Browse Items (3 total)
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Wool comb, circa 1800
In addition to flax, wool was an important fiber during the colonial and frontier era. Wool combs arranged the fibers, separating the undercoat from outercoat and teasing the wool before carding by disentangling, cleaning and intermixing fibers. Sheep were among the early domesticated animals brought to Kentucky. Home production of wool increased during the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 due to trade embargos. Free and enslaved women prepared and spun the wool into a usable yarn. They used the yarn for knitting, or it was taken to a professional weaver (free or enslaved person) who turned it into cloth. Wool was often woven with cotton or hemp in early Kentucky textiles. Approximately 4/12 lbs. of spun wool were needed to make a single blanket. Wool cloth was also sewn into clothing by women. -
Flax Paddle, circa 1800
Flax paddles were used for scutching, part of the process for 'dressing' flax, or getting it prepped for spinning. The paddles separated the hard stocks from the useable fiber underneath. It took 4 months to grow flax from seed. It was beaten with the paddle until fibers could be pulled by hand through a hatchel to separate the fibers, which were then bundled and hung for drying to prepare them for spinning. Flax is one of the oldest cultivated crops in the world. It was an important crop during the colonial and early frontier era. Until the invention of the cotton gin, flax was easier to harvest and process. In Kentucky, it was commonly used in handwoven household linens. Historians estimate that families needed about ¼ to ½ acre of flax per person in a household. -
Spinning wheel belonging to the Slaughter Family, circa 1800
This spinning wheel is said to have belonged to Caldweller Slaughter who came to Kentucky as early as 1787. It could also have come from the family of one of his wives. His first wife, Margaret Ransdell Slaughter, died in 1786. Some sources indicate he may have remarried Mary Fowke who died a few years later (unverified). He then married Lucy Slaughter in 1790. Slaughter owned 200 acres in the area today known as Cherokee Triangle in Louisville. Spinning wheels were crucial to early pioneer families. Generally, weaving was a professional occupation for men, and in Kentucky was also done by enslaved men and women. Spinning on the other hand, was a woman’s task and was done in between gardening, milking, preserving crops, cooking food, making/mending clothes, doing laundry, and rearing children. Fiber was painstakingly cultivated, processed, and spun on the family farm and then taken to a community weaver to be made into cloth, which might be finished at home or sewn into clothing. Approximately 3 lbs. of spun flax or 4/12 lbs. of spun wool was needed to make a single sheet or blanket. Spinning wheels, for some American women, were more than just tools and were also political statements. Prior to the American Revolution, and then during the embargos of the War of 1812 some colonial women (particularly in New England) hosted and participated in 'Spinning Bees' to create yarn and thread to boycott English-made goods.