If you want to understand the early history of America, said Horace Bushnell, "You must not go into the burial places, and look about only for the tall monuments and the titled names." Don't focus on famous men, he said. "The spinning-wheels have done a great deal more than these." Bold words for 1851. For even though spinning wheels were gone from the scene, women hadn't found their place in public life or history books. From coarse handwoven coats to fine needle worked samplers, he felt the history is better read in the traces of the worn fabric. Today's preeminent historian of material culture says even he got the spin a little wrong. Laurel Ulrich is again unraveling the stories that homespun textiles tell, finding revolutionary politics, Indian tensions, and American identity.
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Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, author of "The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation on an American Myth"
and Steven D. Lubar, author of "Legacies: Collecting America's History at the Smithsonian."
