The Age of Homespun

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 labor men 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. Free Download [ The Age of Homespun ] author [ Laurel Thatcher Ulrich ] – kino-fada.fr I read and loved A Midwife s Tale Like that book, this one delves into women s work and contributions to the economy of the times they lived in Ulrich does this by taking a dozen or so objects, all having to do with the production of textiles, and examining the history of that particular textile, tool, or implement against the contemporary setting when it was made and used For example, the spinning wheel The author looks at two, one for wool and one for linen and cotton Handspinning was a m I read and loved A Midwife s Tale Like that book, this one delves into women s work and contributions to the economy of the times they lived in Ulrich does this by taking a dozen or so objects, all having to do with the production of textiles, and examining the history of that particular textile, tool, or implement against the contemporary setting when it was made and used For example, the spinning wheel The author looks at two, one for wool and one for linen and cotton Handspinning was a means of production, but also a stand against English tyranny and taxation on spun and woven goods exported to the colony A chapter on a niddy noddy a hand tool for winding skeins of finished yarn from 1769 discusses just how much the women and girls were spinning and reeling off Women might gather to spin together in good natured contests, but they also traded freely skills, tools, and finished goods One might w...I made it to page 20 of this book before my eyes rolled back into my head with boredom In an effort to be fair, I then skimmed every chapter, tried to look at every photographic illustration, and read every word of the final six page Afterword It wasn t enough to figure out what exactly is the myth that obsesses the author I have been a seamstress and needle worker since childhood, and I am an...A bit dry, but overall, fascinating.Ulrich has an immense skill for looking at an object and seeing something far beyond its value as a practical object or collectible To her, Molly Ocket s pocketbook does not just tell the tale of ancient twining techniques but reveals as well the complex history of a people living in the violent borderland between New England and New France 250 It reflects the combination of cultures, both Abenaki and colonial, and illuminates the story of cultural exchange and conquest Molly Docket was n Ulrich has an immense skill for looking at an object and seeing something far beyond its value as a practical object or collectible To her, Molly Ocke... The Age of Homespun displays Laurel Thatcher Ulrich doing the thing she does best extrapolating entire stories out of seemingly mute objects By examining the history of a handful of woven objects from colonial and early republic New England, she provides a vivid picture of women s domestic lives during that time and of the influence those lives had on the social and economic well being of their society as a whole The research is sound and formidable and the writing engaging For adetail The Age of Homespun displays Laurel Thatcher Ulrich...Ulrich uses pre industrial cloth production to examine the ways in which traditional English household craft had to change with the transplantation to the New World particularly frontiers , and how this necessary and constant activity shaped family relations, time management, consumer behavior, fashion, colonial economics and eventually, in collision with industrial looms, collapsed with all kinds of interesting fallout This is a model of how material culture history undergirdsvisible po Ulrich uses pre industrial cloth production to examine the ways in which traditional English household craft had to change with the transplantation to the New World part...This book has a lot of good information, but it s very slow going Ulrich ties the existence of various handmade homespun objects into regional and national history, but sometimes gets carried away with tangents I found her explanations of what women could own vs what men could own in colonial times very interesting, but some of her explanations of the laws got to be a bit muc...An interesting read that focuses on specific items from early American history and then digs in as deeply as possible an unfinished stocking, an embroidered hanging, a spinning wheel what can these items tell us about women and their work, their lives Thatcher is one of my heroes a great thinker who helped create the modern study of marginalized groups like native peoples and women, who are not represented equally in texts By turning to physical artifacts she created a new method of tryi An interesting read that focuses on specific items from early American history and then digs in as deeply as possible an unfinished stocking, an embroidered hanging, a spinning wheel what can these items tell us about ...A fascinating look at everyday life in New England 17th 19th centuries through the lens of textiles Each chapter is centered on an artifact, such as a spinning wheel, basket, tablecloth, embroidered blanket, and branches out from there to topics such as relations between Indians and whites, exchanging labor between households, cultivating silk, knitt...I liked this book because it tellsof the history of women through the items that women made and valued Most history is written though men s eyes and therefore consists of wars and triumphs.I also liked reading about early american indians and how th...

• English
• 07 January 2017
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
• Hardcover
• 512 pages
• 0679445943
• Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
• The Age of Homespun