| Description |
501 pages : illustrations, maps ; 21 cm |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages [419]-478) and index. |
| Contents |
Introduction: The age of homespun : Litchfield, Connecticut, 1851 -- An Indian basket : Providence, Rhode Island, 1676 -- Two spinning wheels in an old log house : Dover, New Hampshire, date unknown -- Hannah Barnard's cupboard : Hadley, Massachusetts, 1715 -- A chimneypiece : Boston, Massachusetts, 1753 -- Willie-nillie, niddy-noddy : Newburyport, Massachusetts, and New England, 1769 -- A bed rug and a silk embroidery : Colchester and Preston, Connecticut, 1775 -- Molly Ocket's pocketbook : Bethel, Maine, 1785 -- A linen tablecloth : New England in the early republic -- A counterpane and a rose blanket : Kennebunkport, Maine, and New England, 1810 -- A woodsplint basket: Rutland, Vermont, after 1821 -- An unfinished stocking : New England, 1837. |
| Summary |
Publisher's description: Using objects that Americans have saved through the centuries and stories they have passed along, as well as histories teased from documents, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich chronicles the production of cloth--and of history--in early America. Under the singular and brilliant lens that Ulrich brings to this study, ordinary household goods--Indian baskets, spinning wheels, a chimneypiece, a cupboard, a niddy-noddy, bed coverings, silk embroidery, a pocketbook, a linen tablecloth, a coverlet and a rose blanket, and an unfinished stocking--provide the key to a transformed understanding of cultural encounter, frontier war, Revolutionary politics, international commerce, and early industrialization in America. We discover how ideas about cloth and clothing affected relations between English settlers and their Algonkian neighbors. We see how an English production system based on a clear division of labor₇men doing the weaving and women the spinning--broke down in the colonial setting, becoming first marginalized, then feminized, then politicized, and how the new system both prepared the way for and was sustained by machine-powered spinning. Pulling these divergent threads together into a rich and revealing tapestry of--the age of homespun--Ulrich demonstrates how ordinary objects reveal larger economic and social structures, and, in particular, how early Americans and their descendants made, used, sold, and saved textiles in order to assert identities, shape relationships, and create history. |
| Subject |
New England -- History -- 1775-1865.
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New England -- Social conditions -- 19th century.
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New England -- Economic conditions -- 19th century.
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Textile fabrics -- Social aspects -- New England -- History -- 19th century.
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Textile crafts -- New England -- History -- 19th century.
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Weaving -- Social aspects -- New England -- History -- 19th century.
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Clothing and dress -- Social aspects -- New England -- History -- 19th century.
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Material culture -- New England -- History -- 19th century.
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National characteristics, American.
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| ISBN |
0679766448 |
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