Textiles in Early New England: Design, Production, and Consumption

This publication is a collection of papers presented at the Dublin Seminar of New England Folklife conference in June of 1999. This is the first of two volumes addressing New England textiles. These papers place new emphasis on the broader chronological and social dimensions of textile production and usage.

The following is a list of the title and author of each paper:  Early American Silk Patchwork Quilts by Deborah E. Kraak, The Warp and Weft of a Lifetime: The Discovery of a New Hampshire Weaver and Her Work by Donna-Belle Garvin, Lucy Cleveland’s “Figures of Rags”: Textile Arts and Social commentary in Early-Nineteenth-Century New England by Paula Bradstreet Richter, Heads Were Spinning: The Significance of the Patent Accelerating Spinning Wheel Head by Frank G. White, The Laces of Ipswich, Massachusetts: An American Industry, 1750 – 1840 by Marta M. Cottrell, Lace schools and Lace Factories: Female Outwork in New England’s Machine-Lace Industry, 1818 – 1838 by Richard M. Candee, Mitten Production in Nineteenth-Century Downeast Maine by Deborah Pulliam, Industrial Opportunism: From Hand weaving to Mill Production, 1700 – 1830 by Adrienne D. Hood, The Textile Legacy of a Narragansett Planter by Gail B. Putnam, Bandanna: On the Indian Origins of an All-American Textile by Susan S. Bean, “The Great Leap”: Youths’ Clothing in the Early Nineteenth Century by Lynne Zacek Bassett, Designing Women: Massachusetts Milliners in the Nineteenth Century by Glendyne R. Wergland, Luther Edgerton’s Clothing Books: A Record of Men’s Ready-to-Wear from the Early Nineteenth Century by Adrienne E. Saint-Pierre, A Canterbury Tale: Sarah Ann Major Harris and Prudence Crandall by Glee F. Krueger.