Fabric origin

[kevinw33]

Hopefully this question can get a fairly difinitive answer, I think this may be one people like to answer and flex their mental muscles at...


At my job, we have a great wheel on which we demonstrate the production of thread from wool and cotton. My question is: At around what time would domestic production of fabrics transition from mostly homespun fabrics to store bought factory produced fabrics?

We all know of the Industrial Revolution sweeping through the world in the late 1700's through the mid 1800's, but how much affect did this have on a "semi-rural" farm family in the Atlanta area? I know of about 3 woolen mills that were in operation in the "metro Atlanta" area by 1850 such as the Roswell Mills and the one at New Manchester, but exactly how much would they be putting out? And also, did these factoried produce finished goods, or did they produce bolts of fabric that would be bought and then made into clothing my the consumer?

Obviously with the start of the War, things changed. The blockade stopped foreign fabric from coming in, no supplies were sent south, and the few factoried that were in the south converted for the war effort. Here, domestic production would have been cranked back up.


Basically, if someone can give me a history of the actual fabric production, that would be awesome.

Thanks!

Kevin Whitehead

[ElizabethClark]

Re: Fabric origin

Well, I won't "give" it to you, but I will recommend some books for the start of research (request them via interlibrary loan):


Florence Montgomery's "Textiles In America 1650-1870" ISBN 039373224X (it's out of print)

Amazon has it http://www.amazon.com/Textiles-America-1650-1870-Florence-Montgomery/dp/039373224X/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1222532115&sr=1-6


Also, any books on places like Lowell Mills (a main manufacturing center of the early Republic) would be of help to you.

Basic summary: expect a LOT of purchased fabric by the 1830s, whether produced domestically, or imported.

But, you'll enjoy the research part of it. There are some cool stories in the technological history of the nation.

[Minieball577]

Re: Fabric origin

You'll find some of your answer also in "Confederate Industry" a preview of which is available on google books. http://books.google.com/books?id=Hmw...#PRA1-PA131,M1

[Carolann Schmitt]

Re: Fabric origin

A "history of fabric production" would take several shelves of books. Get thee to the library and start searching. :) On your way make a stop at the local historical societies in the area; they - especially the Roswell Historical Society - should have a wealth of information for your area. Search some of the online newspaper databases.

Some additional sources when you arrive at the library:
-----. A Cotton Glossary. New York: Frank P. Bennet & Co., 1914
Baird, Robert H. The American Cotton Spinner and Managers’ and Carders’ Guide. Philadelphia: Henry Carey Baird, 1863.
Bassett, Lynne Zacek. Textiles for Clothing of the Early Republic, 1800-1850. Arlington, VA: Q Graphics Production Company, 2001.
Botany Worsted Mills. A Wool Primer: History and Uses of Nature’s Noblest Fiber. Passaic, NJ: Botany Worsted Mills, 1943.
Cole, George S. Cole’s Encyclopedia of Dry Goods. New York: Root Newspaper Association, 1900.
Coons, Martha and Katherine Koob. All Sorts of Good Sufficient Cloth: Linen-Making in New England, 1640-1860. North Andover, MA: Merrimack Valley Textile Museum, 1980.
Dodd, George. Curiosities of Industry & the Applied Sciences. London: George Rutledge & co., 1854.
-----. Textile Manufactures of Great Britain. London: Charles Knight & Company, 1844.
Fennelly, Catherine. Textiles in New England, 1790-1840. Sturbridge, MA: Old Sturbridge, Inc. 1961.
Gilmartin, Lore Ann. Textiles from the Steamboat Bertrand: Clothing and Gender on the Montana Mining Frontier. Dissertation. Texas A&M University, 2002.
Greene, Susan W. Textiles for Early Victorian Clothing 1850-1880. Arlington, VA: Q Graphics Production Company, 2002.
Harmuth, Louis. Dictionary of Textiles. New York: Fairchild Publishing Company, 1920.
Hersh, Tandy and Charles. Cloth and Costume 1750-1800. Carlisle, PA: Cumberland County Historical Society, 1995.
Homespun to Factory Made: Woolen Textiles in America, 1776-1876. North Andover, MA: Merrimack Valley Textile Museum, 1977.
Hoye, John. Staple Cotton Fabrics: Names, Descriptions, Finishes, and Uses of Unbleached, Converted, and Mill Finished Fabrics. New York and London: McGraw-Hill Book Company Inc., 1942.
Lander, Ernest McPherson Jr. The Textile Industry in Antebellum South Carolina. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1969.
Lemire, Beverly. Fashion’s Favourite: The Cotton Trade and the Consumer in Britain, 1660-1800. Pasold Research Fund, Oxford University Press, 1991.
Lowell: The Story of an Industrial City. Washington, DC: National Park Service, 1992.
Queen, Sally A. Textiles for Colonial Clothing. Arlington, VA: Q Graphics Production Company, 2000.
Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher. The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001.
Vester, Paula J. comp. Textile History: A Timeline. Stone Mountain, GA: World in a Spin, 1998, rev. 2004
Wilson, Kax. A History of Textiles. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1979.
Yafa, Stephen. Big Cotton: How a Humble Fiber Created Fortunes, Wrecked Civilizations, and Put America on the Map. New York: Viking, 2005

You can also find a wealth of primary source information on the Cornell and Michigan "Making of America" sites.

[Virginia Mescher]

Re: Fabric origin

Don't just search textile production in your area but see if you can find store ledgers for your area and they will tell you what people purchased. They are treasure troves of information and often over looked when people are conducting their research. Store ledgers can be found in library special collections, historical societies and some historical site libraries.

In a store ledger that I transcribed for Halifax County, VA (1859-1861), a rural area in south central VA but near a railroad, there were records of many different textiles sold. Although the county was rural, it was a wealthy county and the had the second largest slave population in the state of Va. The store sold fabrics that ranged from fine silks to cloth for slave clothing. It also sold cotton and wool cards for preparing both wool and cotton for spinning, as well as dyes for dyeing the cloth. It is impossible to tell how much fabric was made from the raw materials but there was definitely home textile production being done.

I put the transcription on a database and also included a database of all the customers and their census information (if it was available) so that one looking at the purchases could go back on look at the customer's census profile and have some background information about the customer.

The entire database is on a CD-ROM on our website in www.raggedsoldier.com in the Modern Books section. It is titled, Historic Accounts and comes with an instruction book and glossary of terms used in the ledger.

[ElizabethClark]

Re: Fabric origin

Slight aside note: aren't great wheels for wool only? Smaller wheels are used for cotton and flax handspinning, if I recall correctly.

[Virginia Mescher]

Re: Fabric origin

Slight aside note: aren't great wheels for wool only? Smaller wheels are used for cotton and flax handspinning, if I recall correctly.

From what we have been told at historic sites where there have been spinning exhibits, the great wheels (wool or walking wheel) were for wool since wool does best with the long-draw spinning technique but cotton could also be spun on the it.

I did some reading on the differences between the way the great wheel and the small Saxony wheel works but a spinner could probably give you more detailed information about both wheels. From what I have read and heard, you do have to do a two step process with the thread on the great wheel and the small wheel does both steps automatically.

I realize that in most traveling demos that wool, cotton and flax are spun on the small wheels because it is probably difficult to travel with a great wheel.

[Spinster]

Re: Fabric origin

I realize that in most traveling demos that wool, cotton and flax are spun on the small wheels because it is probably difficult to travel with a great wheel.

Bingo. When the Great Wheel travels, nothing else goes--the whole back of the mini-van is taken up by the dissassembled wheel, its most fragile part well padded with a blanket. Even the spinning basket has to ride up front with the driver.

Any fiber can be spun on any wheel--just some wheels make it easier than others to deal with that particular type of fiber--thus, the designation of certain wheels as 'wool', 'flax', or 'cotton' wheels.

Great Wheels have a spindle around which the spun yarn wraps--saxony type wheels have a bobbin and flyer. These differences give rise to the two-step process Virginia refers to---one must stop spinning and wind yarn around the spindle on the Great Wheel, while on the various types of wheels that have a bobbin/flyer assembly, either the scotch brake or the double drive band creates a differential that allows the yarn to wind as spun.

The ratio between the wheel diameter, the bobbin/whorl diameter (yeah, there is math in here) the rate at which fiber is drafted and the speed of the wheel all serve to vary the amount of twist that can be inserted into the fiber. Short fibers must have more twist in them to make them hold together as a yarn. Long fibers can have less and still hold together. Cotton, especially period cotton varieties, have very short fibers, while properly sheared wools have much longer fibers.

Really, most any fool can spin wool with 15 minutes practice--not well, or evenly, but it will hold together and resemble useable yarn. Cotton, on the other hand, requires some finesse and skill--and after all these years, I still do not spin cotton in public, because I cannot keep my religion while doing so.

And back to Kevin's original question--He'll know he's hit the fun part when he finds when and where during the war that teamsters complained of women ambushing their wagons at gunpoint for a share of the spun yarn being hauled therein.

[kevinw33]

Re: Fabric origin

Bingo. When the Great Wheel travels, nothing else goes--the whole back of the mini-van is taken up by the dissassembled wheel, its most fragile part well padded with a blanket. Even the spinning basket has to ride up front with the driver.

Any fiber can be spun on any wheel--just some wheels make it easier than others to deal with that particular type of fiber--thus, the designation of certain wheels as 'wool', 'flax', or 'cotton' wheels.

Great Wheels have a spindle around which the spun yarn wraps--saxony type wheels have a bobbin and flyer. These differences give rise to the two-step process Virginia refers to---one must stop spinning and wind yarn around the spindle on the Great Wheel, while on the various types of wheels that have a bobbin/flyer assembly, either the scotch brake or the double drive band creates a differential that allows the yarn to wind as spun.

The ratio between the wheel diameter, the bobbin/whorl diameter (yeah, there is math in here) the rate at which fiber is drafted and the speed of the wheel all serve to vary the amount of twist that can be inserted into the fiber. Short fibers must have more twist in them to make them hold together as a yarn. Long fibers can have less and still hold together. Cotton, especially period cotton varieties, have very short fibers, while properly sheared wools have much longer fibers.

Really, most any fool can spin wool with 15 minutes practice--not well, or evenly, but it will hold together and resemble useable yarn. Cotton, on the other hand, requires some finesse and skill--and after all these years, I still do not spin cotton in public, because I cannot keep my religion while doing so.

And back to Kevin's original question--He'll know he's hit the fun part when he finds when and where during the war that teamsters complained of women ambushing their wagons at gunpoint for a share of the spun yarn being hauled therein.

What you have said here is pretty much what we say during our tours when we get to the wheel.

It seems like the fibers in wool are longer causing them to "cling" better than cotton, which has the shorter fibers. I have tried to use the great wheel, but I just embarrass myself when I do in front of visitors!

As far as your last statement goes: I lived about 4 miles from the New Manchester mills outside of Atlanta, and I have heard of the finished goods being "confiscated" by angry women with guns during '63-'64! The foreman of the mill sent letters to Gov. Joe Brown begging for him to send militia to help guard the factory from "maruading women".

Thank you so much for the answers, I must admit that I was hoping for some simple answers. I am not quite interested enough to go out and purchase books relating to the topic, but as it appears, there are no short simple answers! Especially around people who are so well versed in a particular topic!

[BobbyHughes]

Re: Fabric origin

Kevin,

How interesting that your talking about New Manchester, while I sit here working on the living history we sponsor at the park for next year!

You asked about output? New Manchester produced both muslin and osnaburg, as well as sewing thread, the later being commented on by the mempis appeal:

MEMPHIS DAILY APPEAL [MEMPHIS, TN], October 12, 1861, p. 2, c. 2
The editor of the Savannah News has been shown a sample ball of
sewing cotton manufactured at the Sweet Water Factory, in Campbell county, Ga.
The cotton used in making the thread is of the finest kind, costing 23 cents per
pound, and the thread is of a very superior quality, strong, even and free from
knots, and adapted for use on sewing machines. The ladies will undoubtedly find
it preferable to the cheating Yankee spools with which they have heretofore been
supplied, as a consequence of our unnecessary dependence upon the North.

One Ledger entry from April 7, 1864 ( 3 Months before it was burned) shows NMMC selling 4,916 yards of brown muslin at $1.33 per yard for a total of $65.38. Pretty much all of this going to the Confederate States Government.

I have the exact breakdown of machinery, by floor in the factory if your interested.

As to the marauding women, the factory was also besieged for about 4 hours by women demanding fabric, the attack was thwarted, and the women left vowing to return with a larger force. The second attack never materialized.

Regards,

[Spinster]

Re: Fabric origin

Kevin,

For some reason, I was not paying attention to where you are located. I've already got Bobby's Living History high on my list--realizing that our organization has both the skills needed and the basic portrayals--poor white rural to semi-rural.

If you fellers will get up with each other, get your research compiled so that you have your main fiber questions outlined, and send me a copy, I'll then look at a calendar date when I can get over to spend a few days with my Aunt in Lithia Springs, and schedule a sit-down with both of you.

[BobbyHughes]

Re: Fabric origin

Awful Kind of ye Mrs Lawson...awful kind!

[motozulli]

Re: Fabric origin

Glad you brought this up, as it was the subject of my recently completed thesis and I'm eager to share :-)

I looked at a diary written primarily between 1800-1805 in a small town about 40 miles north of New York City. Mary was a seventeen year old unmarried daughter of a middle-class professional and landowner.

Her diary gives a fascinating look at the mixture of ready-made and home-made that average people used in this mechanical transition period.

She bought fabric for a shortgown from a peddler, and describes several trips to NYC to go shopping with her friends for fabric and accessories. At the same time, she spent a great deal of her time spinning linen and wool. The linen, at least, could have come from her father's fields. I don't know if he also owned sheep.

She brought some wool to the "machine", meaning the carding mill recently built in a neighboring town. Presumably she then spun the wool, because in a later entry she brings it to the weaver to make it up into 20 yards for riding habits, and then to the dyer to have it made a dark blue.

Oh, I could go on for pages. That's enough for now. Unfortunately, the diary is unpublished, but it is housed in the New York Historical Society (The Diary of Mary Guion Brown).