A History Of Textiles

Kax Wilson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780429716195
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Originally published in 1979, this volume acts as a reference for the history textiles. It asks questions on the effect of technology on textiles, how did particular historical periods and locations expand or limit the possibilities for the manufacture of fabrics and how the textile history related to politics and economics, sociology and psychology, art and engineering, anthropology and archaeology, chemistry and physics. Addressing these questions, the author surveys the development of the technical components of fabrics and discusses the textiles of selected places and times. She uses prose, drawings and more than 130 photographs to show how each era of textile production reflects its age. This book is designed to serve as a college text and as a reference work for museum researchers. With sections including illustrations and diagrams; key terminology; spinning wool; spinning and raw materials; single ply and cord and fabric construction.

1.

SOME RELATIONSHIPS

DOI: 10.4324/9780429049101-1

Textile history has many facets. It can involve archaeology, inasmuch as fabrics provide a record of ancient man, or anthropology, inasmuch as fabrics form part of the material culture of a primitive people. It can involve a study of religion and symbolism in order to decipher motifs, or it can mean using chemistry to identify fibers, analyze dyes, or properly clean an old textile. Politics and economics are also intricately woven into textile history. Artistic analysis is very important, as identification and dating often become the work of an art historian. Some textiles are considered fine art and exhibited with great paintings; others are classed as folk art and housed with crafts. There is also “tourist art,” representing a degeneration in traditional weaving, with its interesting sociological and psychological implications. Hence, textile historians are involved with many disciplines, and textiles are studied from various viewpoints.

Handwoven fabrics have now become an art form and are well removed from everyday life. This was not always so, and as we study something old—commonplace in its time—we wonder who was personally involved in its making and use. How was it made? How can it be described? What are the terms to use? Appreciation of old fabrics is enhanced if one can “read” them well in terms of material, structure, and design as those elements relate to sociological, economic, and artistic concepts. For example, one sees a Navajo rug in an airport shop; it typifies 200 years of weaving certain designs in wool tapestry on a primitive loom; it also tells a story of economics, first Indian commerce, then Anglo trader control of a reservation industry; and yet, there is an intangible element—the psychological value of tribal prestige earned by the weaver.

A textile is considered to have five components: 1) the fiber—the basic unit—suitable material from many sources, mainly vegetable and animal; 2) the yarn—the structure made by spinning or twisting the fibers together; 3) the fabric construction—woven if the yams are interlaced at right angles, done by some other method if the yarns are twisted, looped, or knotted; 4) the finish, including processes such as bleaching and pressing; and 5) color—fibers, yarns, or cloth can be dyed or the cloth may be printed. Textiles from all over the world, past or present, are often similar yet different. There are some variables that make each group distinct, however.

1. The raw materials. Certainly, not all fibers could be raised in all parts of the world nor were they always available in trade. Fiber content determined fabric characteristics (such as handle and texture) and also put limitations on what could be done in spinning, weaving, dyeing, and finishing. Interesting things sometimes happened when an unfamiliar material was imported and used in the way of a traditional fiber.

2. The technology. Different materials required different tools and techniques for spinning and fabric construction. Limitations imposed by lack of technical knowledge often put restrictions on what could be made. Hawaiians had no loom, so they made cloth by beating bark fibers into a mat. The ancient Chinese were ahead of the rest of the world in making patterned fabrics of silk because they had an advanced loom technology. In the seventeenth century dyers and printers in India knew methods for coloring cotton cloth not known anywhere else. Europeans invented and used the machines that made mass production possible.

3. The reason for production. The amount of effort and skill put into weaving has varied according to the intended use of the product and the value placed on that use by a society. If clothing and protection from the elements were primary concerns, people sought economical and fast methods. Cloth made for trade might be woven very carefully for a sophisticated buyer—or less so for a casual tourist. Often designs were modified from the traditional to meet the needs of the buyer. On the other hand, many hours might be spent making patterns for aesthetic reasons. Textiles made for religious purposes were important for their symbolism; a belief in life after death resulted in fabrics of intricate design and fine quality.

4. Influences from other cultures. It is very difficult to identify what might be considered a “pure” textile, that is, one developed solely within a group and never changed by the ideas of new weavers coming into the area, or by people of different religion taking over and changing motifs, or by new plant materials being introduced to change colors. Cultural diffusion is very evident and often several influences can be identified in a single historic fabric.

* * *

In Part One material and technology will be covered with a view towards tying them to people, places, and different periods. Emphasis will be placed on fiber, yam, construction, finish, and color and their historical relationships. Part Two will discuss textiles of selected places and times. Examples can be seen in museums,¹ and at least some published information about them is available. Bibliographical essays included with each chapter will provide important references in English for each topic, following the order of presentation used in the chapter.

NOTES

• 1 For information about museums with textile collections see Cecil Lubell, ed., Textile Collections of the World, 3 vols. (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1976-). Lubell’s first volume deals with the United States and Canada, the second with the United Kingdom and Ireland, and the third with France. Others to come.

PART ONE

HISTORY OF MATERIALS AND METHODS

2.

SPINNING AND RAW MATERIALS

DOI: 10.4324/9780429049101-3

Loose fibers have little value as textile material unless they can be made into yarn. At least ten thousand years ago women were able to identify the materials that were strong and long enough to spin. Although many materials were spun, the ancients mainly used four that served the world’s major textile needs until the twentieth century. Each of the great civilizations can be associated with at least one fiber—Egypt with flax, India and Peru with cotton, China with silk, and Mesopotamia with wool.

Tools for spinning developed slowly. Fiber preparation and yarn making were never-ending tasks until the nineteenth century.

SPINDLES AND WHEELS

Spinning can be accomplished without any instrument by simply rolling the fibers between the palms or along the thigh. Using a spindle makes the process much easier. Although there are many kinds of primitive spindles, the basic device is a thin stick between seven and eighteen inches long, tapered at both ends (Figure 2.1). At the top there is usually a notch to hold the yarn while it is being spun. Somewhere between the middle and the lower end will be the whorl, made of clay, wood, bone, pottery, or even precious metal. The whorl keeps the spindle in motion once it has been set to turning. The distaff (a word sometimes used erroneously to mean “spindle”) is also a stick, but it is used to hold the fibers that have been prepared for spinning (Figure 2.2.). It can be tucked under the spinner’s arm or attached to a spinning wheel.

FIGURE 2.1 Spindle.

FIGURE 2.2 Spinning with Distaff.

The steps in spinning are about the same for all fibers except filament silk. First, they must be cleaned of seeds, vegetable matter, and dirt. Then they are laid parallel, or in some order, and formed into a strand. This is called roving. Next, the strand is attenuated by stretching (from the hanging weight of the spindle), drafting (pulling out with the fingers), or a combination of the two. The next step, twisting, is the vital part of the process, because it is the twist that holds the fibers together and gives the yarn strength. The twist is imparted by the rotation of the spindle. After twisting the yam must be wound onto the spindle or into a ball.

If the spindle is turned in one direction, an “S” twist results; if it is turned in the opposite direction, a “Z” twist is produced. To see the difference, visualize these letters superimposed on yarns or twist some cords together (Figure 2.3). Some fibers are consistently spun either “S” or “Z,” and certain groups of spinners spin all fibers in one direction. “S” and “Z” identification is used in textile analysis for a number of determinations like possible fiber content, place and date of manufacture, or washability. If the fibers are spun only once, a single or one-ply yam is the result. If two or more singles are twisted together, the result is a two-ply, three-ply, etc., yam. If several strands are then twisted together, the result is a cord (Figure 2.4).

FIGURE 2.3 “S” and “Z” Twists.

FIGURE 2.4 Single Ply, and, Cord.

Sometime around 750 A.D. in India¹ the spindle was mounted on a frame and rotated by turning a wheel that held a cord attached to the spindle. Called a charkha (Figure 2.5) in India, and a Jersey wheel (or great wheel) (Figure 2.6) elsewhere, it was only a little bit faster than the hand spindle, but the product was more uniform. The Chinese added a treadle that accelerated the process, but many wheels of this type continued to be turned by hand. Spinning on the charkha or Jersey wheel was intermittent; the spinner had to stop periodically to wind the yarn on the spindle.

FIGURE 2.5 Charkha (Indian spinning wheel).

FIGURE 2.6 Jersey Wheel.

A major advancement occurred in the sixteenth century when Saxony or Brunswick wheels came into use in Europe. This important innovation was the flyer, a “U”-shaped device fixed on the end of the hollow shaft holding the spindle. Two pulleys, activated by the wheel, turned the flyer and spindle at different rates, enabling the yarn to be wound on the spindle as the twist was being made (Figure 2.7). Leonardo da Vinci has been given credit for the invention of the flyer, although it may have been the work of a German from Brunswick named Jurgen. The principle, however, dates back to fourteenth century Italian silk throwing mills. Spinning machines, the jenny, and the water frame, greatly speeded yarn production by using multiple spindles. They were not, of course, developed until the Industrial Revolution (see chapter 8).

FIGURE 2.7 Saxony Wheel.

THE MAJOR FIBERS

There is not a great deal of information, other than archaeological, about textiles before the Christian Era. The Bible, a few ancient writings, and some cave murals are the best references. Archaeological samples are sometimes biased because conditions in an area have preserved only the vegetable, or only the animal, fibers.² A predominance of material has been preserved in desert regions, but that does not necessarily mean that more fabrics were made there. And even in very recent times, historians have often been confused about or unconcerned with fiber content: cotton has been called linen, flax and hemp have been used interchangeably, and wool and cotton have been mistakenly identified.

The textile historian is aided in educated guesswork by a knowledge of the physical and chemical properties of the fibers. Physical properties determine the methods that must be used for spinning and weaving in order to achieve a successful product: for example, certain constructions are not suitable to wool. Chemical properties of fibers determine finishing and dyeing techniques as well as survival rates.

Flax

Flax (the word is derived from the Teutonic flacks) may well have been the first plant used for fiber. The wild variety, Linum angustifolium, grew...