Our Own Snug Fireside by Jane C. Nylander

Author:Jane C. Nylander [Nylander, Jane C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-82816-3
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2013-04-10T00:00:00+00:00

HOMESPUN

Despite the reality of messy straw braiding and smelly cheesemaking in many New England kitchens, the popular idea of a New England household as a bustling hive of domestic production usually centers on a bountiful table, a warm hearth, and continuous spinning. Francis Underwood painted a perfect picture of a house in Quabbin, where “the most notable objects in the long kitchen were the spinning-wheels—a small one for flax, getting out of use more than sixty years ago, and a large one for wool, which was often seen down [perhaps] to 1850.… A pot of blue dye (fortunately covered) stood in the corner of the fireplace. This departed with the spinning wheels.”8 Certainly no image of the New England home is more powerful than that conjured up by the sight of a spinning wheel. In literature and fine art, in high-style domestic interiors and historic house museums, spinning and the spinning wheel have been seen as an essential expression of the New England woman’s devotion to her home and family, and as suggestive of self-sufficiency. The monotonous thump of the loom in a chilly shed chamber and the laborious and messy preparation of flax and woolen fibers, although both real and necessary, were far less appealing.

Recalling her girlhood in the 1770s in a small-town parsonage, seventy-year-old Eliza Buckminster Lee wrote in 1838: “All the linen and cotton for the use of the family were spun in the house. The weaving was done by poor women of the village.”9 In a history of Antrim, New Hampshire, published in 1877, W. R. Cochrane tells us: “For many years, almost every article worn by man or woman, young or old, in this town, was spun, woven, colored and made here. Every woman knew how to do every part. Men had their whole suits of ‘striped cloth’ and these were worn to church and everywhere else. In later days, they took the plain white woolen cloth to the ‘fulling mill’ and had it ‘dressed’ for ‘nice suits,’ either blue or black, or what the old folks called ‘blue-black.’ Blankets and table-cloths were always made at home, and were taken as tests of the woman’s skill. The maiden manufactured her own ‘outfit,’ as it was called; and her ‘intended,’ as they named the happy creature, had ample chance to judge her work beforehand. Every woman in this town had her ‘patch of growing flax,’ which she cultivated herself. From this they made strong and beautiful linens, of many styles.”10 Cochrane’s account, for all its rich detail, is typical of those of many town historians,11 who did not realize the actual scarcity of raw materials and equipment, oversimplified the production process, attributed technical skills to too many people, and romanticized what was already known as “the age of homespun.”12

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