Elizabeth C. Barney Buel

“ As Helen embroidered the combats of Greeks and Trojans, so now, two thousand years later, Queen Matilda and her maidens are seen spinning and weaving the Norman Conquest of England into the Bayeux Tapestry. Surely the muse Clio might wield spindle as well as stylus as a symbol of her patronage of history. It was no shame to those high-born women to ply the distaff and figure in the songs of chivalry as the makers of all manner of household fabrics. ”

“ Who does not know how the full fury of her godhead was let loose upon the luckless Arachne, that mortal woman who dared challenge her to a competition in spinning and weaving? Overhearing Arachne’s boast that not even Pallas Athene herself could surpass the beauty of her handiwork, and that she would try her skill with the goddess, or suffer the penalty of defeat, the wrathful divinity assumed the form of an old woman, and tried to induce the reckless girl to desist. ”

“ Once more we find woman’s handiwork holding an honorable place, for the patron goddess of spinning, weaving, and needle-work is none other than Pallas Athene, the warrior goddess of wisdom, founder and protector of Athens, and herself a spinner acknowledging no rival among gods or men. ”

“ Thus we see that in New England the culture, spinning and weaving of wool, as well as flax, was as religiously encouraged as in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and New York. The great wool-wheel was as necessary an implement in every household as the little flax-wheel, for every home had by law to contain one spinner. Children of all classes were required to learn to spin wool, and met 52 on equal footing over their work. Homespun became so universal a commodity that imported woolens were not missed when the time came to forbid them the country. ”

“ We stand face to face with their weapons of war and of the chase, their household implements, their exquisitely carved ivories and gold jewelry and coin, their very clothing of fine linen, the work of the spinsters of those days, and the brain reels with the thought that even before them there were generations upon generations of human beings living in organized societies and practising the arts and engaged in the occupations of a high 7 order of civilized life. ”

“ But New England was not alone in her encouragement of flax and wool culture. Virginia, where wild flax grew in profusion, was even earlier than Massachusetts in arousing an interest in flax-spinning. In 1646, two spinning-schools were established in Jamestown, and prizes were offered for the best work, until the whole colony was engaged in this home industry. Every great and little plantation had its spinning-house, where the female slaves were kept busily spinning, the mistress herself joining in the work. ”

“ It does not appear until the fifteenth century,—although the date of the first wool-wheel is placed by one authority in the fourteenth century,—before which time all spinning of wool, flax, and cotton was done on the primitive distaff tucked under the left arm in the way so familiar to us in pictures of peasant girls and Greek maidens spinning as they walk. Woman’s first distaff was the trunk of a tree; her spindle a rude stick, on which she wound and twisted the yarn as her fingers laboriously pulled and shaped it from the flax wrapped around the trunk. ”

“ We have all seen the beautiful mummy linen found wrapped around the mummies even of the most remote antiquity; and we know that only the best that Egypt could produce would be wound around the sacred bodies of their dead. This mummy-linen was not spun on a wheel, but on a hand-distaff, called sometimes a rock, such as the women of India use to this day in spinning the fine thread of India muslin, and such as was also used by the children of our American colonists while tending sheep and cattle in 8 the field. The spinning-wheel as we know it is of much later date. ”

“ Sister, farewell, and remember that modesty, as it makes the most homely virgin amiable and charming, so the want of it infallibly renders the most perfect beauty disagreeable and odious. But when that brightest of female virtues shines among other perfections of body and mind, in the same person, it makes the woman more lovely than an angel. ”

“ Pliny’s description of Egyptian flax-culture and preparation reads like an account of the labors of our own foremothers; and the walls of ancient tombs are covered with pictures of the old familiar process. Egyptian flax went to all parts of the world and occupied a foremost place as an article of commerce, for linen was the staple fabric for clothing of all the ancient peoples. Pieces of linen are still found clinging to skeletons in the tombs of the Chaldeans, and it was the national dress of the Babylonians and Persians. ”

“ So symbolic is it also of woman’s toil, of woman’s distinctive and universal occupation, nay, of woman herself, that the “distaff side of the house” has always been expressive of the woman’s family, and “spinster” is still the legal title of unmarried women in the common law of England. Most ancient of all household implements, it has been used 4 in one form or another by queen, princess, and serving-maid, by farmer’s wife and noble’s daughter, until it stands to-day a silent witness to the fundamental democracy of mankind. ”

“ It is impossible here to go into the home process of weaving this wool and linen thread; but it was no less laborious than 55 all that had gone before. Suffice it to say that in almost every house throughout New England, Pennsylvania, and Virginia the hand-loom was to be found, and every farmer’s daughter could weave as well as spin, although weaving was not so wholly woman’s work as was spinning. Homespun linen after being woven had to undergo about forty processes of bleaching, as it was still light brown in color. ”

“ True to patriotic tradition, the wool-spinners there have formed a “Martha Washington Benevolent Society,” which for fifty years, without a break, has held an annual spinning-match in August, twenty or more women assembling with their great wheels, and spinning with all the old-time dexterity. ”

“ In speaking of the 30 patriotic devotion of the men in our war for independence, of their bravery in battle, their dignity and wisdom in the council-hall, their patient endurance of every hardship and privation, we must not forget that their ability to meet these demands and to be what they were, was due to the independence of their homes of every outside help in supplying the necessaries of life, and this independence was due solely to the patient industry, the unceasing and voluminous manual labor of our grandmothers from their earliest childhood to their death. ”

“ And then the spinning-bees and spinning classes—the sewing circles of those days. Both Connecticut and Massachusetts as early as 1640 took legal steps to encourage the culture and spinning of flax, and every family was ordered to spin a certain amount of flax a year on penalty of a fine, and often prizes were offered for quantity and quality. On Boston Common the spinsters would sometimes meet with their wheels, and sit them down to spin—rich and poor alike, to the number, once, of three hundred. ”

“ Thus the ancient northern literature is also full of pictures of the women spinning their household linen, spinning their wedding linen, spinning the linen of husbands and sons. Noble ladies in the halls of earl 23 and thane, wives in the lowlier homes of simple freemen, and in the cots of peasant and thrall—they all spun and wove for the needs of the home. ”

“ What modern linen is as firm, solid, and close-woven, and capable of being used a hundred years hence as this can be used to-day? What needle-work so fine? One can hardly believe that the same hands which made the soap and greased the wool could hem like that, embroider the finest edging 56 and other work, make bead-bags, and knit the daintiest lace. ”

“ The whole course of the first dynasty is now laid bare to us, and we find that its beginning in 4700 b.c. is modern history compared with the periods of development that must have gone before, for there is proof positive that even before this dynasty, ten other kings reigned in Egypt, and other hands grew flax on the banks of the Nile and spun and wove it into Egypt’s far-famed linen. In ancient Egypt linen occupied a most important place ”

“ Such was the far from simple process of flax-culture and spinning on the farm: when we remember that wool culture and spinning was scarcely less laborious, and that the home weaving of both kinds of thread has not yet been taken into the account, we shall begin to realize what it meant to the women of ’76 when they voluntarily took oath to wear naught but 38 homespun, they and their sons and their daughters. ”

“ From this it is evident that the spinning-wheel as well as the sewing-machine has had its victims. It was well for these toiling women of the pioneer towns if they had husbands thoughtful enough to stop in time the self-sacrifice of daily labor at the wheel, 43 as well as in this spinning-match for glory only. ”

“ Thus this time-honored occupation still thrives in the East, while in the remote and mountainous regions in the South, handweaving and spinning are still household arts—as also in many foreign countries. ”

“ The flax was now ready for the process of hackling or hetcheling, which required great dexterity on the part of the hetcheler. The flax fibres were carefully drawn towards the hetcheler through the teeth of the hetchel (see illustrations, pages 35 33 and 34, taken from originals in the Litchfield Historical Society) , thus pulling out the fibres into long continuous threads and combing out the shorter threads. This implement has given its name to that process of “heckling” so familiar, for instance, to hen-pecked husbands when lectured by irate wives. ”

“ May this spirit never die, for the day of its disappearance is the day of our country’s doom. It is the duty and the privilege of our great Society to see that “old New England” never fails us, 62 for it is her spirit that has burned high in the breast of American womanhood from Bunker Hill till now, and there stands its witness. Honor the old spinning-wheel and all it signifies, and to the spinster:
“Give her of the fruit of her hands ”

“ For this work a woman earned eight cents a day and her keep. In the valley of Wyoming, where so many Connecticut families emigrated to meet their terrible doom later on at the hands of the Indians, a woman was paid six shillings a week for her labor at spinning. ”

“ In the same year the Provincial Congress made an appeal to the people for thirteen thousand warm coats for the Continental army, to be ready for the soldiers when winter came. It was a time when all preparations for the war seemed to be in the most hopeless snarl, and army supplies were scarce and often lacking. ”

“ Their courage in times of peril, and their fortitude in trials never forsook them! They gave up their husbands and their sons for the cause of God and their country, and their example was all powerful. ”

“ One of their 59 number is one hundred and two years old, and during the past winter made, entirely without help, four large patch-work bed-quilts, double-bed size, and sold them at the sale which accompanies the match. The yarn which they spin through the year they knit into stockings and mittens for home use and for sale.
In New York City lives a family who are now developing these homely industries to their full artistic limits. ”

“ All this besides washing, cooking, weaving tape, knitting, weeding, picking geese, and making social visits. And yet we talk about modern rush and hurry, and the “strenuous life.” It is merely a change 57 of occupation. We hear it constantly said of our ancestors’ fine needle-work, delicate hand-writing, etc., “Oh, they had more time to do such things.” Would not Abigail Foote dispute that, think you? Also Mrs. John May, a prominent Boston woman, who writes in her diary for one day:
“A large kettle of yarn to attend upon. ”