The fabric of our nation: A brief history of women and textiles in America

The "story of textiles is the story of human ingenuity," wrote Virginia Postrel, author of "The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World." We may not notice, but much of our language—and thus, our ways of thinking—hang on phrases rooted in weaving, such as "whole cloth," commenting on "threads," or franchise "spinoffs." From ancient times until now, textiles have become the cloth on which our stories have been woven, usually by the hands of women.

Despite their reputation for being a domesticated endeavor, textiles are anything but tame. They have been at the center of a push-and-pull between institutionalized forced labor and rebellion and a continued struggle for creative expression. To provide readers with a historical snapshot of the complex warps and wefts of women and textiles, Made Trade put together a brief history, drawing on historical museum documents and research.

The journey begins with entities like Grandmother Spider and the Spider Woman, women mythological deities who created the fibrous plants and first looms and inspired ancestral Hopi, Navajo, and Pueblo tribes in the American Southwest long before the European settlers arrived in the mid-1500s. "Women are fiber arts," artist and instructor Joetta Maue told Stacker.

As they transitioned from a hunter-gatherer to an agricultural society, Ancestral Puebloans—men and women alike—used cotton and other natural materials to embroider and weave blankets, clothing, and household items, as did colonists in the New World.

Hand in hand with weaving came the cultivation of cotton, which was practiced as early as the 10th century in the Americas. However, the importation of wool-bearing sheep significantly shaped the intertwined histories of cotton and textiles. The Navajo people and the wool of the Churro sheep, in particular, became well known. Today, those weavings can fetch thousands of dollars at auction.

Cotton industry and enslavement

Though an essential raw material, cotton is controversial. It is "the center of the most exploitative production complex in human history," as a New York Botanical Garden exhibit noted. During the trans-Atlantic slave trade voyages, from approximately 1526 to 1867, European slavers took some 12.5 million adults and children forcibly transported from Africa, many of whom were conscripted to work in cotton fields. According to Florida State College at Jacksonville, about 3.2 million enslaved Africans were in the United States by 1850, 1.8 million of which worked in cotton fields.

To increase output on colonial plantations, enslavers preferred Black children and women who could move more easily than men between the narrow rows of closely packed cotton shrubs. At harvest time, they handpicked pods of cotton (called bolls) for as many as 18 hours per day, cutting and scraping their hands on the hard, sharp shells and laboring under threat of mistreatment.

It wasn't just male, white enslavers at the helm of such mistreatment either. Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers, associate professor of history at the University of California at Berkeley, found that the white women married to these slavers were often just as cruel and exacting enslavers, if not more so. "[When] women owned their own slaves, they had very calculated interests in ensuring that those enslaved people submitted to their will or their domination," Jones-Rogers told The Washington Post.

Women who were enslaved also contributed to the plantation system's unpaid labor force by bearing children, increasing their value to enslavers, and leaving them open to sexual exploitation. Nevertheless, they maintained their artistic traditions by braiding mats, rugs, and sewing quilts, a legacy their descendants have taken on.

One such example lies in Gee's Bend, Alabama, once a cotton plantation established by Joseph Gee. After the Civil War, people who were enslaved remained on the plantation, working as sharecroppers. When the price of cotton fell during the Great Depression, the federal government purchased the land, enabling residents to slowly acquire and farm the land their ancestors did. The art of textile continued in this community even during the Civil Rights era, when local women formed the Freedom Quilting Bee, which provided economic opportunities and, eventually, artistic recognition for those involved. Gee's Bend quilts are found in collections from over 30 art institutions.

The Golden Experiment and Industrial Revolution

Processing cotton was difficult work, which Eli Whitney's cotton gin sought to fix. After picking the bolls, the machine separated cotton fibers from their seeds. Though it made one part of the process easier, a human hand still needed to pick the cotton. Thus, this industry-changing device served only to feed the need for enslaved labor.

Along with the Slater Mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island—considered the home of the Industrial Revolution in America—the cotton gin forged what Massachusetts Sen. Charles Sumner referred to as an "unholy union" between the North and South and transformed textile production from the home to the factory, affecting whose hands made the final product.

During the Golden Experiment, which tested the idea of women in factories, recruiters for the Lowell Mills in Massachusetts targeted young women for employment starting in 1823. Investors believed women to be cheaper to hire, easier to manage, and, destined for marriage, unlikely to establish a permanent working-class population.

While the boardinghouses and the mills provided them with community and economic independence, women workers endured health hazards like accidents, deafening noise, and poor ventilation. Their off-hours were subject to compulsory church attendance, curfews, and strict behavioral expectations.

In response to cuts in earnings and deductions for room and board, these "malleable" young women organized strikes in 1834 and 1836, as well as the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association in 1845. This era of hiring and women's employment eventually ended due to competition and a decrease in the cost of textile goods. By the beginning of the 20th century, the factory-based textile industry transitioned from the North to the South. Here, cotton was easily sourced, and fabrics were more economical.

Women and weaving in rebellion

Though factory production of textiles would eventually become the dominant force in the industry, handmade textiles continued to make a difference, perhaps even saving lives. In their book "Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad," authors Jacqueline Tobin and Raymond G. Dobard recount the story of Ozella McDaniel Williams, whose family was said to have encoded secret messages in the textiles they wove for use in the Underground Railroad. Patterns gave those traveling on the railroad valuable information about directions, manner of dress, and even just status updates on the situation facing those trying to escape.

Despite this captivating theory and story, definitive proof of its existence has yet to be found. However, the idea of encoding secret messages in textiles has taken hold, inspiring generations of weavers to artfully integrate messages for future generations. Similarly, Betsy Ross solidified her place in history as the woman who helped George Washington finish the design of the first United States flag; still, there is a lack of evidence to prove this moment really happened.

We may never know if these uplifting stories are factually true. However, historical records do support how women of conscience in the homespun movement used their organizational and technical skills to influence politics and trade before the start of the American Revolution by holding spinning bees, public events where they would spin yarn for hours, and replacing boycotted British fabrics with domestically produced textiles.

'Women's work' in the 19th and 20th centuries

Apart from the Underground Railroad, during the American Civil War, Northern and Southern women used their creative and technical abilities to support the war effort on their respective home fronts, knitting gloves and socks for combatants and sewing quilts for fundraisers and soldiers. For over 70 years, members of the women's suffrage movement in the U.S. also relied on their sewing skills when advocating for the right to vote, creating the banners carried and sashes worn at demonstrations and public gatherings.

When the Great Depression left American households strapped for cash and unable to purchase fabrics and factory-made clothing, inventive and resourceful women cut and stitched printed cotton feed sacks into garments like dresses, underwear, and towels for their families. Borne out of necessity, and no matter the aesthetics, their efforts constituted "women's work," a perception that required an artistic and historical intervention to change.

American textile arts and industry today

In the early 1980s, the American textile industry left the country for overseas factories in Asia and Latin America. The increased cost of labor and production and the North American Free Trade Agreement signaled the end of the industry. About 750,000 apparel manufacturing jobs disappeared between 1990 and 2011, according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics. Bloomberg reports that only 100 cotton mills remained from as many as 900 mills in 1893. As a result, the role of women in the textile industry has changed.

Textile production has become as automated as possible. Even so, women still play a role in the industry as designers, buyers, sourcing managers, and engineers. "The creativity is still here, but the execution and manufacturing is left in the hands of women (and men) in developing nations, where costs are significantly lower," Christina J. Rapa, a textile engineer with 25 years of experience, told Stacker. "We're now reviewing materials and garments on our computers [using] a virtual fit model. The more digital we embrace, the less tactile we become."

Maue, however, remains hopeful about the power of textiles made by hand and women. As more women assume roles in academia and curation, their voices will be able to elevate this art form's importance. More importantly, women still use textiles as a means of expression. Maue told Stacker: "It is inevitable that the form of textiles continues to be an essential medium and history for many of their voices."

Story editing by Carren Jao. Additional editing by Kelly Glass. Copy editing by Paris Close.