty ingenious methods to achieve that tension – posts, clay
weights, even their own toes. Eventually
these weights were replaced by back beams to keep the warp under tension.
Even yet today, we still weave by lifting one or more
tensioned warp threads, inserting a weft thread and repeating to produce a
cloth matrix.
Heavy, dense
wood was and is still the material of choice for construction. Breast beam, warp beam, beater, lamm,
heddles, reed. A weaver of today could
sit down at a Bronze Age loom and have it warped and operational in no
time.
At the Home
Textile Tool Museum, there was a vast collection of American-made looms dating
as far back as 1805 and another loom undated but estimated to be late 1700s. Mr. Spencer related that the Ralphs, now
deceased, original founders of HTTM would often return home from town to find a
pile of old loom parts stacked on their front porch – no note attached. Mr. Ralph was well known for his skill in
repairing and reproducing missing parts on spinning wheels, looms, and old
textile tools. The aforementioned pile
of parts actually netted several frame looms.
Home
Textile Tool Museum: Southeastern
Pennsylvania German Linen Loom, 2-shaft, ca. 1805 [C Koos Breazeal, 2012]
Close-up
detail of upper beams with date 1805 inscribed
[C Koos Breazeal, 2012]
Colonial era
looms were commonly 2- or 4-shaft, counter-balanced barn frame looms, built of
immense pegged timbers; and usually of such a size that the weaver sat inside
the loom frame with the weaver’s bench an integral part of the framework. Because of the size, the loom often dominated
the room or was relegated to the loft or the barn. In Ireland, England and Europe, weavers often
built the cottage around the loom, frequently excavating the floor to
accommodate the treadles.
While the
colonial home weavers used counter-balanced frame looms, it is likely that the
village and itinerant weavers probably utilized drawlooms capable of more
complex pattern weaving. The village
weavers, especially, were usually professionally trained in Europe and would
have been more likely to have the drawloom equipment and skills. Dobby looms arrived on the scene around 1843,
but drawlooms were common from around 1400.
Amongst the
collection at HTTM is a Newcomb Commercial Rug Loom, dated 1870 from Davenport,
Iowa. This was a popular loom for a very
short period of time. The weaver
activated the spring action shuttle with a foot pedal. Using child labor, the child would cut cloth
strips for the rug and place the strips in a tube, which were handed off to the
weaver. The spring-action of the shuttle
was often unpredictable, frequently seriously injuring or killing the child
assistant. Because of this, the loom quickly
fell out of favor.
Newcomb
Loom, Home Textile Tool Museum, Orwell Pennsylvania [C Koos Breazeal, 2012]
Close-up
Newcomb Loom, rag cutting tool, paper tubes to convey rags to weaver – Home
Textile Tool Museum, Orwell, Pennsylvania
[C Koos Breazeal, 2012]
I was told that
all the textiles on display at the HTTM could have been made with a loom at the
museum; however there are Jacquard coverlets displayed but no Jacquard looms. Jacquard looms, invented in 1801, arrived in
America around 1830. Using a series of
punched paper cards, this invention expanded a weaver’s ability to create
complex weave structures. The example in
this photo is from the Irish Linen Center in Lisburn, Northern Ireland. It is still in use and the weavers frequently
create fancy linens for Queen Elizabeth’s household.
[photo
courtesy Irish Linen Center, Lisburn, Northern Ireland]
Small tape
looms wove tapes for a vast assortment of household and farm needs such as
waistbands, hats, and garters. Weaving
tapes was labor intensive and so used for higher value, longer use items and
not usually for grain or seed bag closures. Tape
looms were used to create a variety of colorful patterns and were generally
used by the children.
Tape
Loom, Goschenhoppen Historians Folk Life Museum [C Koos Breazeal, 2012]
While the
Industrial Revolution occurred between 1820 and 1840, many later immigrants
coming to America brought pre-Industrial skills with them. My father, now 91, grew up in Daisytown, a
coal patch of western Pennsylvania. Coal
patches were impoverished company towns where the homes were generally tar
paper shacks. Most of the miners,
including my grandparents, were recent immigrants from Slovakia, Hungary and
other eastern European counties. One of
11 children, Dad remembers Grandma scrubbing the bare wood floors on mornings
so cold that the scrub water froze on the floors.
To warm the
floors in these houses in the 1920s, the women of the community would gather
and make rugs. Using a huge rigid heddle
similar to one used on an Appalachian barn loom, they would fasten the warp
threads to adjoining porch railings, stretching the warp the distance between
the houses. Some women cut cloth strips
for the rugs and others rolled the strips into balls. Operating the heddle was a two-woman
operation and a third rolled the ball of weft strips down the shed. In this way, the women wove communally as
they had in old times, sharing the labor and providing a social outlet.
photo
courtesy A Daisy of a Town
SPINNING WHEELS
Investigation
of spinning wheels produced the most variety.
With looms and flax tools in the large barns, the Home Textile Tool
Museum devotes the entire downstairs of their 1823 Federal-era home to a vast
array of spinning devices, and most of the wheels are still in working order. Unusual in the collection was the pendulum
wheel – a uniquely American invention.
Pendulum
Wheel, 1864 Wisconsin, Home Textile Tool Museum, Orwell, PA [C Koos Breazeal,
2012]
The gossip
wheel had two spindles with a common wheel in the middle;
spinners sat on either side of the wheel facing each other. A lot of coordination and similar spinning
style and ability was required for two people to successfully spin.
Gossip
Wheel, Home Textile Tool Museum, Orwell, Pennsylvania [C Koos Breazeal, 2012]
Another
wheel with a sad story was the two-handed wheel. So named, according to HTTM docent Les
Spencer, because these wheels were employed in by children in orphanages. The child’s spinning production could be
doubled if he or she spun with both hands, each hand feeding fiber into the two
spindles. The acceleration wheel was cast iron, giving the tool both added
weight and longevity.
Dual Spindle
Flax Wheel (left and middle), New England 1790; Home Textile Tool Museum,
Orwell, PA [C Koos Breazeal, 2012]
There were
novelty wheels, also, such as this spinning wheel chair. According to HTTM, it was pegged together as
a chair, easily dismantled and could be put back together as a spinning wheel. However, an article in Yankee Magazine contradicts
that statement, saying that at the advent of the Industrial Revolution, old
wheels were made into chairs solely for the new purpose of being a chair and in
a desire to connect with America’s Puritan past.
Chair
Wheel, Home Textile Tool Museum, Orwell, Pennsylvania [C Koos Breazeal, 2012]
At the
Goschenhoppen Museum, their spinning wheel collection reflects the more conservative “Plain Dutch” population
with minimal decorations on the wheels.
However, only 30 to 40 miles further north in the “Fancy Dutch” Reading
area the spinning wheels were quite colorful and decorative. In this picture note the uncommon support
strut extending from the wheel to the leg.
This wheel is signed “Sellers,” likely from a wheelmaker in the
Sellersville area.
Goschenhoppen
Historians Folk
Life Museum [C Koos Breazeal, 2012]
OTHER TEXTILE TOOLS
Pegged
boards of one sort or another to measure out warp have been in continuous use
for millennia. Relatively recent
innovative tools for measuring range from niddy noddies to click or clock
wheels to warping wheels.
Farmers have
always needed hats to protect themselves from the sun, so they began braiding
the cast off stalks from rye grain production.
Needing to flatten those braids uniformly to make the hats, a braid
crusher was developed. Displayed at the
Goschenhoppen Historians Museum was a braid crushing device that is still in
use during their summer reenactment events.
The two styles displayed, a man’s and a lady’s hat, are styles still
used today.
HTTM had one
early colonial loom reed on display that was made with actual reeds, held in
place with pitch. As more metalwork was
produced in the colonies, the reeds were replaced with iron.
Goschenhoppen
Historians Folk Life Museum [C Koos Breazeal, 2012]
This click
or clock wheel measures a capacity of 300 yards. Most commonly, these wheels measured
increments of two yards, some with a variant of 2.5 yards. This particular clock wheel has a knuckle on
one arm that flips and bends over to allow the yarn to slip off the wheel.
Hatchells or
hackles for processing linen were considered a valuable enough tool that they
were often given as an engagement or wedding gift. In the Goschenhoppen Folk Museum collection
are several with dates and initials embossed, signifying a wedding gift.
Goschenhoppen
Historians [C Koos Breazeal, 2012]
Teasel, roadside near Orwell, PA [C Koos Breazeal, 2012]
Fullers
Teasel (Dipsacus fullonum sativus) was brought from Europe where it had been
used for centuries as an early carding tool.
Used until the late 1880s, it is now considered an invasive species. Hand carding tools were first made using
teasels attached to wood, then wire teeth were developed in the latter half of
the 19th century. Larger scale drum
carders were developed early by the mid-1700s.
HOUSEHOLD TEXTILES
Clothing
needs were simple in the colonies. Women
wore a simple linen shift under their outer wear and that same garment served
as sleep attire.
As the
colonies became more settled and weaving went beyond the basic necessities,
overshot coverlets came to replace the common feather ticking as a bed
topper. As today, the coverlet and
pillow cases would match.
Show
Towel, Goschenhoppen Historians Folk Life Museum
[C
Koos Breazeal, 2012]
Much like
the fancy finger towels we haul out of the closet during the holidays, show
towels or handtucher were another fancy household item where the housewife
could display her textile skills.
Usually hung on the back of the door of the stove room, these towels
were woven in linen and then either worked in embroidery, often in turkey red,
or other needlework techniques such as hardanger or pulled thread, and fringed with thrums from the weaver.
Tow grain
bags were important to the farmer. Woven
either long and narrow, then folded and seamed; or woven wide-wise, folded and
seamed. Because the farmer wanted to
ensure his grain came back from the mill, the bags were stenciled simply with
the farmer’s initials and sometimes included more fanciful designs like leaves
or flowers.
Early
settlers covered their beds with simple woven bed rugs – a duvet-like bed cover
which was filled with down. Coverlets
began to appear in the 1760s and continued to be popular through the early
1900s. Coverlets were produced using a
multishaft loom or a loom controlled with a loom head in order to produce
figures and fancy patterns similar to patterns later produced by Jacquard
looms.
Homespun
linen garments and bed linens
Goschenhoppen
Historians Folk Life Museum
[C
Koos Breazeal, 2012]
IN CONCLUSION…
There is so
much more to find out, that I believe I shall be on this journey for quite some
time. But then again, life is in the
journey, not the destination.
CITATIONS
Home Textile Tool Museum, Orwell,
Pennsylvania( Les and Jean Spencer)
Goschenhoppen Historians Folk Life Museum,
Green Lane, Pennsylvania (Paul Woods)
Landis Valley Museum, Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Mercer Museum, Doylestown Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania German Historical Society and
Library, Kutztown University, Pennsylvania
The Rising Sun Inn Liberty Bell Guard Reenactors
Guild, Telford, Pennsylvania
The French Azilum, Towanda, Pennsylvania
Mennonite Historians of Eastern Pennsylvania,
Harleysville, Pennsylvania
Schwenkfelder Library and Heritage Center, Pennsburg,
Pennsylvania
Irish Linen Center, Lisburn, Northern Ireland
Stephenie Gaustad and Alden Amos, Jackson,
California
Christina Gresh, photo, Irish Linen Center
Hand Loom Weaving, Plain and
Ornamental, Luther Hooper, 1926
A Daisy of a Town, Mary Elaine Lozosky, self-published
pennspatch/6/2003
Forgotten Pennsylvania Textiles
of the 18th and 19th Centuries, and correspondence, Marjie Thompson,
Cumberland, Maine
Rural Pennsylvania Clothes, Ellen J. Gehret, George Shumway Publisher,
2005.
Folk-Lore of the Pennsylvania
Germans, W. J. Hoffman, Forgotten Books,
2007.
Early Life of the Pennsylvania
Germans, A. Monroe Aurand, Forgotten
Books, 2007.
Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years, Elizabeth Wayland Barber, W. W. Norton
& Company, New York, 1994.
Handwoven Textiles of Early New
England, Nancy Dick Bogdonoff, Stackpole
Books, 1975.
Textile Tools of Colonial Homes, Marion
L. Channing, Exemplary Press, 1971.
Flax and Linen, Patricia Baines, Shire Press, 2008.
Forgotten Household Crafts, John Seymour, Dorling Kindersley, 1975.
Homecraft Course in Pennsylvania
German Spinning and Dyeing, Bernice B.
Osburn, Keyers, 1945.
Homecraft Course in Pennsylvania
German Home Weaving Patterns, Marguerite
Davison, Keyser, 1945.
The Colonial Craftsman, C. Bridenbaugh, University of Chicago
Press, 1950
A Handweaver’s Pattern Book, Marguerite Porter Davison, Chadds Ford,
Pennsylvania, 1944.
“Flax to Fabric: The Story of Irish Linen,” (undated) and
visit to Irish Linen Centre & Lisburn Museum, Northern Ireland
“Folklife Journal” and “Goschenhoppen”
magazines, 1968 – 1972
Ciba Reviews: 12 – Weaving and Dyeing in
Ancient Egypt and Babylon; 13 – Guild Emblems and Their Significance; 14 -
Cloth Making in Flanders. Basle, 1938.
http://www.handsonhistoryinc.org/HOH-Page12.html
Forgotten Pennsylvania Textiles of the 18th
and 19th Centuries
http://www.arhomeandgarden.org/plantoftheweek/articles/teasel_12-10-10.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carding
http://www.handsonhistoryinc.org/HOH-Page12.html
http://www.history.org/Almanack/life/trades/tradewea.cfm
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/jacquard.html .
http://www.farmcollector.com/Steam-Engines/Strategic-Fibers.aspx
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_was_the_first_flag_made_out_of
http://www.textilehistory.org/SilkinAmerica.html
http://www.history.org/foundation/journal/winter07/
(c) Cathy Koos Breazeal, 2013
My forester son tells me that ravens like to eat smaller birds and their
eggs, so that explains even the evacuation of our beloved western screech owls, who
usually sit in the oak tree near the bedroom and softly wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh
all night long. www.Audubon.org/field-guide
has a great collection of bird calls. Listen here: western
screech owl 
While I usually shake a broom at the goshawk because she generally wants
to eat my chickens, I waited to see if she would hang around. Silence
from the squirrels and I quickly hung bird netting over my chicken run and
waited. Within days, the raven gang disappeared and a blessed
silence came back over the forest. 
