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https://archive.org/details/fibresspindlesspOOburn

Ji&cts, Sptnd£es and

Sp'mnriiricj, -LdheeCs

HouaC Ontario Museum

First Published - 19M

Second Edition - 1950

1

INTRODUCTION

The textile arts are second in importanceonly to agriculture and like agriculture, madetheir earliest a.ppearance during the Neolithicor New Stone Age, when people first started tolead a settled life. This stage of culturewas reached in various parts of the world atdifferent times. In Europe men had developedto this point 15,000 years ago, while theIndians of North America were still in theNeolithic Age when the white man came to thiscountry.

The first step in making a piece of clothcomes long "before the weaving. A textilefibre must he procured and prepared for use,and only fibres which have certain propertiesare suitable for textile purposes . In thefirst place, they must have strength and dura-bility. Cotton and milk-weed, for example,both have seed pods with hairs attached to theseeds; but, since the individual seed-hairs of

the cotton plant have strength, it is one of

our most useful natural fibres, while those of

milk-weed have little tensile strength and are

of little use. The length, pliability, uniform-ity, and cohesive properties of the fibres arealso all of great Importance in spinning athread. In primitive times men made use of anytextile fibre, animal or vegetable, that wasreadily available. It was soon found, however,that certain plants and animals provided fibresmore suitable for spinning and weaving thanothers, and the use of these better materialsgradually extended until the four most commonfibres, wool, linen, cotton and silk weregenerally employed almost wherever possible.

2.

WOOL

Wool was one of the first fibres used byman. We usually think of sheep when we speakof wool, but there are many other animals thatare useful in this respect - goats and camelsare very generally used. The native wool-bear-ing animals of South America are of the llamafamily; ancient fabrics made of wool from thesecamel- like animals can be seen in the PeruvianGallery, Ground Floor. Bison wool was used bythe early inhabitants of North America, and onthe west coast of Canada a special variety of

the dog was domesticated for this purpose. Thedrawing shows one of these dogs, taken from apainting by Paul Kane in the Museum. On thewest coast they also used the wool of themountain goat; a heavy blanket in the BritishColumbia Gallery, Ground Floor, is woven of

what is probably a mixture of dog and mountaingoat wool.

The sheep was domesticated very early in

man's history. Originally it was, like many

other animals, hairy with a downy undercoat of

3

wool. Through cerrburies of careful breedingthe wool was increased, until sheep werecovered entirely with it, howeyer old andneglected sheep sometimes revert to theiroriginal state and "become hairy.

Wool has to go through many stagesbefore it is ready for weaving. The sheepis shorn and, as each fleece has manydifferent lengths and qualities of fibrein it, it has to be carefully sorted intotypes. Wool as it comes from the sheep is

greasy and full of burrs and tangles, so it

must be washed and combed. The combing,fluffing it out, and removing burrs mustoriginally all have been done with the handsalone, then combs were made, and later imple-memts called "cards" came into use. A cardlooks like this drawing. The board part is

covered with leather and set with rows of

sharp pins. In the operation of cardingwool, one card is held firmly in the lefthand points uppermost, a bit of the washedwool is placed on it, and the other card is

drawn repeatedlyacross it with theright hand, untilthe wool is freeof burrs andtangles. The woolis then removedfrom the cards,and made into aloose roll readyfor spinning. Thisis the way woolwas prepared untilthe time of theIndustrial Revolu-tion when carding

Pair of wool cards

machines were invented. They work on the sameprinciple as hand cards , but the pins are set onlarge rollers and a great deal of wool can befed into them at once. Since mediaeval timesthe preparation of wool for the loose fluffy-

types of cloth, knitting wools etc , has beendivided sharply from the process used for the

wool destined for harder types of cloth, whichare called worsteds. Sheep's wool comes infibre lengths ranging from about two to twelveinches. As a rule the shortest fibres are usedfor making felt, the medium lengths are cardedinto loose rolls which are suitable for spinningfluffy wools, while the longest fibres, which aredestined for worsteds, are set aside, and insteadof being carded in the usual way, are combed so

that the fibres all lie parallel. Long fibres,prepared in this way, can be spun into a verysmooth hard thread, which is much better adaptedto the weaving of suit and coat materials thanthe softer types of carded wools.

5.

From the flax plant we get linen, whichis thought to be the first textile fibre usedin the Mediterranean vorld. Bundles of pre-pared flax and cloth woven of linen thread,have been found in the excavation of Neolithicsites on the Swiss Lakes, which means thatlinen was being spun and woven in Europe some

15,000 years ago. We have only to read theOld Testament to realize the part that linenplayed in biblical times, for the mention of

"fine linen" is very frequent. In Egypt theflax plant has been cultivated for at least

7,000 years , and in the Egyptian Galleries, Se-cond Floor, there are linen shawls woven about

2,000 years before Christ. The mummy wrappingsalso show the fine linen weaving for whichEgypt was famous. The drawing above is takenfrom an Egyptian wall picture and shows threestages in the making of flax fibres into linenthread. The figure on the left is cleaning thefibres, in the centre they are being looselyrolled together, and the woman on the right isbusy spinning two threads at a time and callingto her assistants to hurry.

All down through history linen has playedan important part, reaching its peak of

technical perfection in the linen thread usedto make the fine laces of the l8th century.Many of these cobwebby laces are shown in the

Textile Galleries, Second Floor.

6.

There are three classes cf vegetable fibres.The two main ones are seed-hairs, the fluffwhereby seeds are scattered on the wind, andbast fibres, which came from the stems cfcertain plants. Cotton is a fibre of theformer type while linen, hemp, jute and ramieare bast fibres. Vegetable fibres that comefrom leaves cf plants - raffia palm, pineappleetc. form the third type. These leaf fibresare used locally in many parts of the world,but have little commercial importance, exceptin rope making.

Flax produces the most important and bestof the bast fibres. The plant that is used nowis an annual which is indigenous to the district,lying between the Persian Gulf , the Caspian andthe Black Seas. It has an erect stalk twenty toforty inches high which branches at the top, andhas bright blue flowers. In harvesting and pre-paring flax, the plants are first pulled up bythe roots, then the stalks are stripped of

leaves and flowers. The next step is calledretting, and consists of rotting the stems. Themost usual method is Pool Ratting; in it bundlesof the stalks are sunk in pools of stagnantwater and left till the woody part of the stemrots, which usually takes a couple of weeks. Thesame end is achieved in Dew Petting, by spreadingthe stalks out over the fields and leaving themuntil retted by sun and dampness. After retting,the stalks are broken, skutched and combed; inthese processes the decomposed wood is removedleaving the fine linen fibres clean and ready forspinning. Until recently all these processeswere carried on in a very primitive way and inmany places they still are, but there are nowmachines for pulling flax which do away withmuch of the hard labour of harvesting, andsimplified ways of retting the flax have beendeveloped.

7.

COTTON

Cotton came originally from India and has beenfound in excavations that date hack to 2,500 B.C. or

earlier. Its cultivation probably spread slowly fromIndia to Central Asia and later to China and Japan.At an early date the plant was being grown in theNear East, and from there was carried by the Moham-medans across North Africa and up into Spain duringthe 8th century. Gaily flowered cottons, the ances-tors of our modern chintzes, were one of the mainitems of commerce brought to Europe by the variousEast India Companies, during the 17th and l8th cen-turies. Many examples of these exquisite early,chintzes are in the Museum's textile collection.

The cotton plant is also native to the tropicaland sub-tropical parts of the western hemisphere,and was the mainfibre used bythe Mayas inthe ir weaving

.

When ChristopherColumbus touchedat Watling Is-

land in 1^4-92 the

Indians broughtskeins of cottonthread out tohis ship totrade . It wasnot until afterthe American Re-volut ion thatc otton growingstarted on a

large scale inthe UnitedState s, nowthe most impor-tant cotton pro-ducing countryin the world.

8

Cotton, a member of the mallow family, isa small "bush with seeds that grow in bells.Attached to the seed is a soft white downy fibre,ranging from about one half to two inches inlength, which can readily be spun. The mostimportant process in preparing cotton for useis in separating these fibres from the seeds.In the western world this was done by hand untilthe 19th century, but in the East there was in-vented, at an early date, a simple device, ratherlike a mangle, into which the cotton was fed, thefibres going through while the seeds remained.At the end of the l8th century, Eli Whitney,an American, invented his cotton "gin". Theterm "gin" is simply an abbreviation for theword "engine". In Whitney *s "gin", the cottonfibres are pulled through a grating, which hastoo small a mesh to allow the seeds to pass.Whitney *s invention revolutionized the Americancotton industry, as in the United States, untilthat time, cotton was separated entirely byhand, and it took one worker a whole day topick over a pound cf cotton. In modern industry

there are two types of cotton ginning machinery;

the roller gin which was developed from the

ancient eastern mangle -like device, and the

saw gin Vhich is descended.- from Whitney'sinvention.

9.

SIIK

Silk has formany centuries been theluxury fibre of theworld. It comes fromthe cocoons spun byvarious types of moth

caterpillars. The silk produced by one

variety, which is called Bombyx moriand is native to China, is better than

that of any other type of silk-worm. The cater-pillar is shown at the top of the page and thedrawing below shows the cocoon of the Chinese silk-worm. The legend regarding the discovery of theuse of silk is that nearly 5,000 years ago, anEmpress of China, the Lady of Hsi-ling, out of

curiosity, experimented with one of the wild silk-worms in her garden, and found that with infinitepatience, she could unwind the fine filament of its,

cocoon. She and her ladies then discovered, thatby combining many filaments together, they couldget a thread heavy enough to use for sewing or

weaving. Although this is no more than a legend

,

sericulture, as the raising of silk-worms and thepreparation of silk is called, was well establishedin China by 1300 B.C. No actual fabrics of thattime have survived, but we can tell very well whatthey were like, because many of the bronze vesselsof that period were buried in the graves wrapped,or covered, with fine silk cloth, and during thecenturies, although most of thefabrics have rotted away, partsof some of them have been pre-served by the permeation ofbronze corrosion, and the clothis still plainly visible and thefibres can be identified as silk.

An excellent example of this canbe seen on one of the knobs

10,

protruding from the largestvessel in the "Elephant Tomb"group in the Chinese sectionof the Museum, and shown inthis picture.

The Chinese guarded theirknowledge of sericulture care-fully, "but exported quantitiesof finished silken fabrics.During Roman times there wereregular caravan routes across

Chtne3e, c. 1300 B.C. Asia, as well as a good dealof sea traffic, which carriedsilk from the East to satisfy

the craving for luxury of the wealthy Romans.Silk was literally worth its weight in gold "by thetime it reached the west, for it passed throughmany hands on its long journey, and at each stagea heavy profit was taken. Although, the Romansdressed in silk, they still had no idea of how thebeautiful fibre vas obtained, but slowly, in spiteof all the Chinese could do to guard their secret,

the knowledge of sericulture spread, first toCentral Asia, and then down into India. Finallyin the 6th century A.D., two Christian mission-aries returning to Constant inpple from Central Asiabrought with them, as a present to the EmperorJustinian, a supply of silk-worm eggs and theknowledge of how to carry through the various pro-

cesses of sericulture. From that time the cultureof the silk-worm spread slowly through the Med-iterranean world, to Syria, then to Spain, Sicilyand Italy and finally during the 17th century, it

became firmly established in France. Sericulturecan only be carried on in a warm climate wheremulberry trees grow well, for that is the mainfood of the best varieties of silk-worm. As the

climate of England was not suitable, James I triedto make the colonists in Virginia raise silk-worms,

12.

but they much preferred to grow tobacco.

When the eggs are hatched the worms are tiny,but between that time and when they start to spintheir cocoons, they are fed five or six times aday on freshly picked mulberry leaves, and theygrow enormously, bursting out of their skins fourtimes. At the end of a month they start to spintheir cocoons, which takes about three days. Theworm first makes a loose covering for itself, andthen starts to work from the outside in, windingits way up and down, producing an unbroken streamof liquid silk which hardens into a fine filament.

The larvae are usually killed with heat as soonas the cocoon is spun, in order to prevent thebreaking of the silk filament by the emergence of

the moth. The tedious and exacting task of reel-ing the silk is carried out by putting about tenor twelve cocoons in almost boiling water. Thehot water melts the gluey substance which holdsthe fibres and a loose end can then be found toeach cocoon. The operator gathers these togetherand unwinds all the cocoons at once. Usuallyabout four to six hundred yards can be reeled offeach cocoon. The illustration on page 11 is takenfrom a late l8th century Japanese print by theartist Utamaro, and it shows the time honouredmethod of performing this operation.

Beside Bombyx mori, the best variety of silkworm, there are many other species of cultivatedand semi-cultivated caterpillars that produce silk.In parts of the East the broken cocoons of wildsilk-worms are gathered and these, as well as partsof the cultivated cocoons that are not fit for

reeling, are torn up and spun in just the same wayas wool or cotton or any of the other short fibres.Spun silk is not as fine as the reeled silk, butit can be made into very beautiful materials,examples of which can be seen in the Museum col-

lections.

13

The thread that is produced from thereeling, even though it is made up from thefilaments of eight to twelve cocoons, is toolight for any practical purpose, so it must"be combined and twisted with other threadsbefore it can be used. This is called silkthrowing and it is an important process la

the preparation of silk. Throwing can bedone with a hand spindle or spinning-wheel in

the way that any threads are combined to makea two or three ply yarn, but about the 13thcentury in Italy a silk throwing mechanismwas invented, which made it possible to twis^many silk threads at once. The quality of

silk used in Italy during the 15th and l6thcenturies is unsurpassed. Many rich silkfabrics of this period can be seen in thewall cases of the Textile Galleries, SecondFloor.

Ik.

LESS -USED FIBRES

Sheep's wool, and linen are the basic fibresof Europe, while cotton and silk are the principleimported fibres, but there are many others that

have played their part in the past, and some that

are of considerable importance to-day. Textilefibres fall into the three divisions, animal,

vegetable and mineral. Sheep's wool is definitelythe most important of the anima 1 fibres, but the

wool and hair of almost every other animal has

been made into textiles at some time or other.

Silk is of course also an animal fibre, and al-

though the silk reeled from cultivated silk wormshas always been the most- commercially important

variety, the cocoons of many wild and semi-domes-ticated silk-making caterpillars have been usedin many places from ancient Greece to Madagascar,and to-day are in demand throughout India andChina.

In North America animal sinew, porcupinequills and strips of fur have been extensivelyused for textile purposes. Many articles madefrom these materials can be seen in the Ethno-graphical Galleries, Ground Floor.

In the vegetable kingdom there are thethree varieties of fibre, seed-hairs, bast andleaf fibres. Besides cotton, kapok is the oneother seed hair that is important commercially.It comes from the seed pods of a large tree,many species of which grow in different partsof the tropics of America, Asia and Africa. It

is possible to spin kapok, but the fibres havesuch a smooth surface that it is not easy, andhas never been widely done. In addition to itsvalue for fibre, kapok was widely used for pillowstuffing in ancient times, and serves a similarpurpose to-day. Due to its extreme lightness and

15.

"buoyancy it is now also frequently employed inlife saving - equipment . It was used by thenatives of the interior of Brazil to tip theirblow- gun darts, examples of which can be seenin the South American Gallery, Ground Floor.

There are many other bast fibres besidesflax. One of the most important, hemp, pro-bably came originally from near the Caspian Sea,and is now grown widely in Russia, and in partsof southern Europe and North America. The

plant is much taller than flax, eight feetbeing its normal height. Hemp has been used in

many of the beautiful handwoven fabrics fromRomania that are in the Museum's textile col-

lection, but we usually think of coarsermaterials in connection with it. It wasfrequently used for sacking, though jute, whichis also a bast fibre,, has now largely supplantedit for this purpose . Jute is grown in enormousquantities in India and is a very cheap, but

weak fibre. Manila hemp, which is native tothe Philippine Islands, is one of the strong-est fibres and is used extensively for ropesand cords. Ramie, a plant of the nettle family,which is also known as China grass, is anothercommon bast fibre, but does not compare in use-fulness with flax, hemp and jute. The Chinesehave cultivated and used it from early times,but the difficulty of preparing it has limitedits importance. The bast fibres from manydifferent plants are used by the Indians ofNorth America. The nettle family providedmaterial for many of their finer textiles, andbast from slippery elm and basswood trees was

particularly used in this part of the country,the inner bark was cut in long strips, boiledin lye and then dried and shredded. Examplesof both fine threads and heavy rope twisted byhand from fibres prepared in this way can beseen in the Ontario Gallery, Ground Floor.

16

On the west coast of Canada the cedar tree wasused by the Indians for everything from totem-poles to textiles. The figures in the groupcase in the British Columbia room are clothed

in garments made from the bark of this tree.

The leaves of many plants provide fibresfor textile uses. Most are used only in thedistricts where they grow but some, like sisal,

the material from which so much heavy twine is

made, have a wider field. Some beautiful ex-amples of Pina Cloth, made in the PhilippineIslands from the leaf of the pine -apple plant,

are in the Museum's collections. The leaves of

various types of palm trees were extensivelyused in Africa and some of the islands near NewGuinea. Pine fibre cloths from these districtscan be seen in the African and Pacific Galleries.An examination of these fabrics shows that the

individual fibres are tied together and are notas a rule spun in any way. Examples of fineknitted lace made of palm fibre in the Azoresand the Canary Islands , are also in the Museum.

Fibres of mineral origin are. less importantthan those derived from animal and vegetablesources. However, metal fibres are very spec-tacular, and gold and silver threads haveplayed a *large part in the more elaborate pro-ductions of the loom, as can be seen by thesumptuous woven and embroidered fabrics shownin the Textile Gallery #17 on theSecond Floor. The Field of the Cloth of Goldwas so called because the costumes, tents andhorse -trappings of Henry VIII, Francis I andtheir followers were made of silk, richly workedwith precious metals. Materials thatthat were used at that period areamong those exhibited. Few fabrics madewith pure gold threads have come down to us,since the metal content was so valuable that

17

it was often reclaimed "by burning the textiles,however fabrics containing the less valuablesilver and silver gilt threads have survivedfairly commonly in both European and Orientalweaving and embroidery.

Asbestos is also a mineral fibre. It is afibrous rock, some varieties of which can bespun and woven into cloth. Its main use, of

course, is in the control of fire, for it is notinflammable. The properties of asbestos wereknown to the Greeks and Romans and its fibreswere occasionally used by them for weaving.

Textiles made of glass have been greatlydeveloped in recent years but are not an en-tirely new idea. For example, some smallsamples of fabrics of finely spun glass, madeas an experiment during Queen Victoria f s reign,are in the Museum.

SYNTHETIC FIBRES

Through the middle part of the 19thcentury, experiments were made with the pro-duction of synthetic fibres, but it was notuntil l88*J- that Count Hilaire de Chardonnet'sattempts were successful. The new materialwas at first called artificial silk, but thename was later changed to rayon. There arefour varieties of rayon now in general use;nitro, which is the type Chardonnet invented;cuprammonium, often called bemberg; viscose,which is by far the most important variety;and acetate. In general they are all made fromcellulose material like wood pulp, which is

converted into a liquid state and then forcedthrough tiny openings called spinnerettes . Asthe liquid emerges from the spinnerette, it ishardened, making a long unbroken filament verylike silk in form. It was not until well on in

18.

the 20th century that the quality of syntheticfibres vas improved sufficiently for them torival the natural products in usefulness andbeauty. Nowadays this field is widening outrapidly and new types of synthetic fibres arebeing developed

9which have more and more of

the advantages of the natural fibres and fewerof the disadvantages. Possibly in the future,filaments of synthetic origin, will not onlyrival the older animal and vegetable fibresin importance, but may supplant them entirely*

19

Wool Fl dvX Cotton.

SPINNING

With most textile fibres man is facedwith the problem of joining together many shortfibres to make a thread. This is done bymeans of spinning, in which the individualfibres are twisted until they cling togetherand form a unit. The drawings above of wool,flax and cotton fibres greatly magnified, showthe rough texture which helps to make thevarious fibres stick together. In all spinningthere are three operations to be performed;the fibres must be pulled or drawn out to therequired fineness and length, they must betwisted together to give them strength andwhen they are thus twisted into a thread it

muse be rolled into a ball or on to a spool.In the most primitive types of spinning, thesethree actions are separate; in the improvedspindle spinning, drawing and twisting can beaccomplished at the same time; while in themost advanced type of wheel spinning thethree actions are performed simultaneously.

During the course of the world 1 s history,spinning has gone through many phases, andimprovements in technique have been made fromtime to time, but the older more primitivemethods often survive and continue to be usedlong after better methods have been discovered.

The main ways of spinning by hand are described

on the following pages.

20.

Spinning by Hands Alone

This is the simplest form of sploning. Thefibres are drawn out between the hands, twistedand then rolled into a ball with no other meansthen the hands d The whole idea of spinning canbe grasped quite easily by anyone who tries outthis method. Ordinary cotton batting can beused for an experiment. Take a small wad of the

cotton batting and holding it in one hand, pullout a little cotton with thumb and fore -fingerof the other hand, then twist the pulled out

cotton fibres either to right or left. You willfind that in this way you have produced a shortlength of thread, and that the twist has madethe fibres cling together in such a way as togive the thread considerable strength,, Thecotton that is used to make batting has too shortfibres to be really suitable for spinning, sothis expermental thread could never by veryfine or very strong, but it will show the pull-ing and twisting, which is the underlying prin-ciple of all types of spinning. The qualityof a thread is governed by five factors : thefineness, the strength and the length of theindividual fibres used, the amount that theyare pulled out, and the amount they are twistedin the spinning. Different qualities of fibresare suitable for different purposes, but oftenthe same fibre can be spun loosely if a fluffyyarn is desired, or can be drawn out more andtwisted harder to produce a strong, fine yarn*,

21

Spinning "by Rolling the Fibres Against the Leg

Working "with the hands alone is very slow andit is difficult to spin an even thread. Animprovement in technique is made by rolling thefibres against the leg instead of twisting themby hand. The illustration above shows a Greekwoman of the 5th century P»C. spinning in thisway The method was often used to make thefibres into a long, loose roll called a roving,which was later re-spun into a finer, harderthread. On page 5 the central figure is pre-paring a roving from flax fibres in this wayand it is then being re-spun by the standingfigure on the right.

22.

Spinning with a Hooked Stick

This is a very primitive method of spinning.A stick with a natural crook to it is held withthe hook down in the right hand. The spun yarnis rolled on the shank of the stick and thefibres ready for spinning are held in the lefthand. The stick is twirled "between thumb andfingers of the right hand and the hands areslowly drawn apart, while the left hand feedsout the fibres, which are caught up and spun bythe twisting of the stick. This is an easy butslow method and the resulting yarn is not likelyto be very good. The method survives to thepresent day among some of the nomads of the EedSea district.

Spinning with Spindle Twirled in the Hand

This produces better yarn than any of thelast three methods described. A small, straightstick or spindle is held in the right hand withthe wool that has already been spun wound on it.

The left hand holds the fibres ready for spinning,and feeds them into the thread, while the spindletwirling in the right hand puts the twist in them.As the spindle twirls the spinner's two hands aredrawn apart, which stretches and twists the woolsimultaneously. The illustration on page 23shows a Macedonian woman, now resident in Canada,spinning in this way. The method is also stillused by various tribes in Egypt and the Sudan.

It is easier to twirl the spindle when a weightof spun wool is wound on it, so frequently a

23.

permanent weight of stone or wood or some

other solid material is added to the spindle.

This weight is called a whorl, and many ex-amples of ancient spindle whorls from variousparts of the world are in the collections ofthe Museum. Drawings of a number of them canhe seen on page 32

.

2k

Ldoȣe wooden spiodfe wborl.

British Columbia.

Spinning with the Spindle Grasped in Both Hands

For this method the fibres are first twistedby hand into a long loose roll which is called aroving. The roving is flung over a high beamand is then attached to the upper arm of thespindle near the whorl. The drawing on theopposite page is taken from one of the Paul Kanepaintings in the Museum, and showsthis method of spinning as used by the SalishIndians on the coast of British Columbia. In-

cidentally it also shows the curious deformationof the head which was practised by these Indians.The spinner squats on the floor holding a verylong spindle with a huge spindle whorl, at anangle in front of her. With a sort of tossingmotion she tworls her spindle, twisting thelength of roving which is between the end of thespindle and the beam. When it has been suffici-ently twisted it is wound on the spindle justabove the whorl and another length of roving is

drawn over the beam by swinging the spindle back-ward. In the British Columbia Gallery, Ground

25.

Floor , large whorls used in this type ofspinning can be seen in one of the tablecases, also samples of the spun wool in aheavy white blanket and the tassels onsome of the wooden rattles. British Columbiais one of the very few places where thisgrasped spindle method has been used for thespinning of a single thread. It is much moresatisfactory for twisting threads together to

make heavy two or three ply yarn and hasbeen used more widely for this purpose.It was used in this way in ancientEgypt and in more recent times in Spain.

1

26

Spinning with the Spindle Supported in Some Way,

The drawing above shows the method of spin-ning used by the Navaho Indians in the south-western United States. A rather long spindle is

placed point down on the ground, and is twistedwith the right hand, while the left pulls out thefibres as the spindle twists them. This processis repeated twice. The first spinning serves totwist the carded fibres into a rough, looselyspun roving, while in the second spinning thisroving is further pulled and twisted into fineyarn.

Spinning with the spindle supported in some

way can be done in a number of different ways.

In North Africa the worker squats on the ground

27.

in much the same way as the Navaho Indians,but instead of placing the spindle point downon the ground, the shaft of the spindle is

laid against the thigh and is rolled over andover from hip to knee "with the palm of thehand.

In India, when spinning the very finecotton threads for Dacca muslin, a smallspindle was placed upright in a bowl

9and

was spun like a top, while the two hands ofthe spinner controlled the pull ing out of thefine fibres. This method was used in severalplaces in the world, including Peru, wherevery fine cotton thread was spun in ancienttimes. The Peruvian spinners moistened thefibres with saliva frequently while spinning,to make them stick together more readily. Anexhibit in the South American Gallery, GroundFloor, shows a pottery case, which is aboutten inches long, con-taining the very fineligjhtly weighted ~. ^^b^spindles used forcotton spinning inPeru before theSpaniards came. Thereis also a spinner'sbasket with rolls ofthread, spindles andcombs which wereprobably used incleaning the fibres.In the adjoining roomcan be seen manybeautiful wovenfabrics which showthe fine cotton andwool spinning donein Peru centuries ago.

Peruvian, c. 1000 A.D.

Spinning with, the Spindle Suspended in the Air

Suspended spindle spinning is the most nearlyperfect method devised before the spinning-wheelwas invented* By it, a fine, even thread can beproduced considerably more rapidly than by anyother way of using the hand spindle. The spunyarn is wound on the spindle close to the whorland is fastened at one end of the spindle with a

half hitch knot. Sometimes for this method of

spinning the spindle is made with a notch or hook

29

at the end in "which the thread can he caught.The spindle is twisted and dropped so that ithangs q[uite free, twirling in the air, spin-ning the fibres together, while they arepulled out by the hands, and also by theweight of the spindle itself. When enoughyarn has been pulled out and spun for thespindle to be almost touching the floor, it

is picked up, the spun yarn is rolled on it,

and the process is repeated. The ancientEgyptians often used this method of spinning.When they did they always made their fibresinto a roving which they rolled in a ball andput in a bowl behind them* The spinner in theEgyptian relief shown on page 5 is spinningtwo threads at a time, a feat that was onlypossible when the rovings were well prepared,.

She is about to roll one spindle hard againsther raised thigh while the other spindle hasbeen dropped and is twirling in the air. Thefigure on the opposite page shows the mannerin which the ancient Greek women spun. Theyused the dropped spindle method and like theEgyptians, prepared their fibres with a pre-liminary spinning. The Greeks made a rovingby rolling the fibres against the leg as shownin the drawing on page 21, then tied the rov-ing to a distaff which was held in the lefthand. In Europe from classical times onward,the distaff was frequently added to the spin-ners T equipment. It became such a usual partof a woman T s possessions that the maternalbranch of the family was referred to legallyas the "distaff side", while the paternal was

known as the "spear side". The distaff couldbe just a plain stick to which the preparedfibres were tied, but frequently it was moreelaborate. It was usually either stuck throuji

the spinner T s belt, or tucked under the armon the left hand side, and in this way both

30..

hands -were freed to manipulate the fibresand the spindle. The drawing above of a

Breton peasant shows the usual technique

.

Sometimes the distaff was in the form of a

tall pole on a stand which was called a "rock".

31

The drawing below is taken from a late 17thcentury print and shows a fashionable lady ofthe period seated spinning with the droppedspindle method and drawing her fibres from arock. The small cup part way down the shaftwas to hold water to dampen the fingers whenspinning flax, as the fibres are much moreflexible and easy to work when they are wet.

32

With an art as vide spread as spinningthere were, of course, many variations of methodamong different peoples, but all of them seem tofall under the heading of one or other of thesegeneral methods.

33

Indo-Chinese Spinning-Wheel

SPIMINa-WHEEI^

It was sametime between 500 and 1000 A J),

that tte spinners of India started- to use awheel to twist their spindles ^ instead of doin^all the work "by hand. The earliest Indianspinning-wheel was very like the modern one fromFrench Indo-China shown in the drawing. A modelof a wheel of this type is in the Museum 1 s . studycollection. The wheel itself consists of twosets of spokes joined by criss-crossing strings.Over these strings a driving belt runs encirc-ling the spindle , which is mounted horizontally,at a little distance from the wheel. To operatethis type of wheel the spinner squats on theground beside the wheel, turning it with theright hand. The spun thread is wound lightlyround the spindle. The left hand holds the

3*.

prepared fibres, or roving, out to the left

almost in line with the spindle, so that whenthe spindle is turned by moving the wheel, a

twist is put in the section of roving betweenthe tip of the spindle and the hand of thespinner. The spinner 1 s hand is slowly drawnaway extending the fibres as they are spun,then the hand is brought in at right angles tothe spindle, so that the next turn of the waeel

rolls the spun yarn on to the spindle, and thenthe process is repeated. Although spinning canbe done considerably faster with this wheelthan with the spindle held in the hand, thetwisting and rolling processes are still sepa-rate actions.

This type of wheel spread from India toChina and Japan and is used right down to thepresent day in many districts of the East. The

Pioneer Ontario Spinnind-Wheel

35-

knowledge of it also spread vest to Persia andfinally to Europe. The first written record, of

a spinning-wheel in Europe is from the end of the

13th century}

and the first picture of one is in

an early lVth century manuscript in the BritishMuseum. The drawing above is taken from thismanuscript. It shows that the European versionof the spinning-wheel was much the same as theeastern, except that the wheel had a solid rimand was raised so that the worker could eitherstand or sit on a stool to work, instead of

squatting on the ground.

This simple spinning-wheel was quick in

operation, "but the fibres had to be very care-fully prepared for spinning. The great wheelthat was used so widely for wool spinning in

this country in the early days, was the directdescendent of the earliest spinning-wheel, andthe method of operating it was exactly the same

as that described above, except that the workerstood and in order to get a long draw walkedbackwards and forwards while she was spinning.

The illustration on the opposite page is of anOntario wheel of pioneer times, which is in the

Museum. It shows the one mechanical improvement

36.

that was made on the older wheel; a small wheelwas added , the belt from the large wheel turningit, while a short "belt from it turned the spindle,thereby multiplying the speed of the turningspindle. The tension of the large belt can be ad-justed by moving the front arm, and the smallerbelt can be loosened or tightened by screwing upor down the pegs on which the small wheel is

mounted. These wheels were called the "Great""Muckle", or sometimes "Jersey" wheel, and werewidely used, particularly for wool spinning, untilfairly recent times in America and the BritishIsles, and many of the European countries. Thepioneer women in this country often walked manymiles a day backwards and forwards spinning woolon their great wheels for clothing and coverlets.

Although this fairly simple type of wheelwas widely used until well on in the 19th century,a much more complicated and efficient type wasinvented nearly 500 years ago. The importantinvention was a flyer which spun the fibres sim-ultaneously with the rolling up of the yarn.About this same time a foot treadle to drivethe wheel was also introduced, which left bothhands free to feed the fibres onto the twirlingspindle. The additions of flyer and treadlemade a wheel which was speedy in operation andwhich was vwell suited to the spinning of both wooland flax. It was not superseded until the timeof the Industrial Revolution.

The first picture that we have of the newflyer attachment on a spinning-wheel is ' in aGerman book of about 1^75. Among Leonardo daVinci's many sketches of mechanical inventionsthere are several of spinning machines verysimilar to the newly developed type and someauthorities consider that, along with his manyother accomplishments, he was the inventor of

this revolutionary idea in spinning. However it

37.

seems more likely that he was simply tryingto improve on the invention, and that it wasactually made some years "before his time "by anunknown genius. The drawing below shows anl8th century flax wheel with the flyer attach-ment, which is. in the Museum collection.

Eighteenth Century

Fl&x SpLnntnd-Wheel

38.

This diagramdevice works,

shows how the flyer

one end on which

Is the wheel which is turnedby a treadle.Is the driving belt which isdoubled around the wheel, andone half of it put around thepulley C , and the other halfaround the bobbin F.Is a small wooden pulley whichis screwed rigidly on to thespindle D.Is the spindle, a long steelshaft with a thread towardsthe pulley is screwed and the

other end widening into a tube with openings ateither end.

E. Is a wooden flyer which is mounted rigidlyon the spindle. It has two arms on each of

which is a row of small metal hooks.F. Is a bobbin running loose on the spindlebetween the flyer and the pulley.G. Are the two upright posts which support thespindle

.

The spun yarn is rolled on the bobbin (f)

and brought over a hook on one arm of the flyerfa)

9and then through the tube at the end of the

swindle (D). When the wheel (A) is turned, thedriving belt turns the bobbin (F), and also thepulley (C), which, as it is mounted rigidly onthe spindle, also turns the spindle (D), and the

flyer (E) which is attached to it. As the flyerturns it carries the yarn round with it, and the

39

twist thus put on it runs through the tubeat the end of the spindle and up - the fibreswhich are held in the hands of the spinner

,

spinning a thread at the same time that theturning bobbin rolls the thread up*

The diameter of the bobbin is alwayssmaller than that of the pulley, which makesthe bobbin turn slightly faster than the spindle

with the flyer e It is this difference inspeed that makes it possible for the bobbinto wind a little faster than the flyer spins.

The speed of winding can be controlled bythe spinner, for if she holds the spinningthread tight instead of letting it runfree, the driving belt will slip as it

goes round the bobbin and no winding wfll

take place until the pressure is re-leased. This control of the speed of

winding, and the knowledge of how muchto pull the fibres out as they spin,

B

Wheel with Flyer

are the two essentials of spinning with this type

of wheel, and they can only be learned with a

good deal of practice. The speed of winding canalso be increased by moving the arms (G-) on whichthe spindle is mounted back, thus tightening the

driving belt. This makes the belt slip less as

it turns the bobbin and the bobbin runs faster.

The drawing on page 39 is of a Bavarian Flaxwheel which is quite small and light. Spinning-wheels of the flyer type, however, are made inmany sizes, and the wheel is placed at all anglesto the spindle from horizontal to vertical. Thedrawing on the opposite page shows a much heaviertype which has the wheel mounted horizontally tothe spindle. It is an early 19th century NewEngland spinning-wheel, which could be used justas well for flax as for wool. The Illustrationshows the method of using these wheels for wool.The left hand is held close to the opening of thetube at the end of the spindle, and the righthand holds the carded wool. As the wheel is setin motion by treadling with the left foot, thebobbin starts to roll up the yarn and the flyertwirls, spinning a twist into it. The spinnerallows the twist to run up into the fibres sheis holding between her hands, then pinching theyarn firmly with the fingers of her left handnear the spindle, she pulls back with her righthand stretching the fibres out finely, as thetwist goes into them, then she lets that len^hof spun yarn roll up on the bobbin and repeats theprocess. The yarn is put over each hook on theflyer in turn so that the bobbin is filled evenlywith the spun yarn.

The work goes quickly and when well done themotion is beautiful to watch. Spinning particu-larly during the l8th century, was considered a va^y

attractive occupation and the more elaboratewheels were made for the drawing room, where theywere used, rather as a pretty toy for the fashion-able lady, than as a necessary means for procuringthread for household purposes.

hi.

New England Spinning-Wheels Early 19"' Century

h2

Flax Spinning-Wheet ^ 18th Century

A light wheel of the drawing room type, whichwould have been used for spinning flax, is shownon page 37. The method of spinning flax is differ-ent from that used for wool. The fibres are tiedto the distaff, which is a detachable part of mostof these wheels; one hand pulls the fibres out of

the mass on the distaff while the other guides theminto the nozzle of the spindle. Flax is always spunwith the hands wet and a small cup is often attachedto the distaff to hold water for this purpose.

*3.

Sometimes the spinning-wheels were on areally small scale like the one in the illus-tration en the opposite page, which is in theMuseum T s collection. An l8th century lady is

shown spinning with it. .She holds it on herlap and turns the small wheel with her righthand as she draws and controls the flax withher left.

Single strands can be doubled and tripledinto two and three ply yarn very easily with aspinning wheel. Ends are taken from the re-quired number of balls of single ply yarn, arethreaded through the spindle, ever the hooksof the flyer and on to the bobbin together.The wheel is then put in motion, and as thesingle threads are wound up on the bobbin,they are twisted together.

^Century Reel.

kk.

BEEIS

Wooden reels -were used to make the yarn intoskeins. The one above is typical of those usedin this part of the -world during pioneer times.It has a -wooden cog wheel that makes a loud clickafter every ^1 revolutions; in this -way the lengthof the skein is measured as it is -wound. The smallreel shown on page k-3 is the type used with thelight l8th century drawing room spinning - wheelsBoth these examples are in the Museum collection.

*5.

THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

In Europe spinning was predominantly thework of women, particularly the young girls,hence the present legal term for an unmarriedwoman is a spinster. In early times a house-hold was a self sufficient unit, with all thenecessary spinning and weaving "being done byits members. However the more elaborate pro-ductions of the loom are quite outside thescope of the ordinary housewife, and as soonas really fine fabrics were developed, a classof highly trained craftsmen became necessaryto produce them. In spite of the fact thatthere was a great deal of home production ofcoarser materials for household purposes, spe-

cialization increased as the centuries passedand by mediaeval times the various branches ofthe textile arts were the work of separategroups of craftsmen. There was also a consider-

able amount of regional specialization; for ex-

ample Flanders, and later parts of Englandbecame famous for the processing of wool.

The preparation and spinning of yarn con-sumes a great deal of time, and three or evenmore people are needed in this branch of workto keep pace with one weaver. This meant thatthere was a great demand for spinners, so

drapers and weavers in the towns started toput out raw wool to be spun by women in thecountry. The pay was small, but it served asa casual extra revenue in households where themain concern was agriculture. However thesystem was not entirely satisfactory for when-ever the pressure of work in the fields becameheavy, the women stopped spinning, causingserious seasonal shortages of spun yarn, whichheld up the work of the weavers. By the 15thcentury, this so-called putting-out system forspinning was well established in the textile

k6.

producing areas of Europe, and was also used to aconsiderable extend for weaving. This cottage in-

dustry involved not only a network of communications,but also some kind of a distributing centre, and wasaccompanied by a definitely capitalistic control of

the textile industry. The gathering of workers underone roof , was tried out in England as early as thel6th century. However, the Tudor government was op-posed to this development, and also the craftsmenseem to have much preferred the freedom of working intheir own houses. As long as the appliances necessaryfor spinning and weaving were comparatively simple,there was little incentive to sink large amounts of

capital in buildings to house the workers. It wasnot until the time of the Industrial Revolution thattechnical conditions were such that the factory becamethe necessary form of industrial organization.

There are three motions necessary to spinning:pulling out the fibres, twisting them, and rollingthem up. The invention of the flyer attachment forthe spinning-wheel accomplished the twisting androlling motions quite mechanically, and power couldbe applied easily to these processes; but the pullingout of the fibres, which had always been done by hand,was a more difficult thing to do by mechanical means.The successful solving of this problem was, as is sooften the case in important inventions, the result ofthe work of a number of people. During the seventeenthirties Waytt and Paul experimented with a spinningmachine embodying a new principle. A carefully pre-pared roving was run between a pair of rollers andon to a flyer and bobbin very similar to those on aspinning-wheel. The flyer and bobbin performed thesame functions of twisting the fibres and rolling upthe yarn that they did on the wheel. As the flyerturned, it created a tension on the length of rovingstretched between it and the rollers, and this tensionpulled the roving out to the degree of fineness re-quired for yarn. The disadvantage of this method

1*7.

was that a terrific strain was put on the fibresbefore they had been given sufficient twist tostrengthen them to withstand it.

In 1769 Arkwright took out a patent on a spin-ning machine which was a much improved version of

Wyatt and Paul's invention. Instead of passingthe roving through only one pair of rollers andallowing the strain between flyer and rollers toextend the fibres, he used several pairs of rollersrevolving at increasing speeds, so that the rovingwas gradually extended between each pair. Thisproved to be much more practical than the earlierinvention, and Arkwright set up spinning millsemploying the new machines, which were driven bywater power and called water frames. In spite ofthe fact that his patent rights were at first dis-puted and later disallowed entirely, he had greatfinancial success. Both Wyatt and Paul's Machineand Arkwright 1 s improvement on it, provided a con-tinuous method of spinning by mechanical means,but neither was suitable for spinning fine threadsbecause the strain on the fibres was too great.

At about the same time that the roller spinningwas being developed, experiments were made on a

different principle, which resulted in 1767 in theinvention of Hargreaves T spinning jenny. In thejenny a number of spindles rotating in a verticalposition are slowly separated from a frame whichholds the spools of roving, thus extending thefibres of the roving stretched between spindlesand spools, while the rotating spindles twist them.Vihen the extension and twist are completed, theframe is brought together again, rolling the spunyarn up on to the spindles. The action of spinningand winding is intermittent as opposed to the con-tinuous method of roller spinning. Hargreaves'spinning jenny could not be called a machine forits action was by no means automatic, but it didmake it possible for one worker to spin a numberof threads at ovice.

In 1774 Samuel Crompton began working on the

U8.

most important of the great spinning inventions.

After about five years he completed a spinningmachine which combined the best features of thejenny and the -water frame

fand as it was a cross

between the two machines it became known as Vhe

"mule". It spun with the same intermittentmotion as the jenny but used rollers similar tothose on the water frame. The mule's great ad-vantage was that the thread was not subjectedto any strain until it had sufficient twist andstrength to bear it, and as a result very fine

yarn could be spun with it.

The jenny was a device that could be ownedand operated by individual spinners, so that its

introduction did nothing to disturb the set-up ofthe cottage industry. The same is true of themule in its initial stages, when it was stillcomparatively simple, but the water-frame and "the

more advanced type of mule, with their necessityfor the application of power, were only suitablefor factory use and their introduction was one of

the causes of the development of the factory sys-tem. Spinning was the first great industry ef-fected by the new mechanical inventions and cottonwas the first raw material processed by them. It

was during the period of the Industrial Revolutionthat cotton assumed its present important place:also at that time England, and particularlyIancashire, became the greatest cotton manufactur-ing area in the world. In spite of the fact thatwell before the end of the l8th century therewere spinning mills operating on a factory basiswith power driven machines, the putting-out sys-tem and the cottage industry survived into the19th century, and a certain amount of hand spin-ning is even done at the present time.

In modern machine spinning we find both thecontinuous roller method of spinning, now calledthe throstle, and the intermittent method ofCrompton's mule still used. The former method is

suitable for coarse work and the mule is usedfor spinning the finer yarns. In general machines

h9.

can accomplisli the spinning of fibres neitherbetter nor worse than the hand spinner; theiradvantage lies simply in their speed whichmakes possible the modem methods of massproduction.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Born, W. The Spinning Wheel.Ciba Review #28.

Crowfoot, G.M. Methods of Hand Spinning inEgypt and the Sudan.Bankfield Museum Notes, 2ndSeries, No. 12.

Yarn and Cloth Making.The MacMillan Co., 1918.

The Industrial History ofEngland.Houghton Mifflin Co., 1920.

Textiles. A Handbook for theStudent and the Consumer.The MacMillan Co., 1929.

Homecraft Course inPennsylvania GermanSpinning and Dyeing.

Schlechter *s, Allentown, Pa.

Kissell, M.L.

Usher, A. P.

Woolman, M.S.McGowan, E.B.

Osburn, B.B.