The Weaver's Craft: Cloth, Commerce, and Industry in Early Pennsylvania

Examines the development of cloth manufacture in early Pennsylvania from its roots in seventeenth-century Europe to the beginning of industrialization. Drawing on an extensive array of primary sources, combined with a quantitative approach, the author argues that in contrast to New England, rural Pennsylvania women spun the yarn that a small group of trained male artisans wove into cloth on a commercial basis throughout the eighteenth century. Their production was considerably augmented by consumers purchasing cheap cloth from Europe and Asia, making them active participants in a global marketplace. Hood's painstaking research and numerous illustrations of textile equipment, swatch books, and consumer goods will be of interest to both scholars and craftspeople. Hardcover. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003. 230 pages.