Findings

Findings
The Material Culture of Needlework and Sewing

Mary C. Beaudry

Yale University Press

New Haven & London
 Published with assistance from the foundation established in memory of
Philip Hamilton McMillan of the Class of 1894, Yale College
Copyright 2006 by Yale University. All rights reserved. This book may not be
reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that
copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by
reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers

Set in Electra type by Tseng Information Systems, Inc. Printed in the

United States of America by Sheridan Books.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Beaudry, Mary Carolyn, 1950
Findings : the material culture of needlework and sewing / Mary C. Beaudry.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn-13: 978-0-300-11093-7 (clothbound : alk. paper)
isbn-10: 0-300-11093-6 (clothbound : alk. paper)
1. Pins and needlesHistory. 2. SewingEquipment and suppliesHistory.
3. NeedleworkEquipment and suppliesHistory. I. Title.
a gt2280 .b43 2006
306.4dc22 2006015214

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability
of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the
Council on Library Resources

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
 In memory of my mother,
Mary Mason Barkuloo Beaudry,
who continued to take joy in her sewing despite losing her sight
 Contents

Acknowledgments ix

one Introduction: Small Finds, Big Histories 1

two The Lowly Pin 10

three The Needle: An Important Little Article 44

four The Ubiquitous and Occasionally Ordinary Thimble 86

five Shears and Scissors 115

six Findings: Notions, Accessories, and

the Artifacts of Textile Production 137

seven Stitching Together the Evidence 169

Notes 179

References 207

Index 227

vii
 Acknowledgments

I owe great thanks to many people for their assistance and supportiveness over
the years as I have worked in my halting fashion on this book. Carl Crossmans
enthusiasm on nding a monogrammed silver thimble at my site, the Spencer-
Peirce-Little Farm in Newbury, Massachusetts, inspired me to research the arti-
facts of needlework and sewing, and I thank him for that as well as for all the
many volunteer hours he donated to the Spencer-Peirce-Little Project, enlight-
ening me and my students all the while about ceramics and material culture in
general. George Miller, Richard Candee, and Jane Nylander encouraged me to
pursue this project and were instrumental in my good fortune in securing a fel-
lowship to conduct research at the Winterthur Museum and Library.
As I embarked on my research, Jean Wilson, through the good oces of her
husband, Norman Hammond, told me to read Roszika Parkers book The Sub-
versive Stitch. Parkers insightful book helped frame my thinking, and I am ex-
ceedingly grateful to Jean for putting me on to it in my early research.
I am also grateful to have been blessed twice, in 199495 and in 2001, with the
opportunity to pursue research at the Winterthur Museum and Library, in both
instances funded by a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for
Advanced Study. Winterthur is, of course, a mecca for material culture research-
ers, and it is not just the library and its marvelous resources that make working
there so special. Neville Thompson, now retired, was librarian during both of my
fellowship periods; she was a marvel at recommending relevant resources in the
Winterthur collection and in suggesting avenues I might pursue in winkling out
the sorts of information I was after. She has been called Librarian Extraordi-
naire with good reason! I also thank E. Richard McKinstry, Andrew W. Mellon
Senior Librarian, for his help with archival materials; Linda Eaton, Curator of
Textiles, for her generosity with her time and expertise; Gary Kulik, Director of

ix
x Acknowledgments

Library Operations, and J. Ritchie Garrison, Director of the Winterthur Program

in Early American Culture, for their guidance; Gretchen Buggeln for her cheer-
ful support and assistance; Bert Denker for help with photography and photo-
graphic resources; Sue Newton and Dot Wiggins for assisting me with securing
illustrations of Winterthur materials; and Pat Eliot for being the best.
One of the delights of the Winterthur experience is the opportunity to in-
teract with other visiting scholars, and I enjoyed the many conversations with
other Winterthur researchers Bernard Cotton, Tom Denenberg, Terence Lock-
ett, Carl Lounsbury, Joe Torre, and Shirley Wadja.
In 1995 I was able to continue my research in England while I was a Visit-
ing Professor at the Department of Archaeology and Prehistory at the University
of Sheeld, and I thank then Head of Department, Keith Brannigan, and then
Head of the Research School, Barbara Ottaway, for hosting me so graciously,
providing oce space, and including me so thoroughly in department activities.
James Symonds, Director of the Archaeological Research Consultancy at the
University of Sheeld (ARCUS), took me under his wing, as it were, befriended
me, and assisted me in innumerable ways. Among his many kindnesses was intro-
ducing me to John Widdowson, Director of the Centre for Folklife Studies at the
University of Sheeld, who gave me access to the research library of the Cen-
tre, where I found many useful sources. I am also grateful to David Crossley for
permitting me to sit in on his lectures and tag along on eld trips; David and
his wife, Elizabeth, also took me to many local sites of interest, among which for
me the most impressive was Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire, with its outstanding
collection of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century embroideries.
Dr. Vince Ganey, former Director of the Forge Mill Needle Museum, Red-
ditch, and Jo Ann Gloger, its current Director, were most welcoming and help-
ful, allowing me to explore the museum and its archives, with its rich collection
of documents pertaining to the needle industry.
In 1995 I also had the privilege of being a Visiting Scholar at the Philips Library
of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. There I was able to
read many account books and womens diaries and to conduct research in Essex
County records, and I am grateful to William LaMoy, Jane Ward, and John Koza
for their patient guidance and insight into the collections, and Daniel Finamore
for his collegiality and many kindnesses. The highlight of my time at the Pea-
body Essex was the opportunity to explore with Curator Paula Richter the col-
lections in storage, most of which have not just Essex County provenance but
well-documented histories in local families. And, of course it is always a thrill
for an archaeologist to be able to see and touch (indirectly, with gloved hands)
items of the sort she will never recover from the earth.
 Acknowledgments xi

Many archaeological colleagues generously allowed me access to their col-

lections. Henry Miller and Silas Hurry of Historic St. Marys City, Maryland,
opened the St. Marys City collections for my inspection, and Silas has served
as a sounding board and font of useful information over the years. Julia King,
Director of the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory at the Jeer-
son Patterson Park and Museum in Lexington Park, Maryland, allowed me ac-
cess to materials from all of the seventeenth-century domestic sites held by her
museum and Dan Mouer and Robin Ryder let me roam freely through the col-
lections held by the now-defunct Archaeological Research Center at Virginia
Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. Charles Burke and Andre
Crpeau paved the way for me to examine the spectacular collection of sewing
artifacts recovered from Fortress Louisbourg in Nova Scotia. I must apologize in
advance that they will nd that I did not incorporate any of the Louisbourg ma-
terial into this work and plead what I fear is a lame excuse: the data mysteriously
disappeared from my computer before I could back it up.
Other colleagues sent or loaned me materials that have proved helpful, among
them Sharla Azzizi, Edward Bell, Ellen Berkland, Kelly Britt, Eleanor Conlin
Casella, Edward Chaney, Joyce Clements, Sara Rivers Coeld, Linda Derry,
Diana DiPaolo Loren, Wilhelmina Lunt, Marla Miller, Stephen Mills, Virginia
Myles, Martha Pinello, Peter Pope, Mary Praetzellis, Marta Cotterell Rael,
Suzanne Spencer-Wood, Roderick Sprague, Kathleen Wheeler, Carolyn White,
Rebecca Yamin, and Anne Yentsch. For assistance with securing illustrations and
permissions to reproduce them, I thank Sara Rivers Coeld, Lorna Condon,
Sally Hinkel, Ann-Eliza H. Lewis, Douglas Lister, Rebecca Morehouse, Sharon
Raftery, and Howard Wellman.
I am grateful to Lara Heimert for making it possible for me to publish with
Yale University Press and to Christopher Rogers, Executive Editor, and Ellie
Goldberg, Assistant Editor, for making working with Yale such a pleasant ex-
perience. Laura Jones Dooley, Senior Satellite Editor for Yale, did a wonderful
job copyediting the manuscript, turning my stilted prose into readable English.
Heartfelt thanks to Karen Bescherer Metheny and Ann-Eliza H. Lewis for help-
ing me so much by applying their sharp eyes and sharp minds to the task of
proofreading.
Throughout my research and writing, Lu Ann De Cunzo, Julie King, and
Rebecca Yamin have been unfailingly supportive and always helpful with ideas
about how I should approach my research and writing. I value their friendship
and have been inspired by the writings that they have produced while I slowly,
slowly stitched away at this bit of work.
Findings
 1

Introduction
Small Finds, Big Histories

My interest in the material culture of needlework and sewing began in the

early 1990s, with the slowly dawning realization that many items I was nding at
the Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm in Newbury, Massachusetts, the site I had been
excavating since 1986, were artifacts related to sewing. Each season we found one
or more thimbles and many straight pins; every so often we recovered a pair of
sewing scissors. The 1993 season turned up several objects we could not identify
at rst, among them a carved bone bobbin that, I later learned, was used to make
lace. That year we also found a silver thimble with a monogram. It occurred to
me that such a valued personal object could serve as the point of entry for learn-
ing about the women who once lived at this site, women about whom both the
documentary and archaeological records thus far have been disappointingly un-
informative.1
Although I had watched my mother sew and had learned embroidery when
young, I was a spectacular failure in the sewing portion of the home economics
course I was required to take in high school. Not being inclined to pursue ac-
tivities that I am not good at, I have since avoided sewing anything. And so my
understanding of sewing and its associated paraphernalia was rudimentary, even
though I often excavated sites at which generations of women had spent much
of their lives sewing, mending, making lace, and the like. Their pursuits were
largely invisible to me because I did not recognize the implements used in such
work for what they were. Like most of us, I knew a pin or a needle or a thimble
and certainly a pair of scissorswhen I saw one, or even part of one. But there
my knowledge ended. I could only guess at the identication of other objects,
especially if they were not part of the great trinity of historical archaeologists arti-
facts: ceramics, clay pipes, and glass.
Excavated artifacts of needlework and sewingpins, needles, thimbles, and

1
2 Introduction

so ont quite naturally, albeit often anonymously, into the category of small
nds. Although the phrase is more likely to be used by excavators working within
the British archaeological idiom than by American historical archaeologists, a
state of mind pervades the eld as a whole that has led to acceptance of a narrow
set of conventions in thinking and writing about small nds.
Historical archaeologists tend to assume, without giving it much thought, that
ceramics, glass, clay pipes, and animal bones are more informative and hence
of far greater interest than many other sorts of nds, and they have developed
useful and widely employed conventions for presenting, analyzing, and inter-
preting those categories of material. Yet even though historical archaeology has
burgeoned over the past four decades and is now practiced all over the globe,
huge gaps remain in our knowledge of the material culture of medieval, early
modern, and modern times. The frequent reprinting of Ivor Nol Humes Guide
to Artifacts of Colonial America, the appearance of Kathleen Deagans two vol-
umes devoted to artifacts of the Spanish colonies, and the publication in 2000
by the Society for Historical Archaeology of a volume of artifact studies and of a
second edition of a collection of artifact studies reprinted from its journal, His-
torical Archaeology, are ample proof that we hunger for more information about
the artifacts we dig up.2
The increased interest in gender analysis among historical archaeologists has
given rise to greater interest in objects that might be related to women and, espe-
cially, to womens activities. This has led since the early 1990s to attempts to ll
the gaps and remedy the silences of nds analysis by seeking out objects that have
not been studied because they were deemed trivial for the very reason that they
were associated with womens domestic activities. Because sewing is so univer-
sally associated with women, artifacts of needlework and sewing often stand as
evidence of women and womens activities. The link is based in part on reality
but also on uncritical assumptions about sewing and how sewing ties in with the
lives of both men and women.
Throughout history, activities customarily performed either by men or by
women have become associated with and deemed appropriate to members of
one sex or the other. Through such customary associations various undertakings
and responsibilities have become culturally designated as the natural province
of one sex or another and therefore integral to the denition of gender identity
through designation of gender roles. The processes, settings, tools, and materials
employed in an enterprise are metonymically transformed into symbols of sex-
specic tasks and so become emblems of gender identity (g. 1.1).3
Gender identity can be constructed and negotiated (as opposed to being simply
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Fig. 1.1 Frontispiece for Easy Steps in Sewing for Big and Little Girls, published by
Jane Eayre Fryer in 1913. The girls sewing tools have come to life to keep her company
during what would otherwise be tedious hours in the sewing room as she is instructed
in sewing and femininity by another animated friend, her little sewing bird.
(Courtesy The Winterthur Library: Printed Book and Periodical Collection)
4 Introduction

assigned). Archaeologist Barbara Luedtke wrote that it is important to attend to

the possibility, if not likelihood, that the meaning of our archaeological arti-
facts . . . varied with context. In this book I explore, through the example of the
artifacts of needlework and sewing, ways in which gender identity can be sig-
naled and can shift according to context. These issues can be examined by re-
constructing, through critical analysis of documentary and pictorial sources, the
ethnographic contexts in which sewing and needlework served practical ends
and those in which sewing and needlework implements featured as symbols in
myth or ritual or as expressions of sentiment in society; by examining the classi-
catory logic underpinning the gendered nature of sewing; and by close read-
ings of instances in which the usual symbolic import of sewing implements is
subverted through symbolic inversion and anomaly.4
Feminist art historian Rozsika Parker, in her groundbreaking work The Sub-
versive Stitch, examines how embroidery has become indelibly associated with
stereotypes of femininityfemininity being a crucial aspect of patriarchal
ideology. She demonstrates through detailed analysis of workswritten and
stitchedby both men and women that the development of an ideology of
femininity coincided historically with the emergence of a clearly dened separa-
tion of art and craft. The division began during the Renaissance, at a time when
embroidery was done more and more by women working in the home rather
than by professional, usually male, embroiderers. During the seventeenth cen-
tury, embroidery was used to inculcate femininity in young girls, so much so that
the ensuing behaviour appeared innate. An ideology of femininity as natural
to women evolved in the eighteenth century, and from the eighteenth century
on, embroidery came to signify femininity as well as a leisured, aristocratic life-
style, proof of gentility because of its association with nobility,

providing concrete evidence that a man was able to support a leisured woman.
Moreover, because embroidery was supposed to signify femininitydocility,
obedience, love of home, and a life without workit showed the embroiderer
to be a deserving, worthy wife and mother. Thus the art played a crucial part
in maintaining the class position of the household, displaying the value of a
mans wife and the condition of his economic circumstances. Finally, in the
nineteenth century, embroidery and femininity were fused and the connection
was deemed to be natural. Women embroidered because they were naturally
feminine and were feminine because they naturally embroidered.5

But, Parker notes, though many women may have colluded in the continuance
of this construction of gender identity, they were not always passive recipients of
such ideologies but responded to them: women used these ideologies and were
 Introduction 5

used by them. Over the centuries, embroidery has provided support and satisfac-
tion for women and has served as a covert means of negotiating the constraints of
femininity; women were able to make meanings of their own while overtly living
up to the oppressive stereotype of the passive, silent, vain, and frivolous, even
seductive needlewoman. Parkers eye-opening study provides the framework for
my examination of the material culture of fancy needlework alongside the arti-
facts of ordinary sewing.6
Consider for a moment the likelihood that complex civilizations could have
arisen if no one had invented cordage for tying up bundles, creating strings from
bers that could be manipulated in many ways, knotted, netted, laced through
skins, woven into cloth. If women had never experimented with bers, if this ex-
perimentation had never led to textile production, to clothing, tapestries, blan-
kets, bags, coverings of all sorts, the course of civilization, if indeed there was any,
would be unimaginable, unthinkable. Textile production and sewing of some
sort have been tangled up with aspects of culturetechnological, social, eco-
nomic, ritual, and so onsince early in human history. As a result, the products
of weaving and needlework, the tools used in these processes, and the persons
who undertook these activities were enmeshed in a system of symbols with mul-
tiple meanings. The job of the archaeologist, as I see it, is to investigate the cul-
tural complex of sewing in order to explore how needlework implements carried
meaning in specic historical and cultural contexts and then to place these care-
fully constructed cases into wider cultural contexts.7
Needlework held both homey and utilitarian as well as broader social conse-
quence. Spinning, sewing, mending and remaking garments, and marking sheets,
towels, and other linens was a regular component of household work done or
overseen by women. Genteel women and girls engaged in fancy or decorative
needlework as testimony to their skill in the feminine arts as well as to a so-
cial position that permitted leisure for such nonutilitarian pursuits. At the same
time, not all fancy needlework was a pastime for wealthy women of leisure, nor
was all utilitarian sewing destined for immediate household use. Many a needle-
woman depended on the income her handiwork could generate. Knowing this,
it is clear that the artifacts of needlework from historical sites can be interpreted
along several lines of social and economic relevance: everyday, practical or
necessary work (sewing, mending, and knitting); fancy work (embroidered
pictures, muslin or whitework, cutwork, candlewicking, tambour work, stued
work, canvas work, and so on); and work of either sort produced for sale outside
the home. Attention to the type, quality, and intended functions of the artifacts
of needlework and sewing makes it possible to address the issues of the nature or
quality of sewing activity and to relate this to household income and manage-
6 Introduction

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Fig. 1.2 A needlework picture stitched by Jane Peirce of Newbury, Massachusetts, in

1734, when she was ve years old. (Courtesy New Hampshire Historical Society)

ment strategies, to social standing and social display, and to the construction of
gender identity.8
In the collections of the Historical Society of New Hampshire there survives
a wonderful embroidered picture (g. 1.2). It was done in 1734 by Jane Peirce
when she was ve years old. Jane was one of seven children of Charles Peirce and
Sarah Frost, and she grew up in the Spencer-Peirce-Little House, on the farm
 Introduction 7

where I have spent so many seasons excavating. The embroidered picture is a

rare and marvelous survival, tangible evidence of needlework in service to the in-
culcation of and construction of feminine identity. In the chapters that follow I
explore ways of identifying and interpreting the needlework tools archaeologists
commonly nd; in my case, I am hoping that the knowledge I have accumu-
lated will help me understand the sewing implements excavated from the soils
around the house where young Jane stitched her canvaswork picture and to re-
construct a more complete picture of the generations of women who plied their
needles at the Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm. But I am hopeful that the guidelines
I provide will prove useful for other archaeologists, and I have sought out many
additional case studies beyond my own site to provide examples of how diering
contexts lead to diering interpretations.9
My approach is broadly interpretive, and my aim is to move past the ostensibly
simple rst steps of artifact identication and dating and even beyond engen-
dering artifacts by bringing multiple lines of evidence to bear on the interpre-
tation of the material culture of sewing and needlework in the active voice. An
interpretive approach acknowledges that material culture is not just something
people create but an integral component of our personalities and our social lives,
deeply implicated in how we construct social relationships. Trying to compre-
hend what things meant to people in the past is not the most easily undertaken
task, but it is not altogether impossible, especially not for historical archaeolo-
gists. My goal is to construct a rich contextual analysis of how women and men
used objects of needlework and sewing and to consider the multiplicity of mean-
ings these everyday items conveyed. Sometimes the best way to do this is to try
to reconstruct the stories in which people and their things played active roles, to
construct narratives that ground interpretation in the everyday lives of people in
the past and in the life histories of the objects that archaeologists nd otherwise
mute or mysterious and strangely distant.10
I see the analysis of documentary evidence as vital to constructing the inter-
pretive ground, as it were, for artifact analysis. This is why, throughout this book,
I oer case studies that track back and forth among documents and artifacts to
oer interpretations that arise from the combined evidentiary sources. Alison
Wylie has described this process as one of constructing cables of inference; her
metaphor is a powerful one and aptly captures what I am attempting to accom-
plish.11
An important step in the research process involves casting a wide net through
primary and secondary sources to learn generally about the importance of
needlework in womens (and mens) lives. This involves knowing what articles
dierent needlework tools were used to produce and their social, cultural, and
8 Introduction

economic signicance, the contexts of production, and the social implications

of dierent forms of needlework. It is clear that cloth production, sewing, and
needlework played an important part in the lives of most women throughout his-
tory and that the implements of these activities, because they were associated
with women, often served as symbols of womens status and womens role.12
Consider the seemingly most obvious and most trivial of all small ndsthe
common straight pin and the not-so-logical syllogism about pins that one often
encounters in the literature. Pins equal sewing, or so most archaeologists assume;
they also assume that sewing was done by women. Therefore, pins = sewing =
women. But, as I explore in chapter 2, common straight pins were used to fas-
ten both mens and womens clothing, to fasten documents, to fasten shrouds, to
serve as guides for thread in lace-making, to conjure spells and to ward against
them; in other words, pins were used for many purposes beyond sewing. And it is
sometimes possible to dierentiate what these purposes might have been, since
pins were made in varied sizes because dierent sizes were needed for the diverse
purposes Ive mentioned. But because we think we know what pins mean, we
do not pay them much attention. A typical illustration in an archaeological re-
port will show a small pile of pins from various contexts at a given site carefully
set beside the other items the archaeologists assume are womens things or part
of the sewing assemblage.
In the following chapters, I examine items of the material culture of needle-
work and sewing that are most likely to survive in archaeological contexts: pins
(chapter 2); needles (chapter 3); thimbles (chapter 4); scissors (chapter 5); and
less common items associated with weaving, lace-making, and the nishing of
garments (chapter 6). I focus on implements or tools; I do not consider textiles ex-
cept as they relate to sewing, and I do not consider buttons because although they
are sewn onto clothing and usually serve as fasteners, in my mind they are not
tools of needlework but functional clothing fasteners, items of personal adorn-
ment, or both.13
In each chapter I present the history of the type of implement under consider-
ation as well as a comprehensive discussion of the techniques of manufacture
and, where relevant, conditions under which the objects were produced. I think
it is important to understand how changing technology brought about changes
in form and functionality of objects, and like many before me, I am intrigued by
the nature of the work involved in the production of items like pins and needles
as well as the conditions under which youngsters, men, and women labored to
produce practical and fancy items used in sewing or worn as elements of social
display. I have also attempted to present for each type of artifact a comprehensive
guide to dating as well as identifying excavated specimens and suggestions for in-
 Introduction 9

terpreting their intended uses. My intent is to provide archaeologists with better

ways of making ne-grained distinctions within seemingly homogenous cate-
gories of artifacts, as well as to provide for historians and collectors of needlework
tools information about what sorts of things archaeologists have recovered. My
primary goal, however, is to provide examples of ways to construct contexts for
interpretation of needlework tools. To this end, I conclude each artifact-specic
chapter with a case study that suggests possible avenues of interpretation. In the
concluding chapter, I attempt to stitch together the evidence by turning to a
wider consideration of the signicance of sewing and needlework in the lives of
men and women, looking at sewing as a profession and as a pastime, and oer-
ing nal thoughts on how archaeologists can use the excavated material culture
of needlework and sewing to illuminate ways in which the people who lived and
worked at the sites they excavate incorporated such items into their daily nego-
tiations of personal and social identity.
 2

The Lowly Pin

He that will not stoop for a pin will never be worth a pound.
samuel pepys, Diary, 2 January 1668

Common straight pins made of copper-alloy wire are recovered in impressive

numbers from almost all domestic sites of the medieval, early modern, and mod-
ern eras. What could seem more ordinary and trivial than a common pin (g.
2.1)? This, at least, is the attitude most archaeologists take. When they excavate
straight pins, unless the pins are unusually long or have decorated heads or are
otherwise distinctive, archaeologists assume that all are sewing pins and tend to
lump the pins together as such without regard for where they came from on the
site and for what other objects they were associated with in the ground. And ar-
chaeologists tacitly assume that if the pins are for sewing they must have been
used by women. Hence the common straight pin has become, in the archaeo-
logical literature at least, a widely accepted indicator for the presence of women.
But the situation is far more complicated than this simplistic equation permits.
Pins were indeed used for sewing, by both men and women (although accom-
plished tailors and professional seamstresses used few if any pins in their work),
but they served many other functions as well, and they were even perceived at
times as having magical or prophylactic powers against witches and other ma-
levolent forces.1

THE HI ST ORY A ND A RC H AE O L O GY
OF THE C OM M ON ST R A IGH T PI N

Pins of various sorts are common nds on archaeological sites throughout the
world. Those found on historical sites are technologically superior though essen-
tially similar in shape and function to the individually fashioned, handmade pins
of prehistoric times. Since the very earliest of times pins have served as fasten-

10
 The Lowly Pin 11

Fig. 2.1 The parts of a pin.

ers, rst fashioned simply of thorn or sh bone. Pins of bone and thorn have
been found in Paleolithic sites, and bone pins have been found at Incipient Neo-
lithic as well as at Celtic and Roman sites. In ancient Egypt, the eyelids of the
dead were held fast with tiny sh bones, and George Herbert, Lord Carnarvon,
discovered in his excavations at el-Assasif, Thebes, a small, pierced ivory game
board in which carved pins with heads of dogs and jackals served as the game
pegs. Exquisite, ornately decorated pins of gold have been found at Salamis in
Cyprus (eighth century bc), at Chiusi in Tuscany (seventh century bc), and from
the Temple of Aphrodite at Paphos in Cyprus (sixth century bc). The pin from
Paphos is interpreted as a votive pin; the others were likely hairpins. Highly deco-
rative silver hairpins are also found.2
Wooden and ivory pins and sticks were found by Sir Flinders Petrie in his ex-
cavations of predynastic sites in Egypt; some were dress pins, some hairpins. But
items sometimes identied as pins are more likely to have been spindles that once
held a whorl or weight to aid in spinning thread or yarn. Elizabeth Barber notes
that the close resemblance of some spindles (when found without whorls) to dress
pins and hairpins leads to confusion over the functions of such carved shafts.
She notes especially the presence of items identied as dress pins in an Early
Bronze Age (mid-third millennium bc) royal tomb, Tomb H, at Alaca Hyk in
central Turkey. These have at ends and hence are far more likely to have been
spindles than pins.3
Prehistoric peoples used pins for hairdressing, perhaps as votive oerings, and,
chiey, as clothing fasteners, or at least to fasten lengths of woven textile that
served as cloaks or other garments. By the Bronze Age pins took the form of com-
plexly designed metal spikes; examples have been found in North Africa, Asia,
and throughout Europe (both on the Continent and in the British Isles). An
especially interesting example of early metal pins, typical of the large hammer-
headed pins found in Kurgan burials of the third millennium bc in the vicinity
12 The Lowly Pin

of Nalchik in the northeast Caucasus, provides clues to an early form of textile

production. Some of these pins were decorated by impressing twisted cords into
the clay used as molds for casting the pins; at least one such pin bears the im-
pression of fabric, not just cordage, serving as evidence of the antiquity of card or
tablet weaving. Barber notes that tablet weaving was practiced in ancient Egypt
from very early timesa good example being the girdle of Rameses III (around
1200 bc)but that the technique was introduced into Egypt during the New
Kingdom. The pin found in the Caucasus points to a region in which tablet weav-
ing may have originated before knowledge of the technique spread to Egypt.4
The Romans had hand-forged pins with elaborate heads, made of bronze but
also of ivory, jet, silver, iron, and glass; these ranged from two and a half inches
to about six inches in length. Roman pins are extremely common nds, and al-
though many retained a skewerlike form, others were turned on a lathe and em-
bellished with a wide array of carved heads. The decorative terminals take the
form of birds, animals, busts, and small statuettes, and some are enameled. It
seems likely all were used to pin garments. Ring-headed bronze pins were com-
monly worn by Norse explorers and colonists and sometimes included in Viking-
period graves, such as the Celtic-type pin with faceted head found at Tjrnuvk
in the Faroe Islands. The rather plain ring-headed pin found at LAnse aux Mead-
ows in Newfoundland is among the most tell-tale artifacts of the only acknowl-
edged Viking-age settlement in North America, around ad 1000.5
Many wooden pins have been found in waterlogged sites in Europe; these arti-
facts seldom survive in terrestrial sites, so their recovery from bogs and wetland
sites leads one to speculate that wooden pins may once have been quite com-
mon. Many sites from which wooden pins have been found date to the Neolithic
period, for example, at the Sweet Track on the Somerset Downs in England,
from which elongated, curved wooden pins were recovered; a single example of
a very similar pin was found in a burial at Duggleby Howe in Yorkshire. Short,
straight wooden pins, some with carved heads and others with beads for heads,
have been found in crannogs in Balinderry, Ireland, as well as at other sites in
Ireland and Britain. Wooden and bone skewers or pins were still in common use
throughout the medieval period and into Elizabethan times, when metal pins
were still relatively rare and expensive, although a comprehensive study of pins
from excavations at medieval sites in London reveals that metal pins were more
common during this period than many scholars have suspected.6
Large numbers of pins were recovered from excavations of fourteenth- and
fteenth-century deposits in London, indeed, in abundance from almost all
sites yielding fteenth- and sixteenth-century material. Museum of London ar-
chaeologists were not surprised by the increased numbers of pins in medieval
 The Lowly Pin 13

layers of the city, for by the fourteenth century pins were manufactured in greater
quantities than ever before. In April 1440, two galleys outtted on behalf of seven
Venetian merchants docked at Southampton on their return voyage from Flan-
ders carrying eighty-three thousand pins as part of their cargo. Documentary evi-
dence hence reveals both trade in and use of vast numbers of straight pins, most
of them made of nely drawn wire and tted with small heads. Such pins would
not have served well as cloak fasteners and the like but instead were used to fasten
womens veilspinning the folds of linen headdresses or securing transparent
veils to the hair or around the shoulders to the front of a gown. It is noteworthy
that the trousseau of Edward IIIs daughter, Princess Joan, whose wedding took
place in 1348, included twelve thousand pins for fastening her veils, and there are
numerous examples of the use of pins in this manner in fteenth-century art.7
The study of more than eight hundred pins from six sites in London revealed
that although pins with decorative heads were still being produced in the four-
teenth and fteenth centuries, they were much rarer than in earlier times,
and the heads were small. The decorated pins from the London assemblages in-
cluded fteen with attached heads of materials dierent from that of the shank.
Three pinheads were of red coral, two were small blobs of glass that had been ap-
plied in a semimolten state, and another was a cast pewter circular head depicting
Christs face surrounded by a nimbus. This last pin, with its obvious religious sym-
bolism, is interpreted as one of the mass-produced pilgrim badges commemo-
rating the martyrdom of Thomas Becket. The majority of the pinhead designs,
however, were much less varied in form than earlier pins and lacked the virtu-
osity displayed by many of the larger pins of the Anglo-Saxon and Viking epochs
which would have been worn more conspicuously. Some of the decorated pins
matched the ornamentation on dress accessories of the fteenth century, such as
strap-ends on girdles or tassels on drawstring pouches. A few of the London pins
of both bone and copper alloy had hipped shanks (that is, shanks with a swelling
towards the tip to help prevent the pin from slipping out of position), and a few
had looped heads. It would appear that pins with decorated heads continued to
be made and worn in England up until the seventeenth century, as several have
been found in postmedieval contexts in Norwich and elsewhere. Bone pins sel-
dom appear in contexts postdating the early thirteenth century, the neness of
metal pins, it seems, having given them dominance in the pin market.8
The importance of pins as clothing fasteners continued in the early mod-
ern era; pins were used as makeshift fastenings for items of clothing such as
breeches by country folk and the poor throughout the seventeenth and eigh-
teenth centuries. Seventeenth-century men who could not aord buttons to fas-
ten the sleeves of their doublets used pins instead, as this bit of verse from 1616
14 The Lowly Pin

makes clear: A countrey fellow plaine in russet clad / His doublet mutton-taety
sheep-skins / His sleeve at hand buttond with two good pins. 9
Despite what we might consider a potential hazard to the child, pins were im-
portant for fastening babies clothing from at least medieval times. Pincushions
lled with pins were popular additions to the layette, although mothers were
warned not to keep the pincushion in the childs basket or cradle. Pins would
be used for fastening the tailclout (nappy or diaper) as well as the childs head-
gear and swaddling. Both the childs garments and the pins used to fasten them
played a role in shaping the childs posture and future presentation of self.10
Appropriate head covering for a newborn in the eighteenth century, for ex-
ample, included several layers of bonnets known as biggins: As to the head, it
is covered with two or three small biggins, the rst of which is of linen, and the
others woollen, and these are tied behind the neck. In many places they add a
stayband [headband] or a kind of headdress with two ends which hang down on
the side of the head and are fastened on the breast with pins in order to make
the infant hold its head straight. 11
Even once tailored or sewn clothing became common, womens clothing con-
tinued to be fastened with pins as well as held together by lacinglong after
mens clothing was being fastened with buttons, buckles, and the like. The stom-
acher, a long, triangular ll-in worn with low-necked bodices common in the
rst quarter of the seventeenth century, was stiened by a busk (a strip of wood,
whalebone, or other rigid material passed down the front of the corset to stien
and support it) and secured to the bodice either by ties or pins, and bodices worn
without stomachers might be fastened together in front by pins, ribbon ties, lac-
ing, or, among the wealthy, a close row of buttons. Gorgets, deep, capelike collars
typically worn by women around 16301660, were closed at the neck with pins
but could also be tied or buttoned in place. In the second half of the seventeenth
century, the term pinner was used to refer to more than one sort of womans gar-
ment: a modesty ll-in pinned to a low dcolletage (also sometimes called a
tucker); a white cap or coif with long lappets or strips that could be worn hang-
ing on either side of the head or pinned atop the head; and the bib of an apron,
which would be held in place with pins. In the late seventeenth century, a cap or
coif known as a cornet, tting the back of the head tightly but with aps or lap-
pets dangling against the cheeks, was worn by some beneath the large hats that
were popular at the time among women of the middling classes.12
In the eighteenth century, women used pins on their clothing in a variety of
ways, including those described above for securing modesty pieces, apron bibs,
and so on. They might also pin up part of a gown to expose the petticoat below (at
this time womens gowns were open in front and the petticoat was an integral part
 The Lowly Pin 15

of the dress, so it was a simple matter to gather up and pin back a portion of the
gown), or they might pin up a train of a dress. Mantuas or manteaus, worn during
the rst half of the eighteenth century, were open robes worn with petticoats, an
unboned bodice, and an overskirt with train, which would often be pinned up: A
pin . . . now in her mantuas tail. In the 1780s, large shawl-like handkerchiefs
were often worn draped around the neck and closely pinned beneath the chin.13
In 1751 a book aimed at children included a poem, Miss and Her Pin, that
enumerated the elements of a young womans costume requiring the services of
a pin.

My Knot and my Hood,

It stickes in the Mode,
My Kercher in Order it places;
It xes my Rues
And other Pantoes
In their Plaits it keeps all my Laces.14

It did not escape notice that women were, at times, bristling with pins that
held their costume in place. Lord Byron in Don Juan compared a fully pinned
woman with an unapproachable animal, at the very least a creature to be ap-
proached with extreme caution.15

Pricking her ngers with those cursed pins,

Which surely were invented for our sins,
Making a woman like a porcupine,
Not rashly to be touched. [6.61, 62]

The use of pins on clothing declined once other fastenings were mass-
produced, but in 1830 they were still recommended for baby clothes, along with
a pincushion, as part of the layette, and women continued to use black steel pins
on mourning dress throughout Victorian times.16

M A K I NG PI NS

Bronze was the rst metal used for pin-making, and each pin was forged by
hand; as noted above, such pins often sported elaborately decorated heads, and
double pinstwo spike-like individual pins connected by a short length of chain,
were fashioned from bronze or other metal to serve as especially decorative cloth-
ing fasteners. But here I am concerned for the most part with medieval and later
common pins or straight pins, made from iron or, more often, brass wire. Before
pin-making was mechanized, wire straight pins, like pins of earlier times, were
16 The Lowly Pin

fashioned individually by hand. The craftsman created a point on the pin by set-
ting the length of wire into a bone, known as a pin-makers peg. Pinners bones
(often horse or cattle metapodials, although sheep bones were also used) have
been found at medieval and postmedieval sites in Europe; several pinners bones
were found, for instance, in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century contexts at the
Battle Bridge Lane site, London Bridge City, Southwark, as well as elsewhere
in London. Additional examples of pinners bones were found in seventeenth-
century dump layers overlying a clay oor at 14 Orange Street, Westminster,
Greater London, from pits behind an early-sixteenth-century three-bay timber-
frame house that until 1968 stood at 5961 Moulsham Street in Chelmsford,
Essex, at Kings Lynn, Norfolk, and in a seventeenth-century cesspit as well as
other contexts in Norwich.17
The pinners bone served as a holder to improve the grip of the pin-maker and
avoid bending the pin. The bone was altered by sawing two or three grooves in
its long axis; the pin wire was inserted into these grooves, which held the length
securely while the pin-maker led the exposed end to a point. As a result, the
bone was usually marked by diagonal le marks and frequently stained green
from copper salts in the pin. In most cases the head was then fashioned from an-
other section of wire, usually of the same diameter as the pin, that was coiled on a
lathe, then cut into pieces of two or three turns. One of the resulting coils would
be slipped along the pin until it was held in place by a slight attening at the top
of the shank, where it would be secured by soldering it with tin. The heads could
be formed in various ways, so as a result, the size of the heads tended to vary
as well. This technique at times resulted in problems, as the ends of the coiled
head proved rough and tended to snag the material on which the pin was used;
the defect was eventually remedied by stamping the head into a smooth, round
ball. Geo Egan and Frances Pritchards study of wound-wire-headed pins from
medieval sites in London showed fairly equal numbers of spherical heads and
heads that had been stamped at; the wound-wire heads overall were smaller in
size than the heads of pins with solid wrought heads.18
Pin-making is similar to needle-making and almost as expensive; at the end of
fteenth century, when in England a sheep sold for twenty pence, pins, pointed
individually on a pinners bone, cost four pence per hundred. A guild of pinners
was established in London in 1356; by the fteenth century several other towns
in Britain had pin-makers with their corresponding guilds, but their products
fell short of the quality of those achieved by French pin-makers (chiey because
of problems with brass wire production in England). As a result, large quanti-
ties of ne pins were imported from France, which served as the main center
 The Lowly Pin 17

for pin-making. French pin-making was based in Paris, where more than a thou-
sand craftsmen were employed in making high-quality straight pins. Denis Dide-
rot illustrated several scenes in The Pin Factory in his Encyclopedia; another
Frenchman, Ren-Antoine Ferchault de Ramur, in his Art de lpinglier (1761),
described how French pinners went about their work and illustrated his text with
many detailed copperplate engravings of the pin-making process and the tools
employed by the pin-makers (g. 2.2).19
Brass wire was used in England for pin-making as early as 1443, and in 1483
Richard III attempted to protect and advance the home market by prohibiting
the importation of pins, though his edict had little eect.20
In 1543 Henry VIII made a move to control the quality of pins produced in
England in hopes that English pins of high quality would prove more desirable
than the imported items: No person shall put to sale any pinnes but only such
as shall be double headed and have the heads soldered fast to the shank of the
pinnes, well smoothed, the shank well shapen, the point well and round led,
canted and sharpened. 21
Even though English pins may have improved had the pinners followed their
kings command, the raw material for pin production, brass and iron wire, con-
tinued to be imported from the Continent until its import was prohibited in
1662. Nevertheless, the English wire-drawing industry was not truly viable until
around 1700, when the areas around Gloucester and Bristol became centers
of manufacture. The rst recorded mention of Gloucester pin-making dates to
1608, in a document that referred to both John Payter in West Ward and Thomas
Edge in St. Nicholas Parish as pinners, though it seems likely that Payter and
Edge were engaged in making pins (rivets) for suits of armor rather than common
straight pins. A proper pin factory did get started in Gloucester in 1626, and by
1744 pin-making was among Gloucesters most important industries. The Folk
Museum on Westgate Street in Gloucester retains part of a pin factory, includ-
ing its annealing furnace, and excavations on Eastgate in the same city produced
evidence of a late-seventeenth-century pin factory. Gloucester and its environs
remained the chief center of pin-making until the automated pin machine was
patented in 1824, after which the industry moved to Birmingham.22
The slow progress of the wire industry in England did not prevent eorts in
the colonies to establish manufactures based on wire-drawing, however. It seems
highly likely that Joseph Jenks intended that some of the wire he hoped to pro-
duce at his waterpower seat below the ironworks at Saugus, Massachusetts, would
be made into pins. In 1667 Jenks petitioned the General Court for seed money
to start up wyre-drawing at Saugus; the court approved an advance of money
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Fig. 2.2 A pin-makers workshop as depicted in Ren-Antoine Ferchault

de Ramurs Art de lpinglier (1761), showing the equipment and tools for drawing
wire and heading pins. (Courtesy The Winterthur Library:
Printed Book and Periodical Collection)
 The Lowly Pin 19

to purchase wire-drawing tools and forty shillings to encourage the manufacture

of cards and pinns of the said wiar, though it is unclear whether these funds
went to Jenks or to someone else.23
Because eighteenth-century attempts at pin production in the colonies proved
largely unsuccessful, most colonials ordered their pins from England, and the
United States continued to import pins, primarily from England, until the mid-
dle of the nineteenth century. During the American Revolution, a nancial in-
centive was oered by the North Carolina Provincial Congress to anyone who
could establish a pin industry that would compete with pins imported from En-
gland (this consisted of an oer of fty pounds for anyone who could produce
the rst twenty-ve dozen pins equal to British imported ones costing seven shil-
lings, six pence a dozen). At about the same time Jeremiah Wilkinson was already
making pins from wire drawn at his mill in Cumberland, Rhode Island, and a
man named Leonard Chester was petitioning the Connecticut legislature for
permission to erect a pin factory at Wetherseld. Samuel Slocum, who twenty-
ve years previously had patented in England a machine for making pins with
solid heads, also began a factory in Rhode Island. Shortly thereafter, another
Connecticut gentleman, Dr. Apollos Hinsley, invented a pin-making machine.
By the early nineteenth century, there were many pin factories in the United
States. The emergence of a fully-edged U.S. pin industry can be attributed to
the Howe Manufacturing Company of Derby, Connecticut, which began its
operations in 1836.24
Once mechanization was introduced, the manufacture of copper-alloy pins
was transformed into a labor-intensive, complex operation involving many peo-
ple at dierent stages of the production process. The organization and eciency
of the pin industrya very triing manufacturecaught the attention of
Adam Smith, the Scottish economist, who in 1776 described pin-making in An
Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.25
As noted above, early straight pins were made from two pieces of wire. One
piece served as the shank, and the other was coiled two or three times to form a
head around one end of the shank. The basic steps in industrialized pin produc-
tion were as follows: wire was rst reduced to the correct gauge by hand draw-
ing, cut into lengths and pointed at both ends on a grinding wheel, then cut and
pointed several more times until the required length was obtained (0.981.18
inches). The shank was left in the hard (that is, it was not annealed). The head
was a close spiral made on a long wire the same diameter as the shank and cut
into lengths of two or three turns; after the heads were annealed, a number of
coils were put into a tray, or the workers apron, and four headless shanks were
placed into a holder. Pushing this device through the coils, the pinner managed
20 The Lowly Pin

to pick up a head on each shank (there is some indication that children some-
times performed this operation). The heads were then secured to the shank with
pressure by a machine similar to a drill press, usually a small drop-stamp that con-
sisted of a weight that could be raised on guides by a foot-operated treadle, then
allowed to fall under its own gravity. The bottom die of the anvil had recesses
into which the headed shanks were positioned, and the top die was allowed to
fall, squeezing the spiral heads onto the shanks.26
Most pins were tinned by placing the pins in a boiling aqueous solution of
argol (crude potassium bitartratethe reddish deposit from wine vats) contain-
ing granules or thin leaves of tin. Alternativelyalbeit with considerable risk
to the pinners healtha solution of an alloy of tin, mercury, and lead could
be used for this purpose. Once tinned, the pins were barrelled in a manually
turned bran tub to be polished. In all, this was a lengthy process, with a dierent
craftsman (or woman) undertaking each of eighteen distinct operations. A lone
pinner could produce just twenty pins a day. Adam Smith remarked that the re-
distribution of labor, detailing one craftsman to each task, increased production
to 4,800 pins per person per day. We can see in pin-making the beginnings of
assembly-line production, so it is easy to understand why Smith held up the pin
industry as a milestone of industrial progress.27
The disadvantages of the straight pin with applied wound-wire head are obvi-
ous to most archaeologists, who often recover only the headless shanks of early
pins. So it is easy to understand that there were many attempts to make a one-
piece pin until at last the technique was perfected. In 1797 Timothy Harris took
out a patent for pinheads made from molten lead. In 1817 American Seth Hunt
patented an upsetting machine to make pins with heads, shaft, and point in
one process; Kirby, Beard, and Company of Gloucester, England, bought Hunts
patent, but the rm was not successful because with Hunts machine only pins
from soft wire could be made, so pins with the harder, spirally wound type of
head continued to be produced and sold. Finally, in 1824 American Lemuel W.
Wright patented a machine that forced the head up from the shank and formed it
in one movement, producing forty to fty solid-headed pins per minute. Wright
set up business in London and later moved to Strough, Gloucester. He eventu-
ally sold out to Daniel Foote Tayler, who adapted Wrights machine to make 170
pins per minute. It seems likely that it was Tayler who sold the rst solid-headed
pins in London in 1833; in 1840 the company again was sold and moved to Bir-
mingham.28
In Birmingham the company continued to operate under the name of D. F.
Tayler, and Dorcas was used as the trademark for the pins the company pro-
duced. A booklet issued by the company in 1860, Useful Arts, explained how
 The Lowly Pin 21

solid-headed pins were made and illustrated the various stages in manufacture.
By 1880 pin-making was fully automatic. The company known as Newey, which
had been producing shoe buckles since 1798, absorbed D. F. Tayler in 1934,
and in modern times Newey Goodman Limited has continued to make pins
from brass, carbon, and stainless steel; the companys advertising recommends
Dorcas pins for dressmaking.29
In the second half of the nineteenth century, the mass production of pins co-
incided with the introduction of cheaper steel and sophisticated power-driven
machinery. The result was a dramatic decrease in the cost of pins. The English
pin industry alone produced almost a hundred million pins daily and became
the chief supplier to world. The wholesale cost of a pound of pins ranged from
one shilling, three pence to three shillingsand it took on average ten thousand
pins to make up a pound.30

DAT I NG PI NS

Although there are some broad criteria for distinguishing early straight pins
from later ones, dating individual pins is nearly impossiblenot even the stan-
dard of workmanship provides reliable evidence of the time of manufacture.
Metal pins were made in France by the fteenth century, but the method of
making a two-piece brass pin with wound-wire head was invented by the middle
of the sixteenth century and continued until around 1830 when Wrights pat-
ented pin-making machine came into use. R. F. Tylecotes metallographic ex-
amination of pins ranging in date from 1548 to 1875 demonstrated quite clearly
that there was little, if any, dierence in pins manufactured between the mid-
sixteenth and at least the late eighteenth century. In the late eighteenth century
some spirally wound globular heads were replaced by a conical shape made up of
wire of a smaller diameter than the wire used for the shank, with up to ve turns
versus the two or three turns of earlier wound heads, but this practice was far
from universal. So such pins, though denitely of late-eighteenth-century date,
could readily be found in the same context as pins that look just like earlier pins.
The major change occurred when the modern form of pin with upset head
was introduced in the early nineteenth century.31
It is possible to determine the approximate age of selected individual pins only
because pins were sometimes used as a means of attaching the pages of a dated
document, much in the way we use staples or paper clips todaythe assump-
tion being that only relatively new pins, ones that had not begun to tarnish or
rust, would have been employed for such a purpose. Of course, a pin speared
through the pages of an old document may be perceived as being out of its nor-
22 The Lowly Pin

mal use context, but the survival of pins in archival contexts reminds us that
these objects were used for many things besides holding together fabric await-
ing stitching and that as archaeologists we should be alert to the multiple uses
to which pins might be put. The earliest European straight pins in the Americas
likely are those found at the Spanish site of La Isabela, founded by Columbus
and occupied between 1493 and 1498, and these are dated only by the secure
context of the site rather than on any other criteria, for they are all copper-alloy
wire with wound-wire heads. Apart from the fact that they are longer than most
pins found at sixteenth-century Spanish colonial sites, they are indistinguishable
from thousands of other pins found on colonial and European sites dating from
the fteenth century until the early nineteenth century.32

PI N SI Z ES A ND T Y P ES

General Rules and Remarks.

In xing work, the pins used should not be larger than what is needful to hold it
rm.
Instructions on Needlework and Knitting . . . , 1829

Most historical archaeologists tend to lump all pins together regardless of size
and to assume that almost all straight pins can readily be classied as sewing
pins, relegated to the sewing assemblage, and hence linked directly to women.
If only it was truly so simple! Pins varied in length and thickness because they
were intended for dierent purposes (g. 2.3). Archaeologists will nd that pay-
ing attention to pin sizes and being aware of the various uses to which pins could
be put will perhaps pay the reward of helping them realize the full interpretive
potential of their nds. Kathleen Deagan, in discussing pins found on Spanish
colonial sites in La Florida, indicates that small pins were used for dressmaking
and tailoring, particularly with light or ne fabrics, and larger pins were used for
holding headdresses, veils, clothing pleats, and folds in place. It has also been
suggested that ne dressmakers pins were much in demand in the late medi-
eval period for the wearing and pleating of rus on mens clothing and hence
might be more indicative of the presence of men and boys than of women1,575
pins were recovered from the sixteenth-century all-male Free Grammar School
in Coventry, England, for example.33 It seems likely that veils and garments of
ne materials, including rus, would have been pinned with the smallest pins
possible, and professional tailors and seamstresses were less likely to use large
numbers of pins than less experienced persons engaged in home sewing.
In the discussion that follows I have attempted to set out rough guidelines for
distinguishing one type of pin from another (table 2.1). All of the pins I discuss
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Fig. 2.3 Another workshop scene from Art de lpinglier illustrating various stages of
wire-drawing for making pins. Of particular interest is the depiction of a range of pin
types in the left center of the lower portion of the image; the accompanying text
provides suggestions for appropriate uses for each size of pin. (Courtesy The
Winterthur Library: Printed Book and Periodical Collection)
24 The Lowly Pin

Table 2.1 Types of pins and their approximate lengths and diameters (wire gauge)

Pin type Approximate length Approximate diameter

Lills 1/2 in. (12 mm) <1 mm

Sewing pins
Short whites 1 in. (2430 mm) 1 mm
Long whites 13 in. (37 cm) 1.5 mm
Blanket pins or corkins
Double long whites 3 in. (7.6 cm) 3 mm
Lace pins variable variable
Wig pins 7.5 in. (19.05 cm) 3 mm
Mourning pins variable variable
Shroud pins variable variable

fall within the broad category of common straight pins and hence the dierences
among them are often not very great. Documentary sources can prove confusing
as to nomenclature; sources from the fteenth and sixteenth centuries refer to
white pins, black pins, angel pins, red pins and red number pins, white pins,
double cawkins, pins made from brass, pins coated with tin, and iron pins, and
it seems that even contemporaries had diculty distinguishing particular types
and materials of pins. So although I have made every eort to provide a rough
guide to pin nomenclature, there is no way to provide a rm typology based on
contemporary terms. And it goes without saying that the very same straight pins
could be used in active production processes such as sewing and lace-making or
more passively as fasteners for clothing and wrappingsincluding shroudsin
addition to serving as implements for making the toilette, in other words, as
hairpins or wig pins.34

lills, lillikins, lillskins,

minnikins, minifers
Tiny pins, less than half an inch in length and less than four hundredths of an
inch in diameter, were known variously as minnikins, minifers, lillskins, lills, or
lillikins. Lills could be used in pinning ne fabrics before stitching them together
but were most commonly used to pin veils and other elements of womens garb in
place. A source from 1706 oers this denition: Minnekins, the smallest sort of
Pins, usd by Women for their clothes. As noted above, such tiny pins, when re-
covered from the appropriate temporal (and social) contexts, could also be inter-
preted as having been used in pinning mens and boys rus. In the archaeologi-
cal literature these tiny pins are variously called dressmaker or dress pins, though
dress pins is probably a bit more on the mark than dressmaker pins.35
 The Lowly Pin 25

common sewing pins

(short whites and middlings)
Ordinary or common sewing pins tended to be just over one inch long and
about one sixteenth of an inch in diameter; pin-makers called them short whites.36
Middlings, in contrast, are dened as pins of medium size, and hence as long
whites as opposed to short whites or double long whites (see below). Apparently,
middlings were typically among the pins kept ready to hand; one Miss Mitford
referred in 1824 to pincushions capable of containing a whole paper of short
whites and another of middlings. Middlings, therefore, were general-purpose
pins used for various tasks.37
The matter of determining which pins were most likely used in everyday sew-
ing is complicated by the fact that nineteenth-century pin packaging often touted
the fact that the purchaser would take home pins in Useful Assorted Sizes or
simply Mixed Pins, while some wrappers specied that all the pins in a given
packet were short whites or, somewhat mysteriously, Laundry Pins. The les-
son learned from this is that most households of the nineteenth century and
earlier would be likely to have pins of various sizes to hand for a variety of sew-
ing and other needs. A late-nineteenth-century deposit excavated in the Five
Points neighborhood of New York produced well over two hundred packages of
common straight pins along with other items indicative of a commercial sew-
ing operation (for example, fty thimbles, 222 hooks and eyes, scraps and rolls
of twill tape, seam bindings, and 180 buttons).38

blanket pins or double long whites

(corkins, corking-pins, calkins, and so on)
Large pins, around three inches long and about one-eighth of inch in diame-
ter, were known as double long whites or blanket pins and were intended for fas-
tening the folds of heavy blankets, furnishings, and so forth. The term corkins
(also spelled cawkins), according to The Oxford English Dictionary (OED), de-
rives from the phrase corking-pin, meaning a pin of the largest size. In a pin-
makers case dating from 1690 they were termed Double Long Whites alias
Calkins. Other sources quoted by the OED refer to such pins not in reference to
blankets but as stuck into a gentlewomans stomacher or fastening a mans riding
skirt.39

mourning pins
Mourning pins, intended to be worn on mourning dress, were originally made
of iron and coated with black varnish made up of linseed oil and lampblack.
After 1850, mourning pins were made from tempered steel wire that took on a
26 The Lowly Pin

dark purplish color, making them neater, stronger and sharper than the older,
blacked, or japanned pins. 40
I am unaware of archaeologists reporting the recovery of mourning pins (nor
have I noted any in the collections I have studied), but it is most likely that any
of the varnished or japanned pins made before the tempered steel pins became
common would, like many of their tinned counterparts, lose their distinctive
coating after spending any time in an archaeological site. There are, however,
reports of lacquered pins from late-sixteenth-century contexts in England. For
instance, the description of two of the copper-alloy pins of late-sixteenth-century
date found at Hall Place, St. Neots, Huntingdonshire, hints at possible mourning
pins: much of the object is covered with a smooth, thin, adherent and metallic-
looking sulphide skin. This is quite easily distinguished from the underlying
untarnished metal where the skin either has broken o, exposing the metal, or
shows other interference, colors (blue, purple). At the sixteenth-century Free
Grammar School in Coventry, four lacquered pins were recovered: the plating
or lacquering survived as a thin smooth black matt nish. It is therefore worth
keeping an eye out for possible examples of mourning pins among straight pins
recovered from contexts with good preservation conditions.41
In the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, fabrics appropri-
ate for mourning garments, especially during the early stages of deep mourning,
were black or similarly dark in color as well as nonreective. People in mourning
were expected to wear dull and nongured fabrics, avoiding shiny silks and re-
ective jewelry; women often wore mourning hoods or face-covering veils that
were also called falls or weepers to indicate their symbolic removal from society
during their period of mourning.42
Before the nineteenth century most elements of mourning garb were made at
home, but black pins for mourning had to be directly purchased from local mer-
chants. For instance, in 1856 merchants in Richmond, Virginia, oered in the
required black an assortment of straight pins, hat pins or safety pins. A widow
who retired into mourning would be expected to send someone else, a servant
or slave, perhaps, to make the necessary purchases rather than be seen in public
herself.43
It seems that the main use of black pins was to hold mourning veils in place,
though they could of course have been used to fasten other elements of the
mourning garb in the same way that tinned copper-alloy pins were used to fas-
ten elements of everyday costume.44

lace pins
Lace pins (for making bobbin lace) were of ne brass wire; in around 1880,
two hundred such pins sold for one pence. In their book Pins and Pincushions,
 The Lowly Pin 27

E. D. Longman and S. Loch illustrate three lace pins used in making dierent
styles of bobbin lacetorchon, Buckinghamshire, and Honiton, respectively
each being shorter than the next; they give no explanation for why the diering
sizes were relevant to the type of lace being made, but the key to the size of pin
chosen for making a particular lace pattern was the neness of the thread (the
ner the thread, the smaller the pin).45
If the head came o a lace pin, lace-makers would repair the pin by replacing
the lost head with a bead, with sealing wax, or with a cleavers seed (seeds of goose
grass that were soaked in milk to lighten their color or in vinegar to darken them;
the skin was rubbed o and the seed put on the shank, where it dried and tight-
ened). These seed-, bead-, or sealing waxtopped lace-making pins were known
as haries. Many lace-makers deliberately created for themselves a set of pins
with special heads; they would then use these to mark the beginning point of a
repeating motif in the lace pattern they were executing.46

wig pins
Longman and Loch illustrate a group of extremely long pins dating back to
the Jacobite Rising in 1745. The illustration of these pins with seeming reference
to Scottish freedom ghting is confusing, and a reader might mistakenly infer
that such pins were used on clansmens kilts or on the plaids they wore as mantles
across the body and over the shoulder. These so-called Jacobite pins are approxi-
mately seven and a half inches long, very plain, and, although not identied as
such, are likely wig pins, commonly used during Jacobean and Georgian times.47
Men and women wore wigs, so it seems likely that both sexes used wig pins.
These pins may have been used to secure a postiche, or articial addition of hair,
real or false, as well as ornamentation (pompoms, feathers, and so on), to a wig.
An Illustrated Dictionary of Hair Dressing and Wig Making denes a pin as a
short, thin, metallic peg, pointed at one end and blunt, or with a small head at
the other. Used to secure postiches to malleable blocks or cushions. A postiche
pin is more closely dened: (1) A long, round steel rod, similar to a thin knitting
needle and used to give a nal arrangement and position to the hair of a dressed
postiche. (2) A hairpin for use in a postiche. 48
Shorter pins were used by wig-makers for securing the mounting ribbon to a
wig foundation or block before the woven hair was knotted onto the netting base,
but it seems unlikely that these resembled straight pins in any way. One writer
instructs the wig-maker to carry the thread to little hooks . . . formed by pins
without heads, but Diderot refers to these as tacks made from pins, neither too
small nor too large, and illustrates what appear to be small nails or tacks rather
than pins.49
A variety of pins was also in use for dressing wigs as well as natural hair; the
28 The Lowly Pin

hairpins were referred to as either singles or doubles, the latter in some cases
resembling the familiar modern two-pronged hairpin. Master wigmaker Mon-
sieur de Garsault wrote in 1767 that it is a bad maxim when xing the Wig to
hold it in place in the centre of the top of the head with one large, upright pin,
which penetrates the net and imbeds itself in the wood; this will not prevent the
wig from slipping when it is combed. It seems as though wig-making and wig
dressing involved use of pins that were more like small tacks or in some cases
hooked-wire straight pins. The latter did sometimes come into play, however, in
the wearing of wigs or in fashionable hairdressing.50
Some elaborate hairstyles called for the use of extremely large numbers of pins
simply to keep the hair, wig, pads or cushions, or postiches in place. Single hair-
pins (often called hair needles) could also be very long and decorative and were
intended to be seen. Hairdressers advertised for sale all of the accoutrements for
tending to wigs and for producing fashionable and elaborate hairstyles:

William Anderson, Hair-Dresser

Takes this method to acquaint the public, that he carries on his business in
Chestnut-street between Front and Second-streets. He makes Ladies toupees
pads braids and cusions: French and Italian curls; likewise, Gentelmens wigs
and scalps, scarecely perceivable from the natural hair. N.B. He, likewise,
sells perfumes, powder bags, down and silk pus, the genuine London court
plaister, hair pins from nos 1, to 21, hair ribbands, shaving powder boxes, and
combs, wash balls, wash boxes.51

upholsterers pins
It is possible that upholsterers pins could be found in archaeological deposits,
though it is unlikely that such pins would be mistaken for common straight pins.
They were made of cast steel wire in English gauges 16 and 17; rather than a typi-
cal head, however, the top end is bent into a slightly ovoid eyeand both large-
and small-eyed upholsterers pins were available (g. 2.4). Such pins, in lengths
of three and three and a half inches, were oered for sale in an undated catalog
of upholstery needles, so were clearly intended to be used in conjunction with
heavy upholstery needles to hold upholstery fabric in place while it was being
stitched.52

K EE PI NG PI NS

The competition among pin-makers to create a market for their pins, to make
them seem superior and more desirable to customers than those made by others,
 The Lowly Pin 29

Fig. 2.4 Upholsterers pins, as advertised in an undated catalog of upholstery

needles from Berbecker and Son; top, small eye; bottom, large eye.
(After Berbecker and Son n.d.)

led to much innovation and imagination in the packaging of pins for sale. How
pins were packaged and sold changed dramatically over time. Before 1744 they
were sold in loose lots, after that in boxes, and by 1785 in papers. A nd of six-
teen tinned copper-alloy pins with wound-wire heads grouped in a paper-of-
pins form in the lower levels of a Waltham Abbey latrine pit lled around 1669
may, however, point to an earlier date than is commonly accepted for the dis-
tribution of pins stuck in paper. By 1800 most pins were sold stuck in colored
paper (g. 2.5). Sticking pins in crimped paper was a job done by women and
children using a comb-shaped tool that passed through a shallow tray contain-
ing loose pins. With a single sweep it collected a pin between each tooth, which
the sticker then pushed into crimped paper. Pin papers sold for a penny or less
and were made until the 1930s.53
By the 1840s pins (and needles) were sold in decorative cardboard and metal
boxes. The Lewis, Wright and Bayliss catalog for 1886, for instance, oered to
label containers with the name and address of the shop that sold them rather than
the makers information. This company also oered pin barrelssmall, rough
wooden containers with a label at one endfor one penny apiece (the same bar-
rels were also used as containers in which boot and trouser buttons were sold).
Fancy metal and card boxes of pins and needles were sold until 1939.54
Because there was no was economical method for heading pins before the
eighteenth century, pins were an expensive commodity. As a result, pincushions
and pin holders were important possessions for anyone who sewed (or clothed
themselves) regularly.55
The array of materials and shapes devised to serve as pincushions almost beg-
gars description, but because pincushions are so favored by collectors, there are
any number of publications with seemingly endless illustrations of pincushions.
Collectors are, of course, interested in attractive, valuable, or novel items, and
it is most unusual for archaeologists to nd anything that falls into any of these
categories. For the sake of considering the possibilities, however, I summarize
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Fig. 2.5 A plate from Art de lpinglier illustrating the steps in nishing pins,
including pointing, tinning, and polishing. Shown below are details of equipment used
in these processes, tools for sticking and packaging pins and examples of other
products of the wire-drawers art, such as staples, hooks and eyes, wire screen,
large knitting pins, and wig pins or tacks. (Courtesy The Winterthur Library:
Printed Book and Periodical Collection)
 The Lowly Pin 31

what I can and commend the reader to the collectors literature for further de-
tails.56
In the sixteenth century, every well-dressed woman carried with her a small
emergency supply of pins, often in small cylindrical cases known as pincushion
boxes or pin-poppets, fashioned from solid ivory or other materials. The interior,
around half an inch in diameter, was tted with a stued pad of velvet or satin
into which pins could be stuck.57
Some pincushions were lled with emery powder, which enabled the sewer to
polish rusty needles by plunging them repeatedly into the cushion. These were
sometimes referred to as emeries to distinguish them from regular pincushions
stued with sawdust or the like, but they could have held pins as readily as they
did needles. Cushions decorated with pinhead designs became popular begin-
ning in the early seventeenth century for special occasions such as birthdays and
marriages; at times these could be made of fragments of special garments. And
some pincushions were never used in needlework; between 1600 and 1830 large,
decorative pincushions were popular items in womens dressing rooms; these
held toilet pins and hatpins. In the eighteenth century practical items known
as pin balls were popular; these could be made from very ne silk knitted or
woven into a pleasing pattern (g. 2.6). The example illustrated here has an en-
circling silver band and chain that might survive in an archaeological context. As
the presence of the chain implies, pin balls were meant to hang from a womans
waistband so that she would always have a supply of pins to hand.58
The pin poppet, a small box of wood, bone, or ivory with a tight-tting lid
(and perhaps a tiny pincushion inside), remained popular up through the early
nineteenth century. Unlike the vast majority of pincushions, the pin poppet is a
good candidate for survival in archaeological contexts, and pin poppets of bone
are regularly found by archaeologists. Longman and Loch illustrate what they
characterize as three rather crudely made pin poppets, two of wood and one of
metal. The metal pin poppet is embossed in an alternating pattern of straight
and wavy encircling lines made up of punched dots, and it has a hinged lid. The
turned wooden examples come in two pieces that t tightly together; they are
decorated with simple lathe-turned incised lines and rouletting.59
These examples are made of materials that seldom fare well in the archaeo-
logical record. As noted above, archaeologists nd pin poppets of bone. These
they almost invariably refer to as needlecases, which is not inaccurate, although
they likely held both needles and pins. Because archaeologists call these items
needlecases, though, I describe and discuss these nds in chapter 3.
Most pincushions were made entirely of fabric, or of fabric on a foundation of
card, and many were probably made by women at home as a pastime or as gifts
32 The Lowly Pin

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Fig. 2.6 An eighteenth-century English pin ball with embroidered decoration and
encircling band and waist chain of brass. The diameter of the band is about 2.4 inches.
(Object no. 1966.1365; Courtesy The Winterthur Museum)

to give to friends. Practical pincushions tended to be plain and large, often free-
standing but sometimes attached to a sewing clamp; they could be stued with
sheeps wool, cotton wool, sawdust, or bran; some weighted pincushions con-
tained lead shot, a piece of metal, or a brick. I cannot imagine anyone arriving at
the conclusion that an excavated brick or quantity of lead shot once was part of
a pincushion, but the possibility that they did exists! It seems impossible, how-
ever, to support such an interpretation without corroborative evidence.60
Small, disk-shaped pincushions gained popularity at the beginning of the nine-
teenth century; these averaged less than two inches in diameter. In these, the
pincushion was sandwiched between two disks made from plain or decorated
ivory, bone, mother-of-pearl, tortoiseshell, or wood joined by narrow velvet or
silk ribbon. A design popular from the early 1800s was made from two circles
of card, each covered with material and sewn together so pins could be pushed
into the edge; these could be easily made at home, again possibly for exchange
as gifts. Some pin disks were kept in sewing boxes and matched the other items
in such tted boxes in material and design.61
 The Lowly Pin 33

We know that colonists had and used pincushions, for they appear on occa-
sion in household probate inventories. Consider the following example from
seventeenth-century New England. The household inventory of George Bur-
rill, Sr., taken at his death in 1654 in Lynn, Massachusetts, lists several items of
or associated with needlework:

one cubberd cloath wrought with needleworke, 11i. 4s.

pincushen & a remnant of stu, 2s. 6d.
velvett & ribbin, 3s.
a pcell of lace, 2s.
silver bodkin, thimble, 2 silver buttens, 6 s.
a pcell of linnen, yearne, & winding blads, 4s. 6d.
2 linnen wheeles 2 churnes & other lumber pinns, needles 11i. 4s.62

Interestingly, the pincushion is listed separately from the pins and needles, im-
plying that they were kept in separate places in the home. Also interesting is that
even though most of the items listed (except the buttons) tend to be associated
with women or womens work (it seems likely that the cupboard cloth wrought
with needleworke was embroidered by one of the women of the household), in-
cluding the small wheels for spinning linen, the swift or yarn winder (winding
blads), and the churns, these are all listed as part of Burrills estate and not re-
served to the widows portion or dower. It is clear even in these selected entries
from Burrills estate inventory that his household was well-to-do and that the
woman of the household possessed ne sewing toolsthe silver thimble and
bodkinbut she was also responsible for spinning her own yarn and churning
butter in addition to producing fancywork such as the wrought cupboard cloth.
Most pincushions were made of some sort of fabric and hence are not likely to
be found in archaeological contexts unless organic preservation is exceptional.
This proved to be the case during excavations at the intersection of Old Market
Street and Maryport Street in Usk, Gwent, Wales, where a large, stone-walled
cesspit produced, among many other interesting late-seventeenth-century arti-
facts, a silk-covered pincushion with many copper-alloy pins still stuck into it.
Several types of pincushion had harder material forming at least a portion of the
object, however, as in disk cushions, cast silver animals, and so forth, so it is pos-
sible to nd holders for pincushions or at least fragments of these. A charming
pincushion holder was excavated from a seventeenth-century privy in Boston as
part of the Central ArteryThird Harbor Tunnel project (also known as The
Big Dig); it is a small basket (or bucket) fashioned of sheet brass with a decora-
tive frieze formed of small, punched dots. This tiny basket (less than two inches
tall) at one time would have held a small cushion of fabric stued with sawdust
34 The Lowly Pin

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Fig. 2.7 Pincushion basket recovered from a seventeenth-century privy in Boston.

Made of hammered sheet brass, the item is 2.28 inches high and a maximum of 1.65
inches wide. (Courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Commission, Oce of the
Secretary of the Commonwealth, Cross Street Backlot Site, Boston)

or emery (g. 2.7). Even more remarkable is the fact that this nd can be linked
with its former owner, Katherine Nanny Naylor, whose place in local history was
secured when she sued successfully for divorce in one of seventeenth-century
Puritan Bostons most sensational cases.63

pin sheaths
Kathleen Deagan reports nds of pin holders or sheaths from Spanish colo-
nial sites in Florida and the Caribbean; to date, no such items have to my knowl-
edge been identied from French, English, or Dutch sites in the Americas. The
purpose of the sheath was to protect the person wearing a pinned garment from
pricking his or her ngers. The sheath consisted of a tapering tube of rolled cop-
per alloy or sheet brass with a small hole in the side for fastening the sheath to
the garment. Deagan illustrates an example with a decorative knob at the nar-
row end of the tube and holes at the wide end.64
 The Lowly Pin 35

I N T ER PRET I NG PI NS :
A RC H A E OL O GIC A L C ASE ST UDI ES

pins, winding sheets, and shrouds: treatment of

the dead in seventeenth-century maryland
In Europe cons were in common use for only the very wealthy until the early
seventeenth century, when cons were common for all but the poorest folk, and
by the middle of the seventeenth century in England, even paupers were buried
in cons provided at the expense of local parishes. On the early-seventeenth-
century Maryland frontier, whereas the eliteindeed, the truly noble Calverts
were buried in expensive cons of lead, the ordinary person was fortunate to
be buried in a con at all, but through the century con use grew more com-
mon. Most people who died in the colonys early years were buried in family
or plantation burying grounds rather than in a church or churchyard, either in
simple wooden cons or with nothing but a shroud or winding sheet. In Brit-
ain shrouds or winding sheets were in use by at least Saxon times; the preferred
material was linen, at least for the inner shroudan outer wrapping of stouter
material was sometimes used.65
The body of the deceased was sometimes rst clothed in a shroudwhich by
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries often resembled a long, backless night-
shirt covering the body from the neck to the feet, decorated with frills at the
frontthen wrapped in a winding sheet. From the sixteenth through the seven-
teenth centuries, shrouds were often tied up at either end and bound around with
canvas swaddling bands for ease in carrying the body. Many shrouds or wind-
ing sheets were sewn together along their edges; others, however, were fastened
wholly or in part with copper-alloy straight pins.66
The Patuxent Point site, in Calvert County, Maryland, was one of many small
plantations along the Patuxent River in the seventeenth century; it was occupied
from around 1658 to 1680. Excavations directed by Julia A. King of the Jeerson
Patterson Park and Museum exposed the remains of a house and related features
as well as a small burying groundthe earliest colonial cemetery yet reported
in Marylandcontaining eighteen graves. Only seven of the individuals buried
here were placed in cons before being laid to rest; all but three of the others
had been lowered into their graves in simple shrouds or winding sheets.67
Because shrouds seldom survive in the ground, the evidence for their use is
often circumstantial, in some cases the presence of pins on, against, or near the
skeletal remains. Copper-alloy pins, pin fragments, and at times green staining
resulting from the total decay of a pin lying against bone were found with all but
four of the bodies interred in the Patuxent Point burying ground, and in a single
36 The Lowly Pin

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Fig. 2.8 A straight pin from 18CV271, Patuxent Point Grave 3, Lot 281, with a
small fragment of winding sheet or shroud adhering to it. (Courtesy Maryland
Archaeological Conservation Lab, Jeerson Patterson Park and Museum)

instance a tiny scrap of linen from a shroud survived because it was still attached
to a particularly well preserved pin (g. 2.8).68
Forty-two common straight pins were recovered from the Patuxent Point site
(domestic compound plus burying ground); only fteen of these came from
graves. Most of the pins were not available for study when I examined the col-
lection, so I measured and recorded information on only eight pins, some of
them fragmentary. All were corroded, but those with heads (seven of the eight)
had wound-wire heads, and all examples in the assemblage, including those for
which I saw only the catalog entry, had evidence of a tin wash. There was, how-
ever, variation in the length, diameter, and, in one case, head shape of the pins.
One pinhead was somewhat ovoid, while four were very thin and relatively short.
These were lills, the tiny, delicate pins more likely to be used on such womens
garments as veils than on heavy fabrics, but they also could have fastened deli-
cate linen fabric used for shrouds or other burial clothing. Only two pins were
intact: one was about nine-tenths of an inch long (the example with the ovoid
head), the other one and six-tenths of an inch long. The lills, with their very thin
shanks, were shorter than the pins with normal-sized shanks.
The careful recording of copper staining on the skeletal remains by Smith-
sonian physical anthropologist Douglas Ubelaker and his team provides addi-
tional evidence of shroud pins that decayed completely, leaving only a tell-tale
green stain on the bone. The data from the burying ground teach us several
things about the use of shrouds (table 2.2). Most important, all but one of the
individuals buried in cons had copper stains, indicating that they were buried
in a shroud or some garment fastened with pins. This is in keeping with treat-
ment of the dead at this time: the clothing of the deceased would be removed
and he or she would be laid out and bathed before being dressed for burial.69
 The Lowly Pin 37

Table 2.2 Evidence for use of pins in burials from Patuxent Point

Burial no. (sex, age) Con No. of pins Copper staining

1 (F, 24y) Yes Right parietal; right mandible near third

molar
2 (F, 5560y) Yes Left temporal (front and back); sixth and
seventh cervical vertebrae; rst thoracic
vertebra
3 (F, 3743y) No 2 Right and left sides of mandible; left frontal
near coronal suture and at bregma; rear
of right parietal
4 (U, 9mos) No 3 Right frontal above right orbit; two areas on
posterior aspect of left frontal
5 (U, 1.21.4y) Yes Left frontal; lateral side of right orbit;
inferior surface of left mandible
6 (U, 89y) Yes Left parietal; occipital, right temporal
7 Feature proved not to be a burial
8 (M, 2833y) No 1 None
9 (U, 1011y) No 1 None
10 (M? 3035y) No Frontal near bregma
11 (U, c.5y) Yes Maxilla above incisors; alveolar and medial
surfaces of right maxilla; interior surface
left mandible
12 (M, 2732y) No 1 Left parietal; posterior side and medial
aspect of distal right humerus; sixth and
seventh cervical vertebrae
13 (U, 13y) Yes 2 Two areas on occipital
14 (M, 3338y) Yes None
15 (F, 2632y) No 3 Left humerus; left femur; left tibia (two
areas); frontal, left parietal; cervical
vertebra
15a Fetus or possible newborn buried with
No. 15
16 (U, 1314y) No None
17 (F, 2530y) No 1 Center of left parietal; left frontal just above
left orbit; junction of lambdoidal and
sagittal sutures
18 (M, 1517y) No 1 None. Brass button and clay pipe found
near pelvis; possible African ancestry,
buried in clothing?
19 (M, 3845y) No None

Key: F = female; M = male; U = immature, sex undetermined; y = years old; mos = months old
Source: Ubelaker, Jones, and Turowski 1996
38 The Lowly Pin

In the Chesapeake in summer the laying-out period would likely have been
brief. This might explain why some individuals were buried without cons:
putrefaction might set in too quickly to wait for a con to be made. By the 1630s
in England the deceased was dressed in a shirt and cap in addition to a winding
sheet, and it was common for the face to remain exposed until the con was
closed so that the spirit of the deceased could depart. A chin strap to hold the
jaw in place might be pinned to the cap, as might a face cloth that could be used
to cover the face before the con was closed.70
At Patuxent Point, Burial No. 13, a thirteen-year-old of indeterminate sex had
two well-preserved pins and copper staining on two areas of the occipital bone
(sides of the head). It would appear from the location of the staining that in al-
most every case the shroud was quite literally a winding sheeta length of tex-
tile, most likely linen, wound around the body beginning at the feet and secured
with one or more pins at the head. The location of the pins could also suggest
the use of a chin strap or face cloth, though probably not both, given the rela-
tively few pins used.71
In some cases the shroud was also fastened at other places, along the torso.
Only one burial, No. 18, had any evidence of ordinary clothing, this in the form
of a single brass button, likely a breeches button given its location at the pelvis.
Interestingly, this individual was identied as a young man of African ancestry,
so it is intriguing that he was buried in his clothes and with a clay pipe. It is not
clear what this means. Was he singled out for some reason? If he was the only
individual buried in his clothes, why? A single pin was also found in his grave, al-
though there was no copper staining on his bones. Were his clothes left on him
while he was nevertheless wrapped in a shroud? Does this indicate dierential
treatment of the dead based on cultural or racial distinctions? We shall probably
never know the answers to these questions.72
It should be clear from my earlier remarks that most seventeenth-century folk,
especially those who were not well o, would have worn little in the way of rec-
ognizable clothing fasteners such as buttons, buckles, or even hooks and eyes
on their clothing. Some, women in particular, might have used straight pins in-
stead. On the seventeenth-century frontier, the likelihood that someone would
be buried in their clothes when all goods, most especially textiles and clothing,
were extremely dear and hard to come by, is almost nil, so I have no diculty
interpreting the pins in the Patuxent Point graves as pins used to fasten winding
sheets or perhaps to ax chin straps or face cloths. The numbers of stains left on
the bones of the dead from Patuxent Point indicate that more pins were used than
survived to be recovered by archaeologists, but the number nevertheless is small,
and this evidence, combined with the relatively low number of cons used, in-
 The Lowly Pin 39

dicates limited investment in mortuary ritual without much eort to retain post-
mortem social distinctions that were undoubtedly very important in life.73
Two of the adults interred in the Patuxent Point burying ground (Burial Nos.
8 and 15) had distinctive grooves on their front teeth. Douglas Ubelaker inter-
preted this as evidence of the long-term practice of holding or pulling some arti-
fact between the teeth, possibly pins, thread, or objects of a similar shape. These
individuals, it seemed, worked steadily at sewing activities. It is of particular inter-
est that one was a woman and the other a man. There is insucient evidence of
similar tooth-wear among the colonial population as a whole to know whether
only professional tailors and seamstresses would exhibit this sort of damage to
their teeth, but the lack of such grooves on other adults in the small number
of individuals buried at Patuxent Point suggests some measure of specialization
and reminds us that men were just as likely to make use of sewing implements
as women.74
Tailors tended to specialize in heavy garments that required shaping to the
body, such as coats and jackets, whereas seamstresses specialized in garments
made in the at, such as shirts, shifts, petticoats (note that petticoat was syn-
onymous with skirt in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries), and so forth.
But, as I remarked at the beginning of this chapter, both tailors and seamstresses
were so skilled that they needed few straight pins, instead simply holding the fab-
ric in hand as they stitched. So we do best to attribute the tooth-wear to grasping
needles between the teeth or using the teeth in lieu of scissors to cut thread.75
There was no abundance of evidence for sewing activities in the domestic
compound at Patuxent Point; only the twenty-seven additional straight pins and
the crown of a copper-alloy thimble were found. Without the tooth-wear so
prominent on these two former members of the Patuxent Point household, we
would have no clue that perhaps part of the households income may have been
based on the pairs expertise as tailor and seamstress. The two individuals were
close in age and of European ancestry; the woman probably died in childbirth.
We may speculate that they were a couple, that they left their home or homes
in England, where they pursued the professions of tailor and seamstress, to try
to make their fortune at growing tobacco in the stump-ridden elds of southern
Maryland. It seems that their eorts to gain wealth and start a family on the colo-
nial frontier ended all too abruptly.

domestic contexts: can we pin anything down?

Almost every archaeologist is aware that most items used in sewing might have
served other purposes, but as I have noted, pins are still commonly equated with
sewing regardless of whatever nods or lip-service is given to their other poten-
40 The Lowly Pin

Table 2.3 Common straight pins and pin fragments from St. Johns

No. of Minimum Maximum

Finds context pins length length

Phase I (16381665) 24 1.95 cm 2.75 cm

Phase II (16651685) 21 2.00 cm 3.00 cm
Phase III (16851715) 26 2.00 cm 2.80 cm
Undated contexts 167
Total pins and fragments 238

Source: Hurry 1980:1

tial uses. As archaeological recovery techniques have improved, higher numbers

of common pins have been recovered, yet, rather than attempt to examine vari-
ability among pins in order to ascertain the possible range of uses to which they
might have been put, too many of us assume that more pins simply mean that
more sewing went on at a site. In the previous section, Pin Sizes and Types, I de-
scribed how pins might be grouped according to length and gauge as a way of
sorting out pins according to their dierent intended uses. Only rarely, however,
does even the most painstakingly thorough of the measurers among us think to
measure pin diameters. I myself did not consider this a relevant attribute when
I embarked on my study of archaeological collections, and Museum of Lon-
don researchers have concluded that the gauge of wire does not seem to corre-
spond to the size and weight of the head or the overall length of fteenth- and
sixteenth-century pins. My observations of seventeenth-century and later pins
suggest, however, that for these later examples, length and gauge are closely re-
lated, shorter pins being made of very thin wire gauge, longer ones of thicker
gauge wire, so I am fairly condent that length alone is a sucient criterion for
distinguishing among pin types. But what, if anything, is to be gained by paying
such close attention to some of the smallest of small nds? 76
Excavations at the site of St. Johns at St. Marys City, the seventeenth-century
capital of Maryland, recovered 153 complete and eighty-ve fragmentary com-
mon straight pins, although only seventy-one of these pins could be assigned in-
disputably to the occupation phases delineated by the archaeologists; the dated
deposits ranged from 1638 to 1715 (table 2.3). Silas Hurry noted that there were
no changes in the physical appearance of the pins over time, which is not sur-
prising since we know that pins changed little from the fteenth through the
eighteenth centuries. Lengths of pins varied within both dated and undated con-
texts, but each occupation phase presented a range of pin sizes. The smallest
 The Lowly Pin 41

Table 2.4 Common straight pins and pin fragments from ve seventeenth-century
Chesapeake sites (pin length in cm)

Site/context E1.5 1.61.9 2.02.5 2.63.0 3.13.5 >3.5 Fragments Total

Compton
(c. 16511684) 3 6 1 10
John Hicks 1 7 18 3 1 30
Kings Reach 4 4
Mattapony 3 2 5
Jordans Journey 8 56 10 7 1 36 118

Source: Personal inspection of each item; see these sources for details on each site: Compton: Lewis
Berger and Associates 1989; John Hicks: Stone 1974; Kings Reach: Pogue 1990; Mattapony: King and
Chaney 1999; Jordans Journey: Mouer and McClearen 1991, 1992

pins were, of course, lills or small dress pins, while the largest were calkins or
double long whites used for pinning heavy folds of cloth used in furnishings or
on cloaks and other garments. By far the majority of pins from St. Johns were
short whites or middlings, in other words, general-purpose sewing or dress pins.
Excavations at St. Johns produced a wide range of other sewing tools (six thim-
bles, a possible thimble case made of bone, two needles and a bone needlecase,
a stiletto or graver, and nine pairs of scissorsthough not all of these were sew-
ing scissors), strengthening Hurrys interpretation that many pins from St. Johns
were part of the sewing assemblage. But the variable lengths of the pins found
here tell us that the successive inhabitants of the site, like most of their contem-
poraries, used pins in many ways.77
If we compare the St. Johns pins to pins found at several other Chesapeake
sites, the results are almost certainly an artifact of recovery techniques (table 2.4).
Only the St. Marys City site, the John Hicks homestead in Maryland, and site
PG307 at Jordans Journey, near Hopewell, Virginia, have samples of pins large
enough to reveal the same range of pin sizes and types found at St. Johns. The
other sites produced small samples of pins, either because the plow zone was
stripped o, because deposits were not screened, or because the household was
so low on the economic scale that its members simply could not aord to have a
good supply of pins on hand. If we wanted to admit all possible explanations, we
might also oer the explanation that some people were so successful in keep-
ing pins that pins do not show up in the archaeological recordbut given that
sites excavated carefully for the recovery of small nds almost invariably produce
impressive quantities of pins, this is not the most convincing interpretation.78
42 The Lowly Pin

Table 2.5 Common straight pins and pin fragments from a seventeenth-century
midden at Tilbury Fort, Tilbury, Essex, England

Pin length (cm) No. of pins

1.61.9 7
2.02.5 143
2.63.0 30
3.13.5 12
5.06.0 2
Fragments 143
Total 337

Source: Moore and Reed 2000:68

At an English site, seventeenth-century Tilbury Fort in Tilbury, Essex, re-

covery of pins was good, providing 337 pins and pin fragments, with a head count
producing a minimum pin count of 247, all found in a redeposited midden (table
2.5). The archaeologists who examined this site mistakenly claim that pins were
cheap in the seventeenth century; as we have learned, this was not the case until
the nineteenth century, so the large number of pins must be explained in other
ways. Most of the Tilbury Fort pins range from about eight-tenths of an inch to
just over an inch in length (and hence classify as middlings). Archaeologists Peter
Moore and Graham Reed attribute the preponderance of a single pin size to lack
of access to pin manufacturers, but they also conclude that the high number of
pins in the collection (and relative lack of other types of clothing fasteners) is
closely linked to the poverty of the forts occupants, who, like the country bump-
kin described earlier, could not aord to fasten their clothing with anything much
fancier than common straight pins (and they note that uniforms for the lower
ranks of the military would have had few if any embellishments along the lines
of rus and the like). But they also use ancillary evidence from the sitea bone
needlecaseto support an alternative explanation that some of the pins could
have been used for sewing and mending. It is clear that a contextual analysis of
Tilbury Fort leads to a somewhat dierent interpretation of how pins were used
there in contrast to the Maryland site of St. Johns.79
Because large numbers of pins were recovered from both sites, however, it is
dicult to assert that the military context of the English fort, with its occupants
of low economic status, versus the domestic context of the frontier site, with its
well-to-do occupants, is the key factor in explaining the high numbers of pins at
 The Lowly Pin 43

either site. As I noted above, rate of recovery of pins is highly variable depending
on the excavation and recovery methods employed at each site. Until we have a
good corpus of samples from sites that have been excavated with great care taken
in the recovery of small nds, we may have to consider potential sampling bias
as the overriding factor limiting our eorts in interpreting common straight pins.
 3

The Needle
An Important Little Article
The modern needleone of the most useful implements in the world.
abel morrall, History and Description of Needle Making, 1865

A survey of the archaeological literature for nds of needles is almost as frus-

trating as the proverbial quest for a needle in a haystack. Needles were even more
expensive than pins and were used, and hence owned, in far smaller numbers
than pins. What is more, needles seldom survive burial in archaeological sites.
Kathleen Deagan reports that even though needles were indispensable house-
hold items, none have been recovered from sixteenth-century contexts at St.
Augustine, Florida, or Santa Elena in South Carolina, and only a very few have
been found at other Spanish colonial sites. She remarks, Not only were most
of the needles after 1500 made of steel, which has notoriously poor preservation
qualities, but they were also considerably more costly than pins and probably
curated more carefully. When a needle is found, it is often incomplete, some-
times broken at the eye, the shape and treatment of which are among a needles
most functionally diagnostic attributes. As relatively rare and often fragmentary
nds, then, needles tend to elude eorts at interpretation.1
Deagan is right to stress that needles were exceedingly important; indeed,
they are the most diagnostic and irrefutable evidence of sewing and are the least
likely of sewing tools to have been used often for purposes other than those for
which they were intended. This does not mean that no one ever used the wrong
needle for sewing or embroidery, but when we nd a needle we know it was
likely used for stitching fabric, be it ne or coarse, leather, or other materials
together. The task for the archaeologist who does nd a needle or needles at a
site is to consider what purposes a particular needle may best have served. In this
chapter I set out criteria for making distinctions among needles in hopes of pro-

44
 The Needle 45

viding a guide for the archaeologist who is interested in saying something about
a needle once it emerges from the archaeological haystack.
Needles held social signicance beyond their functionality; for one thing, they
were valuable and often personal items (though few were monogrammed or in-
scribed) that had close associations with parts of the body (hands and ngers) and
with particular postures, gestures, and sequences of motion. Right up through
the nineteenth century, the social pressure on women to keep their hands busy
with their sewing at all times meant that much sewing was done in public. Ad-
vice manuals aimed at women made it clear that women could put this to their
advantage by holding their needles properly, perhaps evocatively, showing o
their hands as well as their skills. The following passage from Harpers Bazaar in
1874 includes proper needle holding and use among the accomplishments a girl
should be taught as part of her grooming toward gentility.2

How to Hold a Needle Gracefully

The graceful preceptress goes on with directions for sitting, for holding ones
needle, for dancing, and holding ones petticoats out of the mud. Nobody will
allow that these hints are superuous who notices the varied awkwardness
which women fall into who are habitually thoughtless on these points. Some
of these nice customs may have been carried to our shores, possibly with Ro-
chambeaus French ladies at Newport or Salem. I remember hearing one of
the ne Newburyport ladies, who answer to the description of gentlewomen
still, maintain that it was most graceful to sew with a long pointthat is, to
push the needle nearly its whole length through at each stitch, instead of pull-
ing it out, so to speak, by the nose. And she was right, as you can verify by the
next sewing you take up.

THE HI ST ORY A ND A RC H A E OL O GY O F NEEDL ES

The modern needle is the direct descendant of the int or bone awls used by
humans beginning in the Lower Paleolithic, about 26,000 to 20,000 bc. An awl
is a pointed implement for punching holes in ber or skin, sometimes hafted
to a handle, but lacking a hole or eye through which ber, sinew, or thread can
be inserted. Some early awls, however, bear a notch or collar cut near the blunt
end; the user could have whipped or snooded a ber at the notch in the man-
ner that shers attach their line to a hook. In the Solutrean phase of the Upper
Paleolithic (more than 20,000 years ago), true needles, made from splinters of
bone, appear, and by the Gravettian and Magdalenian phases were quite nely
made. A number of early Neolithic sites in Anatolia, Iraq, and Greece have pro-
46 The Needle

duced bone needles, and bone needles and thread-pickers have been found at
late Saxon sites in Britain, including St. Neots in Huntingdonshire. The rst true
eyed metal needles, of copper alloy, were found at Tepe Yahya in Iran in layers
dating between 3600 and 3200 bc. At medieval sites in Britain, archaeologists
have found needles made of iron, bronze, and boneat Breachacha Castle, Coll,
Argyll, Scotland, a bronze needle was found in the same context as one made of
bone, suggesting that they were in use at the same time. There was little change
in the form of these implements or in their method of manufacture from Saxon
times until the introduction of iron needles.3
Roman needles varied in form, and it seems likely that it was during Roman
times that a special-purpose needle, the bodkin, developed. Both bone and metal
needles were used, although bone was preferable to the metal needles of the time
because the metal tended to corrode and stain the fabric it was used on. Most
early needles were used for heavy work and were never intended for ne sew-
ing; the ner needles that do survive often have two or three eyes, to prevent the
thread from slipping. Steel needles rst were made in China and spread to the
Middle and Near East; Damascus and Antioch became centers for ne needle-
making during the time of the Roman Empire.4
In historical times, sewing needles were more expensive than pins, and be-
cause they were used one at a time, people had fewer of them. As a result, ar-
chaeologists nd far fewer needles than pins. Although the frequency with which
needlecases appear on historical sites is testimony to the care taken to curate
needles and pins and to keep them from rusting, needles are relatively rare nds.
In part this is because iron and steel used to produce needles are less well pre-
served in the ground than the copper alloys from which most pins were made.
Needles found on historical sites are customarily fashioned from steel wire, al-
though cheaper iron needles were probably present in far greater numbers than
their low survival rate indicates. Copper-alloy needles survive more readily than
iron ones, but copper-alloy needles were too crude for domestic sewing. Most
were pack needles, used to sew up parcels for storage and transport in pack-cloth,
a practice that was common up to the nineteenth century.5
Needles, cloth, and thread were among the exports traded to Iceland out of
the English ports of Boston and Lynn in the early fteenth century, when for a
time the merchants of these English cities, fed up with the German monopoly
over the sh trade, sent their ships directly to Iceland instead of to Bergen, Nor-
way, to trade for stocksh. This trade continued at least partly on a clandestine
basis, until Boston and Lynn suered a decline in the mid-fteenth century.6
 The Needle 47

M A K I NG NEEDL ES

Before the seventeenth century, copper-alloy needles were made individually

by local craftsmen. The process consisted of cutting a piece of copper-alloy wire
to the desired length, attening the eye end on an anvil with a small hammer,
forming the eye by striking the attened part with a punch on the anvil, then
clearing the hole with a sharper punch on a lead cake. Next, the wire was gripped
in a pair of grooved pliers while the point was formed and the head trimmed and
smoothed with les. A guttering iron was used to le a groove around the eye on
both sides, to accommodate the thickness of thread.7
Before the tenth century, when a technique for wire-drawing was invented,
iron wire was made by forging. Early iron needles were made of forged wire; they
had no eye but rather curved at the blunt end into a closed hook, with the point
at the other end. These served well enough at a time when the population con-
sisted mainly of peasants clothed in leather and loose-woven cloth; more com-
plex tailoring and embroidery, however, required conventionally manufactured
needles that had been eyed, guttered, tapered, and tempered. These were im-
ported, the earliest sources of supply being the Near East, whose craftsmen were
renowned for their metalwork and for their tapestries.8
Iron needles continued to be made in a similar fashion for several centuries
after the development of wire-drawing. During the fourteenth century a Euro-
pean needle industry began at Nuremberg, producing needles of drawn iron wire
pointed at one end and looped at the other. The rst eyed needles of drawn iron
wire appeared in the fteenth century and were a product of the Low Countries.
In the late Middle Ages needles were also produced in Spain and Flanders, and
England imported its domestic and sail needles from these suppliers.9
Steel needle-making requires a knowledge of heat treatment through anneal-
ing, hardening, and tempering. Steel metallurgy originated in China, spread
to the Near East, and was carried by the Moors into Spain, where, during the
Middle Ages, Crdoba became a great needle-making center. John Stow, who
had been a tailor in his youth, wrote in his Survey of London and Westminster
(1598) of a Spanish needle of steel introduced into England.10
There is no evidence that needles were manufactured in England before the
mid-sixteenth century, although simple instruments that served as needles had
long been made by blacksmiths, wire-workers, and others. The English needle-
manufacturing industry dating from the late 1550s was introduced by Flemish
refugees. Although the Flemish method of making needles was a simple process
requiring the most rudimentary of tools, it consisted of about twenty operations.11
48 The Needle

Wire, usually made of steel, was drawn to requisite gauge. It arrived at the
needle-mill in coils cut into doubles or needle lengths, pieces the length of two
needles. The lengths were straightened by tightly packing two iron rings, about
eight inches in diameter, with the wires, then placing the packed rings in a fur-
nace and heating them. They were then transferred to a at iron slab, where a
curved iron bar with slots tting over the rings was used to roll them backward
and forward until the wires were perfectly straight (this took about twenty min-
utes).
After the lengths were annealed, they were passed to the pointers, who by the
eighteenth century used water-powered grindstones. Originally the lengths were
pointed with a hand-operated grindstone. Inhaling particles of stone and steel
caused pointers to contract pneumoconiosisPointers disease or Pointers
rotand few lived beyond thirty years of age. As a result, pointers were paid four
pounds a week compared with an average of ten shillings paid to other workers.
In 1846 an automatic pointing machine and extractor fan were introduced, but
the men at rst refused to work with them and went on strike, fearing a reduc-
tion in wages. A pointer revolved twenty-four or more wires back and forth with
his thumb against the stone, sharpening both ends of a length. The wires were
then taken to the stamping and eyeing shop. The heads and eyes were impressed
by a man using a very heavy kick-stamp drop-hammer that handled thirty thou-
sand doubles a day, but eyeing could be done more cheaply by women, two
of whom worked at out to keep up with the stamper. Drop-stamps formed two
eyes in the center of each length, then a groove was cut for the thread to lie in,
after which the wires were annealed again. Eyeing consisted of punching out the
thin lm of metal that remained after stamping; this was done by young women
seated at screw presses. The twin needles were then threaded (spitted) onto two
parallel wires, one through each of the eyes, by women as well as by children
as young as three years old. The spitted, eyed lengths were then xed between
wooden clamps and screwed in a vise while the surplus of metal (the ash) was
led away. The two sets then were broken apart, and the top of each set in turn
was smoothed o before the wires were removed. The needles, now called points,
were hardened, then tempered to restore their resilient state, and nally scoured
or polished.12
Scouring removed oxidation and discoloration brought about by tempering
and consisted of placing from fty thousand and a hundred thousand needles on
a large piece of stout cloth such as canvas or sackcloth, sprinkling the set, as it was
called, with abrasive (usually emery paste) and a solution of soft soap, rolling up
the cloth, tying it at each end, and binding it thoroughly with cord. A number of
sets were placed on a long, troughlike bench with a heavy block of wood on top.
 The Needle 49

Before waterpower was introduced to the scouring process, the block was pro-
pelled back and forth by two men, one at each end of the bench. The bundles
were rolled beneath the blocks for between eight and eighteen hours. Scouring
by hand was long and laborious; the most important development in the indus-
try was the adaptation of water mills for this purpose, which greatly increased
production, improved quality, and lowered costs.13
After the initial scouring, the needles were removed from the set and washed
with soap and water before being bundled up again with polishing powder, this
time an oxide of stone. A second scouring gave the needles a high nish. They
were then washed, dried in rotating barrels of hot sand, bran, or sawdust, and
given a nal polish with an emery stone. Finally, the interior of the eye was pol-
ished. The needles were then packaged and labeled for sale.14
Needle-making was so readily divided into discrete stages that an economy of
scale could easily be achieved by a strict division of labor. The typical unit of
production tended to be small, usually a master employing a handful of jour-
neymen and apprentices; this pattern continued until the middle of eighteenth
century, when the small master began to give way to the industrial capitalist em-
ploying domestic outworkers.
The English needle-making industry grew apace after the late seventeenth
century because of two developments: increased demand and the emergence
of an impoverished labor force caused by an upswing in agricultural production
that brought success to some but forced many people o the land. The trade ini-
tially was conducted in London and Colchester, but by the early seventeenth
century needles were made at Dorchester and Chichester; the industry spread
into such rural areas as Long Crendon in Buckinghamshire, Much Wenlock in
Salop, Bridgnorth in Worcestershire, and Studley and surrounding parishes in
the Worcestershire-Warwickshire border area.15
The Worshipful Guild of Needlemakers was incorporated in 1656 in London,
but the group had been active beforehand in attempting to control the indus-
try and x prices. As a result, many producers were forced out of London by
restrictions voted by the guild members, whose eective control extended only
within a ten-mile radius of the capital. The needle industry began to concentrate
in the rural West Midlands. This region, largely bog and wasteland, was chiey
pastoral in character before the introduction of rural industries. But here there
were deposits of coal and iron, the raw materials for needle-making, and people
willing to work them; what is more, the several other nearby industries (for ex-
ample, saddlery, gloving, cap-making, shoe-making, and leatherwork) created a
ready market for needles.16
The earliest wills of needle-makers date after 1650; in all probability the trade
50 The Needle

was rst introduced by William Lea, who appears to have arrived in Studley dur-
ing the second quarter of the seventeenth century. A William Lee, who had been
indicted in London for use of an unlawful engine (a wheel-turned grindstone),
presumably left London, and he may be the same individual who showed up in
Studley soon after. By the 1680s at least two dozen needle-makers were at work
in the area, a dozen of whom had been trained in the workshop of William Lea.17
The products of the English needle industry eventually outstripped the quality
of European needles; soon after 1712 the West Midlands dominated the trade.
Makers were able to expand sales and increase market share because they were
free from guild restrictions. London makers were required to employ only those
who had been apprenticed and to use only steel wire, and they were discour-
aged from innovating. In contrast, rural needle-makers were free to employ any-
one they wished and could use whatever materials and methods they chose. As
a result, they were able to undercut the London market in high-quality steel
needles and to introduce cheap iron needles at less than one-fourth the price
of best goods. These factors permitted the needle industry in the West Mid-
lands to expand and rise to preeminence, but it would not have grown so quickly
had there not been such acute poverty in the district in the mid-seventeenth
century.
Advances in technology were certainly important but not widespread before
1750. Attempts at creating an American industry were largely unsuccessful; in
1775, during the American Revolution, the North Carolina Provincial Congress
oered an incentive of fty pounds sterling for the rst person who could within
twelve months manufacture twenty-ve thousand needles, sorted from sizes one
to twelve inclusive, that were equal to needles from Great Britain of the price of
two shillings, six pence sterling per thousand. No one seems to have met these
requirements.18
The earliest needle mill, Forge Mill at Redditch, Worcestershire, was probably
commissioned no earlier than 1730. Needle-making thus remained a cottage in-
dustry before the full-scale adoption of mechanization and the factory system. A
family was supplied with raw materials and tools by a merchant who collected
and sold the nished article. The needles thus produced were expensive, but
toward the end of the eighteenth century some families began to specialize and
became expert in one of the many operations, which slightly increased produc-
tion and lowered cost. At its peak, Redditch supplied 90 percent of the world
market for needles. Some of largest factories made needles from start to nish,
but there were a few specialists, including Forge Mill, which just scoured needles.
Because Redditch was the center of needle production for the world market, in-
cluding the United States, until after World War II, it is the likely place of origin
 The Needle 51

for almost all excavated examples of sewing needles. Forge Mill, which remained
in operation until 1958, is now the National Needle Museum of England.19

T Y P ES O F NEEDL ES

Even a cursory survey of site reports reveals that most historical archaeologists
are content to identify a needle as such, assume that it was used for some sort of
sewing, and leave it at that. Few realize that closer inspection of these small nds
could prove worthwhile for interpreting what types of sewing the occupants of a
site engaged in or at least for what purpose a needle may have been intended. It
is, of course, impossible to state with certainty that people really used any item
solely for the purpose for which it was designed, but surely it is useful to be aware
of what the possibilities might have been.20
The mass production of high-quality, smooth, strong needles was assured by
the invention of crucible steel in the eighteenth century and of needle-making
machines in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. In some instances,
mass production led to a dramatic drop in quality as well as in price, as facto-
ries produced millions of needles a day for dierent types of needlework. But
by the end of the eighteenth century needles of extreme neness (less than a
hundredth of an inch in diameter) were readily available, making it possible for
ladies to copy etchings by sewing ne black and gray threads or human hair on a
ground of white silk. The range of needles is truly impressive, but the basic types
of eyed needles fall into a limited range: sewing needles, darning and embroi-
dery needles, tapestry needles, and specialty needles. The salient characteristics
that distinguish one type of needle from another are the shape, size, and place-
ment of the eye, the cross-section of the shank, and shape and form of the point,
in addition to the overall size, length, form, and quality of the needle (g. 3.1).21
An undated publication by Henry Milward and Sons claries the size classi-
cation system employed by needle-makers in the nineteenth century. Two size
scales were used: the most common was applied to ordinary sewing and darning
needles, while another scale was used for tapestry and chenille needles, but to
some extent the scales were interchangeable (table 3.1). Sewing needles came in
ten sizes, numbering 1 to 10 for those in general use, but the scale stretched out at
either end to accommodate both extremely large and extremely small needles,
for which there is a certain demand. The largest needles used numbers such as
1/0, 2/0, and so on: the higher the number before the slash indicated the largest
size. The smaller needles were simply given numbers above 10, up to 16. Tapestry
and chenille needles were sized according to the British Standard Wire Gauge
and began with size 13.22
52 The Needle

Fig. 3.1 The parts of a needle.

sewing needles
Sewing needles are made with a bevel eye and are known as sharps, betweens,
blunts, and milliners or straw needles (g. 3.2, g. 3.2a). Sharps is the traditional
name for ordinary needles used in domestic sewing. They are manufactured in
sizes 112. A very large needle of a similar type, in sizes 1418, is termed a carpet
needle. Most have a bevel eye, but some professional sewers prefer a guttered eye
(a small, round eye with a long groove beneath; g. 3.2b). Betweens are widely
used by experienced needlewomen and by tailors; they resemble sharps but are
shorter, coming in sizes 812 for delicate domestic sewing and in middle sizes,
57, for quilting (hence these sizes are sometimes called quilting needles). As
with sharps, most betweens have bevel eyes, but some are made with guttered
eyes. Shorter than sharps, they are also stronger, enabling the sewer to do ne
stitching on heavy fabrics. Blunts are shorter and thicker than betweens, being
made in sizes 19 only, and are used by tailors. Because they have extra-strong
points, blunts are suited for heavy work, such as bed-ticks, shoe-binding, and stay-
making. Work such as hat-making and basting require needles of extra length,
termed milliners or straw needles. These are long versions of sharps, made with
a bevel or guttered eye in sizes 110.23
A novelty introduced in the 1850s was the calyx-eyed needle, whose blunt end
terminated in a V-shaped notch that was slit so that thread, when pressed down-
ward into the notch, could be sprung into the eye. Such needles were marketed
for those with failing eyesight and as a solution for threading a ne needle. Vari-
 The Needle 53

Table 3.1 Manufacturers size scale for needles

Sewing needle Tapestry and Diameter Diameter

scale chenille scale (in.) (mm)

6/0 (heavy) 13 .092 2.34

5/0 14 .080 2.03
4/0 15 .072 1.83
3/0 16 .064 1.63
2/0 17 .056 1.42
1/0 18 .050 1.27
1 19 .046 1.27
2 20 .043 1.09
3 21 .040 1.02
4 22 .037 0.94
5 (medium) 23 .034 0.86
6 24 .030 0.76
7 25 .027 0.69
8 26 .024 0.61
9 .021 0.53
10 .018 0.46
11 .016 0.42
12 .014 0.35
13 .012 0.30
14 .011 0.28
15 .010 0.25
16 (very ne) .009 0.23

ous other needle-threading devices were eventually replaced by a simple wire on

a small metal, cardboard, or plastic holder.24
Sewing needles of gold and silver were produced for the tropical climates of
many of the British colonies and elsewhere; unlike steel needles, these would
not rust in conditions of high humidity.25

darning and embroidery needles

The needles principally used are tapestry needles, which are thick and blunt, and
have a long open eye.Sharps, which are similar needles with sharp points, and are
used for working on thicker substances than canvas,as cloth, &c.; and short long
eyes, which are used for the same purpose, and are like common needles, but very
short, and with long eyes.
mrs. ann s. stephens, The Ladies Complete Guide to Crochet,
Fancy Knitting, and Needlework, 1854
54 The Needle

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Fig. 3.2 a, bevel eye typical of sewing needles; b, short and long darning needles.

Never work with too small a needle, as it will drag the material, and produce an
unpleasant eect.
jane eyre, Needles and Brushes and How to Use Them:
A Manual of Fancy Work, 1887

For worsted work a rather coarse darning needle should be used, and for oss silk a
ne one. A large round eyed needle is necessary for chenille and three corded silk.
If the needle is too large, besides being clumsy, it will make a hole in the work.
The Ladies Self Instructor in Millinery and Mantua Making, Embroidery
and Applique, Canvas-Work, Knitting, Netting and Crochet-Work, 1853

Darning or mending and embroidery needles have a long eye, to take wool and
stranded cotton (g. 3.3). Darners for domestic use are made in sizes 14 (large)
to 12 (small). Sizes 1418 (large) are sometimes called wool or yarn darners, sizes
112 cotton darners. Double-long darners, for tough work or for spanning large
holes, are made in sizes 14 (large) to 9 (small). Embroidery or crewel needles are
for most ordinary embroidery work, coming in sizes 112 in the same lengths as
sharps, but with a long (darner) eye to facilitate threading of stranded threads and
silks. These are sometimes called Long-eyed sharps or Whitechapel num-
bers 110; some have gold burnished on the eye, along with grooves, to ease the
passage of the thread. Some women preferred to use embroidery needles for ordi-
nary sewing because they were easier to thread. The slight bulge around the long
eye tends to make a largish hole in the material on which it is used, however, so
this use was not recommended. Extra-short embroidery needles called primary
needles were made exclusively for schoolgirls; these were easy for small ngers
to thread and to use. Beading needles, similar to very ne double-long darners,
were made in very ne gauges from sizes 10 to 16 (small) for work with sequins,
beads, and ne lacework.26

tapestry or art needles

Tapestry needles, as their name implies, are used for tapestry work employ-
ing wool on a scrim or net base; they are sometimes called rug needles. Made in
 The Needle 55

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Fig. 3.3 The ve main types of needle eyes. Left to right: bevel; guttered; grooveless;
long; tapestry. Sewing needles tend to have a bevel eye and lack any bulge around the
eye to prevent the needle from dragging through or leaving a conspicuous
hole in the material. (After Milward n.d.:9)

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Fig. 3.4 The three principal types of needle points. Left to right: normal; tapestry;
glovers. The normal has a long and gradual taper to ease passage through the material
and sharpness on the extreme point to eect initial penetration; the tapestry point has
a gradual taper to a shoulder and blunted point for use on a net or scrim base; and the
glovers needle has a cutting edge reaching to the point, to prevent tearing
of the leather. (After Milward n.d.:10)

sizes 1326, they have blunt rounded points and an especially large tapestry eye
(extra-long and extra-wide) to facilitate threading the wool (g. 3.4). Chenille
needles, used for embroidery on linen, canvas, and other woven materials, are
identical to tapestry needles but have a sharp or normal needle point. The terms
cross stitch needle without point or with point were sometimes used to describe
tapestry and chenille needles, respectively.
56 The Needle

specialty needles
There is a wide range of specialty needles, used for any number of tasks, most
having nothing to do with home sewing (g. 3.5). By the nineteenth century
manufacturers of specialty needles produced elaborately illustrated trade cata-
logs that advertised a dizzying array of needle types. To give just a hint of the
variety a retailer could choose from, I list many of the types of needles advertised
by Julius Berbecker and Son of New York in its undated trade catalog (probably
early twentieth century; table 3.2).
The range of specialty needles shown here represents only a small selection
of special-purpose needles with distinctive characteristics that made them suit-
able to their intended tasks. Any of these types of needles might be found on
archaeological sites of a domestic, commercial, craft-industrial, or military char-
acter, although some are so specialized that one would expect to nd them only
at sites where they were made or sold or where the special activity for which
they were intended was carried out. For example, glovers needles, made in two
lengths (sizes 3/09), have a bevel eye and a triangular point with cutting edges
that taper gradually to an extreme point (g. 3.5a). The cutting edges insure that
the leather is cut, not torn, by the needles penetration. Sail needles range from
two and a quarter inches to four and a quarter inches in length (English gauge
sizes 7 and 917), have a somewhat elongated, guttered oval eye and a point with
a triangular cross-section, the better for piercing canvas (g. 3.5b). Lace needles
are very long (seven and a half inches) and ne and made with a grooveless eye
in special gauges numbered in reverse direction from normal (table 3.3). Gimp
needles are intended to take thick thread (gimp thread ) used in making button-
holes and are made only in heavy gauges, 1318.27
Upholsterers needles come in a variety of shapes and sizes, all with smooth,
oval eyes (g 3.5c). The catalog of upholsterers needles published by Julius Ber-
becker and Son lists and illustrates six types of straight needles: single round
point, single three-square point, double round point, double three-square point,
double three-square point grip, and single three-square and spear-point grip. Sin-
gles have only one point; doubles have a point at either end. A round point is the
normal needle point, while a three-square point is triangular in cross-section and
a spear-point has a diamond-shaped cross-section. The rst four types come in
light, heavy, and extra light, the last two only in heavy and light weights. Straight
upholsterers needles come in sizes ranging from four to twenty inches long.
Curved upholsterers needles come in the following forms: single round point
(regular and extra quality curved or cord needles), single three-square point,
and double round point (heavy only). Curved leather needles are made from at
wire.
 The Needle 57

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Fig. 3.5 Specialty needles: a, glovers needle; b, sail needle; c, upholsterers needles
(top to bottom: straight single round point, straight single three-square point, straight
double round point, straight double three-square point, curved single round point, and
curved single three-square point); d, collar needles (left, full curved; right, half
curved); e, pack needle; f, brush or matting needles (top, ordinary eye; bottom,
long oval eye). (After Berbecker and Son n.d.)

Collar needles range from four to seven inches in length and come in full
curved and half-curved versions (g. 3.5d). Regulating needles are made of
forged cast steel and have a thick, attened end with a relatively small, oval eye.
Carpet needles are made of extra-silver steel, with an oval eye, in round point
and three-square point models.
58 The Needle

Table 3.2 A list of specialty needles available from the rm of Julius Berbecker and Son

Upholsterers Regulating needles, forged cast steel and

straight single round point tempered
light light
heavy heavy
extra light
straight single 3-square point Carpet needles (extra silver steel, oval eye)
light round point, 3-square point
heavy Ham bag needles
extra light
straight double round point Packing needles
light light
heavy heavy
extra light Bagging needles, American pattern
straight double 3-square point
light Flour needles
heavy
extra light Bagging needles, best cast steel, with
straight double 3-square point grip spring eye and cutter
heavy straight
light bent
curved single round point
light Sail needles, extra ne quality, cast steel
heavy forged (reduced edge)
extra light Harness needles, best cast steel
curved single 3-square point
light Sadlers needles, best cast steel
heavy
extra light Glovers needles
curved double round point
heavy Long darning needles
extra quality curved or cord, single Short darning needles
round point
xx light Embroidery needles
xxx light
curved leather Light carpet or milliners needles
heavy Broom needles
light Brush needles
Bag machine needles
Collar needles, full curved Steel sail hooks with brass swivel
Collar needles, half curved Light and heavy double points made in
short and long points

Source: Berbecker and Son n.d.

 The Needle 59

Table 3.3 Size scale for lace needles

Gauges

In inches .010 .011 .012 .014 .014 .016 .018 .021 .021
Size 2/0 1/0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Bagging and packing or pack needles are generally used to stitch together bales
of goods shipped for trade (g 3.5e). They are often found at fur-trade posts in
the Americas and are sometimes listed in probate inventories of traders goods,
such as that of Edward Wharton, recorded in Essex County, Massachusetts, in
16771678, which listed goods on consignment in old England as well as goods
in New England, among the latter 6 doz. pack needles, 5s., along with soweing
needles, 6d. An example identied as a baling needle was found in excavations
in the kitchen area of the British North West Companys trading headquarters at
Grand Portage, Minnesota. It was ve inches long and made from a round steel
rod hammered into a diamond-shaped cross-section.28
Matting needles are extremely long needles (eleven to twelve inches in length)
used for weaving mats (brush needles, g. 3.5f, fall into the same general cate-
gory as matting needles; they do not require tapered sharp points); the indige-
nous peoples of North America used long bone needles to weave bullrush mats.
By the middle of the nineteenth-century mat-weavers had shifted from bone to
iron needles once fur traders recognized that there was a ready market for them.
Needles of various sizes are also used in thatching; thatchers employ needles to
hold bundles of thatching material in place on a roof and for inserting tarred
twine in the thatch.29
Yet another type of specialty needle that deserves mention has nothing to do
with sewing or needlework. Culinary or esh needles used in cookery (for ex-
ample, for securing the stung inside a turkey or chicken) are large needles with
large eyes and often with curved three- or four-square points similar to those on
upholstery needles (g. 3.6); although I have not seen any reported in the litera-
ture, it is altogether possible that such needles might be found in archaeological
contexts.

knitting needles
Knitting is an ancient technique and has been practiced by many cultures, but
even though knitting was common and widespread, archaeological nds of knit-
ting tools are rare. Often, the evidence for knitting appears in the form of scraps
of garments recovered from contexts with good preservation conditions for tex-
60 The Needle

Fig. 3.6 Culinary or esh needles available from the Friedrick Dick Company catalog,
c. 1912. (Courtesy The Winterthur Library: Printed Book and Periodical Collection)

tiles. Such contexts tend to be waterlogged and cessy (in other words, from
cesspits or privies), leaving us to surmise that the textile scraps may have been
recycled for purposes of personal hygiene. It is therefore not surprising that knit-
ting needles seldom accompany garment fragments in such deposits.30
Although its origins have not so far been traced with any great success, knit-
ting seems to have been a logical development out of netting, and an early vari-
ant of knitting known as nlebinding (knotless netting) or looped needle netting,
employing a single coarse needle, was common in northern Europe during the
Middle Ages. This technique was used for making stockings and gloves, and in
Norway many milk-straining clothes were made in this way. At Jorvik (Viking York
in England), a rare example of a complete woolen sock in nlebinding dating
to the tenth century was found, but needles used in nlebinding remain elusive.
The art of knitting with two (or more) needles spread throughout Europe in the
fteenth and sixteenth centuries.31
Most knitting needles are straight, slender rods tapered at either end, vary-
ing in length and diameter according to the sort of work being done, though
straight needles can be either single or double-pointed. Knitting needles have
been and continue to be made in a wide range of materialsincluding wood,
bone, steel, aluminum, and plasticcertain materials being better suited to one
sort of work than another. Wooden needles were usually made only in the largest
sizes, in matched pairs, and were used for at work. The length of the needles
used depends both on the article being constructed and the preference of the
knitter, as some people are more comfortable working with long needles and
others with short ones. The diameter of the needle varies according to the sort
of work being done; standard gauges for knitting needle sizes exist, though the
U.S. standard diers from the English standard. English standard gauge sizes 1
24 run from largest to smallest (about .31 to .08 inches in diameter), while U.S.
sizes 010 1/2 are numbered from smallest to largest. Double-pointed straight
needles, sometimes called sock needles, are used in sets of four or ve to pro-
 The Needle 61

duce work in the round, such as socks or mittens. Some knitting needles have a
knob at one end, in which case they might be called knitting pins; such straight
needles with single points are used for producing at work and are among the
most common of knitting needles used today. Whether this was the case in the
past is dicult to determine from existing evidence. Circular knitting needles
used for constructing seamless tubular articles are made of exible materials such
as metal, nylon, or plastic; these curve in a complete circle but nevertheless have
two pointed ends.32
The earliest examples of knitted garments are from the mid-third century ad,
from Dura-Europus in Syria. Both surviving textiles and wall murals reveal that
knitting was well established in the Near East by the rst century ad. Although
the rst knitting needles were probably made of bone, as noted above, over time
they have been made of a wide array of materials, including wood, steel, cellu-
loid, and so on. A Roman knitting needle was found at Silchester, England, in
excavations that took place between 1874 and 1878; it is made of a copper alloy,
eleven and a half inches long, with a rounded point at either end, and a maxi-
mum diameter of slightly over a tenth of an inch. The gauge comes out to be
about size 11 in the modern English system, size 2 in the U.S. system.33
Two copper-alloy needles were found together in an excavation layer dated
to the late fourteenth century in Viking York; this layer has been interpreted as
representing the oor of a tenement. The needles are slender rods, about eight
inches long, that taper to a rounded tip at each end. Though they are the same
length, the needles vary in diameter (.10 of an inch and .07 of an inch, respec-
tively) and hence correspond to English size 12 and 14 knitting needles. Histori-
ans of knitting puzzle over whether these two needles could possibly have been
a set, because in contemporary knitting it is critical for a pair of needles to be
identical in both length and diameter. So little is known about how people actu-
ally went about knitting in earlier times that it is a matter of some debate, espe-
cially given the likelihood that the wool yarn used by early knitters was unlikely
to have been of standard gauge.34
If the relative rarity of knitting needles from archaeological sites results from
poor preservation conditions, then it makes sense that they will be found in
greater numbers at more recent sites, for instance, those dating to the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries. A single bone knitting needle was found in the under-
oor accumulation from the third quarter of the nineteenth century at the Arms-
den house, part of the Cumberland/Gloucester Street sites in the Rocks neigh-
borhood of Sydney, Australia. Wooden knitting needles were recovered from
late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century sites excavated in advance of the
Cypress Freeway Relocation Project in West Oakland, California. Single needles
62 The Needle

were found in a privy associated with the French family (about 1880) and a well
associated with the Curtis household (about 1890). The well of the Pullman
Hotel, lled about 1905, contained ve knitting needles, while the Railroad Ex-
change Hotel well, lled about 1880, produced thirteen needles. Some of the
needles in these larger groupings were of the same size and hence may have con-
stituted matched sets of knitting needles, but it seems likely that most of these
items were lost rather than deliberately discarded. Careful study of the needle
sizes (gauges) could produce information about the sorts of garments or other
items (for example, small handbags) they were used to produce. Two examples
are noted as having diameters of an eighth of an inch, corresponding to U.S. knit-
ting needle size 10, which is very large. The West Oakland knitting needles are
all of wood; as noted above, wooden needles tend to come in large sizes and to
be used for producing large atwork items.35

tambour hooks
Tambour work was all the rage in the eighteenth century, in Europe as well as
among the elite in Europes colonies. The term tambour comes from the French
word for drum, referring to the drum-shaped frame, sometimes on a stand, upon
which the work was done. The tambour-worker holds the hook in her right hand
above the frame, in a more or less vertical position, and with the left hand guides
the thread underneath the frame. The resulting work resembles the chain stitch
in embroidery. In the middle of the eighteenth century, some tambour-workers
used a specially designed open-ended thimble with a deep notch in its center
front. The needle was kept in the notch and guided down by means of it. The
tambour hook itself consisted either of a handle and hook all in one piece or,
more commonly, a handle into which a steel hook was tted, often being held
in position by a small wing nut (g. 3.7). The handle swells out at one end to en-
sure a rm grip and often was made hollow to hold the long, ne blades of the
hooks, or tambour needles, when they were not in use. Often a point protector
was screwed over the actual hook when it was not in use; this could be screwed on
to the top part of the handle when the work was being done. Indeed, an elegant
ivory handle for a tambour hook recovered from Feature H, a privy in an alley
between Baxter and Pearl Streets in New Yorks Five Points neighborhood, lled
before 1890, has screw threads at its top intended for just this purpose. Like some
early tambour hooks, especially early-eighteenth-century French ones, the Five
Points example was elaborately decorated. An early-nineteenth-century tambour
hook handle found in the cabin referred to as Triplex Middle at the Hermitage
in Tennessee, interpreted as the home of an enslaved African woman who pos-
 The Needle 63

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Fig. 3.7 English tambour hook (17801820) with steel needle portion xed
to a carved and stained bone handle. (Courtesy The Winterthur Museum,
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Edgar Sittig)

sessed advanced skills as a seamstress and needlewoman, is simpler yet elegantly

lathe-turned in a series of cordons and balusters.36

crochet hooks
Hints on Crochet. A steel crochet-needle is generally advisable;with expert
workers, it makes the most even stitches, but it is easier to work with an ivory needle.
miss lambert, My Crochet Sampler, 1849

Miss Lambert, whose hints on crochet appear in her charming My Crochet

Sampler, denes crochet as a species of knitting originally practised by the peas-
ants in Scotland with a small hooked needle called a shepherds hook. It seems
likely, however, that crochet is as ancient as knitting and may derive from it be-
cause it is a similarly simple technique. Early crochet hooks normally came in
two parts, consisting of a handle into which dierent-sized steel hooks were tted,
and many early handles were hollow so that the spare hooks could be stored in
them. Initially the hooks were held fast in the handle by a wing nut, but this was
superseded by a simple metal tting into which the steel hooks could be slotted.
Eventually the handle and hook were made in one piece, albeit of diering ma-
terials, and by around 1800 the crochet hook made of the same material overall,
usually ivory, bone, or steel, came into common use.37
Crochet hooks have been made of a wide variety of materials and come in
many sizes, ranging from a very ne steel hook for ne threads to large wooden
64 The Needle

ones for coarser yarns. Typical materials include bone, aluminum, plastic, steel,
and wood. The dening characteristic of the crochet hook is of course its hooked
end; on special hooks for working the afghan stitch the hook tends to be large,
nine to fourteen inches long, and the shaft straight and even. Crochet hooks are
sized both by numbers equivalent to those used to gauge knitting needles and
by letter, running from smallest to largest from A to K.38
Crochet hooks are rarely reported in the archaeological literature. It is di-
cult to identify a cylindrical shaft as a crochet hook if the hook end is missing,
but intact examples provide clear evidence of the sort of crochet work for which
the hook was intended and what sort of yarn or thread would have been used
in conjunction with it. The bone handle of what was possibly a crochet hook
was recovered during excavations at Champlains Habitation at Place-Royale in
Qubec City, but without its hook we can say little else about it.39
The Triplex Middle cabin at the Hermitage in Tennessee produced many arti-
facts of needlework and sewing, some of them mass-produced; among the hand-
crafted items was a crochet hook with a at handle. The atness of the tools
handle would have required a dierent grip and a somewhat dierent set of motor
skills than a typical cylindrical hook, and it is interesting to consider what the
resulting work would have looked like; archaeologist Jillian Galle notes that this
tool might have been employed alternatively to pull thread through eyelets or
in other forms of openwork. Excavations in the South of Market neighborhood
of San Francisco produced many sewing-related artifacts from households of
an ethnically diverse nineteenth-century working-class community; in deposits
from ve households there were bone crochet hooks and from two others, nely
turned bone handles into which steel crochet hooks would have tted. The bone
crochet hooks are about four inches long and only three-sixteenths of an inch
in diameter, and their hooks are tiny; they are polished from use. Such ne-
gauge hooks would have been used with ne thread or exceedingly ne yarn for
fashioning popular Victorian decorative items like doilies, tablecloths, and anti-
macassars, or for hairnets and baby clothes.40

netting needles
Netting is among the most ancient of crafts that use ber to create a loosely
woven product suitable for many purposes, and the spread of netting as a tech-
nique may have followed the spread of hemp cultivation from central or south-
central Asia by early Neolithic times to Europe, Tibet, and China. String skirts
and hairnets of twisted ber string have been documented as early as the Gravet-
tian phase of the Upper Paleolithic (that is, at least by 15,000 bc and perhaps
earlier than 20,000 bc) in Europe. Nets, of course, were used for shing and
 The Needle 65

for hunting as well as for containers of various sorts, and the style and thickness
of netting diered dramatically depending on the nature and size of the bers,
thread, or yarn used and the size of the openings in the net.41
The earliest netting tool was likely a simple shuttle with a V-shaped notch at
either end, used in combination with a short gauge made of wood or bone. As
ner meshes were required, a ner implement was needed, and so the netting
needle came into use. A netting needle is usually made of iron, bone, or wood
and is in essence a long, thin needle with a large, attened or spatulate, open,
forklike or pronged eye at either end. Thread was wound from one prong down
the blade to the other prong and back again, until the needle was full and ready
for use. Netting needles and their accompanying gauges vary in length accord-
ing to the neness of the work to be done, the needles ranging from three to four
inches to eight to ten inches long. The gauge, also called a mesh or spool, was
usually pointed at both ends and served as a base upon which the loops were
formed, ensuring that they would all be the same size and could be easily slipped
o. Flat, rulerlike tools with a groove along one side were used as gauges for the
fringes that nished o many net-work articles.42
Because most netting tools were made of perishable organic materials (wood
being most common), they are not commonly found on terrestrial sites unless
they are made of metal. In fact, despite the near ubiquity of net-making across
cultures and throughout time, the tools appropriate to the task make little more
than cameo appearances in the medieval and postmedieval archaeological lit-
erature. An object made of bone and identied as a yarn twister was recovered
from a sixteenth-century site in Trondheim, Norway. It has a pronged end, but its
shaft is broken, so it is impossible to know if the other end of the implement took
the same form. Nevertheless, it is a good candidate for a bone netting needle,
and as potential supporting evidence, many shing-related artifacts were found
in the excavations (a sh hook, boat rivets, reels, and other objects). A copper-
alloy netting needle, bent but about ve inches long, with prongs or forks at
either end, was found in layers dating about 12001230 at the site of Weoley
Castle, Birmingham, England. A copper-alloy object found at the seventeenth-
century site of Renews, Newfoundland, has been identied as a possible net-
ting needle, although exact matches have not yet been found; this identica-
tion is somewhat problematic given that the extant end of the implement takes
the form of a closed rectangle rather than the pronged-fork shape typical of net-
ting needles. The implement is just under thirteen inches long, although be-
cause it was broken this is not its full length. The fact that the site at Renews
was a shermans dwelling is the chief rationale for calling this item a netting
needle.43
66 The Needle

bodkins
She shall have a rough Demicastor with a sugarloaf crown, coifs and cross-cloaths
numberless, a silver Bodkin to rectify her stairing hairs, new Neats-leather shooes
that creak, and murrey worsed stockings.
john dryden, The Mistaken Husband, 1675

One expert on needlework tools states atly that the only dierence between
a bodkin and a needle is size, although some bodkins made for threading rib-
bons were at and others may terminate in a knob, but it is worth noting that
the term bodkin has multiple meanings. As a result, any early reference to these
implements must therefore be read with care and interpreted according to the
immediate context. The same holds true for interpreting archaeologically re-
covered bodkins, although of course archaeological contexts seldom equate with
use contexts.44
Bodkins were used by both men and women for dunning in drawstrings and
for threading and re-threading ribbons, cords, and laces; their chief purpose has
always been to thread bands or cords through corsets and bodices. The term
bodkin also referred to hairpins (as in the above quotation from Dryden) and to
sharp, stiletto-like daggers. The type of bodkin used for lacing up clothing lacks
the sharp, tapered point of the stiletto (although it may have enough of a point
to do double duty as an awl) and, unlike a decorative hairpin, has an elongated
eye through which lacing or cord can be threaded.45
Geraint Jenkins, in his book Traditional Country Craftsmen, notes that a kind
of bodkin is used in osier basket-making; to make openings in the weave for the
insertion of rods the craftsman uses a wooden, iron, or bone bodkin, which varies
in length from three to ten inches. What is more, awls used in traditional leather-
work and boot-making may closely resemble bodkins, although in those trades a
wide variety of awls would be used.46
A pierced bone bodkin, rather crudely made but well polished from use, was
found at the medieval village site of Pevensey, Sussex. Those of the mid-seven-
teenth century can be quite large, sometimes more than seven inches long, some-
times with an ear-spoon or earscoop at one end. The earscoop was designed to
gather earwax for use on sewing thread, to keep the cut ends from unraveling.
Well-to-do women were likely to purchase beeswax for this purpose, but earwax
was thrifty and readily availableand cleaning out the ears contributed to per-
sonal hygiene.47
Silver bodkins with initials and other inscriptions, though relatively rare and
highly valued in the seventeenth century, were popular after 1750; these were
made as presents and souvenirs and were stamped with phrases and the like. By
 The Needle 67

the late eighteenth century, bodkins were shorter but were still handmade and
thick in section compared with later tools. Bone bodkins with simple or no deco-
ration continued to be made into the nineteenth century, but mechanization of
the needle mills brought about the production of metal bodkins in mass quanti-
ties, some of which were stamped. Bodkins found a new use upon the invention
of elastic in 1840, and after 1900 many were sold on cards as ribbon threaders
and given fanciful names.48
Though bodkins are relatively rare nds, they do turn up at medieval and
postmedieval sites often enough to excite the interest of nds specialists. Sev-
eral examples from the Chesapeake (for example, three silver and four copper-
alloy bodkins from Jamestown and a copper-alloy bodkin from Jordans Journey,
both in Virginia) have been identied as headdress pins and noted as artifacts re-
ecting social status. The notion that the bodkins found on seventeenth-century
Chesapeake sites are headdress pins arises chiey from North American archae-
ologists reliance on a single publication that contains a somewhat misleading
treatment of bodkins in a study of items of personal adornment from medieval
and postmedieval sites in Norwich, England. The treatment is misleading be-
cause the actual nds are not illustrated; rather, a Dutch painting showing a
woman wearing a bejeweled silver hairpin (which could quite easily be a fully
useful bodkin tucked up under her cap) and a monogrammed silver bodkin
found in Norfolk are used as illustrations to support the interpretation of the
Norwich nds. The excavated Norwich bodkins were all made of base metal
copper alloyand according to the published descriptions, all had rectangular
eyes, and one had an earscoop. This suggests that they were ordinary bodkins for
lacing and dunning-in purposes (and for personal hygiene) and would have had
little cachet as hair ornaments.49
Seventeenth-century Dutch artists painted both young and mature women
wearing bodkins tucked into their caps; the costumes and the settingsas well
as the quality of the bodkins or headdress pinsdepict a range of economic and,
presumably, social standings among the sitters. Most fancy headdress pins, espe-
cially bejeweled ones, are worn by well-to-do women. Judith Leysters painting
Joyful Company (1630), however, shows a woman of middling or perhaps lower
status wearing a hairdress pin with a decorative tip and lacking an eye. This
most denitely seems to be of the hairpin variety and not for other purposes.
Other Dutch bodkins were multipurpose tools. In the village of Hindelopen in
Friesland bodkins were worn threaded through the cords of the bodice; mar-
ried women wore their bodkins on the right-hand side of the bodice, unmarried
women on the left. Some bodkins were also used as hair needles, tucked under
the cap (in some parts of the Netherlands a womans marital status was indicated
68 The Needle

by whether she wore her bodkin on the left or the right side of her cap), and nely
made decorative bodkins, usually of silver, might have a second hole near the
end through which a jewel could be depended. Randle Holme, in his Academy
of Armory (1688), illustrates a rather chunky bodkin and calls it a hairpin, but
he also notes that the term bodkin was applied to several rather dierent objects.
It therefore is unfortunate that North American archaeologists have tended to
use the Norwich households study so uncritically and to embrace a somewhat
rigid line of interpretation about bodkins; bodkins are in truth more interesting
and complicated cultural artifacts than one might think. Bodkins were impor-
tant and highly charged personal possessions; they were not all hairdress pins,
and not all bodkins were, as a class of object, equally suited to social display.50
Excavated seventeenth-century silver bodkins at times bear the initials or
name of their former owners, in most cases not engraved by a silversmith but in-
scribed or scratched into them by inexpert hands. Linking the names or initials
to specic individuals can seem a daunting task, but archaeologists who suc-
ceed in making connections between the small objects and their former users
are sometimes able to reconstruct lost biographies of women whose lives are
not chronicled in traditional histories. A distinctive silver bodkin inscribed
zarra*rvlofsen was recovered during excavations at a historic-period Oneida
Indian village in the 1960s; when nds specialist Meta Janowitz learned of the
bodkins existence, the name inscribed on it struck a chord. Janowitz specializes
in Dutch colonial archaeology and has studied the artifacts recovered from many
large excavation projects at sites in New Amsterdam, among them the Broad Fi-
nancial Center site, former location of the headquarters of the Dutch West India
Company on Manhattan Island. She knew that a Sara Roelofs (also known as
Roelo or Roelosen), who was the daughter of the minister of the Dutch Re-
formed Church, married Hans Kierstede, a surgeon, in 1642. They moved into
a house on the Strand, very close to the West India Company headquarters and
warehouses; a privy in the rear of the Kierstede home lot, excavated during the
Broad Financial Center project, produced many artifacts dating from between
1670 and 1710, when Sara Roelofs lived at the site with her second and third hus-
bands and her children. It seems that before her marriage to Kierstede, she had
spent time among Native Americans and learned their language; she later served
as interpreter for Peter Stuyvesant, governor of New Netherlands, during nego-
tiations with native leaders. This perhaps accounts for the isolated nd of a silver
bodkin bearing her name in an Oneida site far from the city of New Amsterdam:
the bodkin may have been presented as a gift or special token of friendship. For
Sara Roelofs it surely was a treasured personal possession. Curiosity about the
bodkins former owner has led Janowitz to conduct intensive research and bring
to light many details of the life of this complex and fascinating woman.51
 The Needle 69

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Fig. 3.8 Detail of copper-alloy bodkin, formerly tinned or plated with silver, recovered
from a late-seventeenth-century trash deposit at the site of Charles Gift in St. Marys
County, Maryland. The initials SS are probably those of Susannah Sewall.
Scale in centimeters. (Courtesy Naval Air Station Patuxent River, MD)

Two other seventeenth-century bodkins oer similar possibilities for inves-

tigating lost biographies of early colonial womenalthough in both cases the
possibilities remain unexplored. A site investigated before the expansion of the
Ocers Club at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station in St. Marys County,
Maryland, produced extensive evidence of the late-seventeenth-century occu-
pation of land patented to William Eltonhead in 1648; in 1668 the property
known by the name of the Mannor of Little Eltonhead was awarded to Jane
Sewall, who renamed the parcel Charles Gift in honor of her second husband,
Charles Calvert. The property devolved to Janes son, Major Nicolas Sewall, who
became embroiled in the political struggles between Catholics and Protestants
and between colonists and local Indians that overtook Maryland at the end of
the century. What is important for our purposes is that among the thousands of
artifacts recovered from a late-seventeenth-century trash deposit at the site was
a bodkin bearing the initials SS (g. 3.8). It seems likely that the bodkin once
belonged to Nicolas Sewalls wife, Susannah, whose initials were chiseled, not
engraved, into the bodkin. It is also intriguing that the SS bodkin is made of
copper-alloy with silver or tin plating, for the Sewalls were wealthy and of high
social standing. Other nds from the site include elegant items of personal adorn-
ment, ne ceramics, book clasps, and a rare pipe clay statuette representing the
British monarch. A woman of Susannah Sewalls status would likely own a silver
bodkin, yet the one discarded at the site was an imitation, not the genuine article.
The fact that her initials were chiseled, not inscribed, makes the object all the
more personal, but the method of personalizing the object was also less costly
than inscription by a silversmith or goldsmith. Little is known about Susannah
Sewalls life and how she and her children fared while her husband was pre-
occupied with political troubles, especially when the family was left behind at
70 The Needle

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Fig. 3.9 A silver bodkin recovered from ll of Bostons Mill Pond. Its form and style are
typical of seventeenth-century bodkins; it is monogrammed with the initials EI.
(Courtesy Massachusetts Historical Commission)

Charles Gift when he was forced to ee to Virginia. Research might shed light
on why the bodkin seems to indicate small measures of thrift alongside eorts
toward the appropriate and fashionable presentation of self.52
At the Mill Pond site in Boston, Massachusetts, archaeologists explored fea-
tures built on original land along the Mill Ponds shoreline as well as structures
built in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries as shoreline revetments
and to receive ll to create new land. Soil within the land-making structures con-
tained artifacts representing the rubbish of Bostonians daily lives, commerce,
and industry. Among the most personal of nds was a silver bodkin of late-seven-
teenth-century date bearing the initials EIor perhaps EJ, since in the seven-
teenth century a J was often written as an I with cross-marks through it. Here
again the initials seem to have been scratched or chiseled in after the item was
produced, as a means of linking it to its owner. The eye of this bodkin is broken
and twisted, and this may be why an otherwise valuable and useful object was
discarded. We do not know who owned this bodkin, but it is evident that women
in early Boston, like women elsewhere, treasured their bodkins enough to per-
sonalize them and probably used them in social display.53

NEEDL E C ASES A ND NEEDL E PAC K AG I NG

It is dicult to say exactly when people would have been able to purchase
needles in ready-made packaging; it seems that up through the eighteenth cen-
tury, at the very least, dry goods dealers received needles wrapped in small paper
packets, and sometimes they show up this way in probate inventories. The de-
tailed inventory of John Lowell of Newbury, Massachusetts, dated 1647, lists a
 The Needle 71

boxe4 papers of needles, 4s. Among the stored items in the collections at the
Winterthur Museum is a box full of once ne but now-rusted sewing needles
separated into packets made of folded blue paper (g. 3.10).54
Needles, like pins, were at rst relatively expensive items and all too easily lost;
needlecases and pin poppets were necessary accessories for almost every woman
from very early in time.

Since for many centuries even the simplest tools, such as needles or pins, were
scarce and dicult to come by, they were treated with considerably more care
and respect than they receive at our hands today, and thus for reasons of both
safety and convenience it was necessary for women to carry their sewing im-
plements about with them. In the earliest forms of garment worn in Western
civilisation, pockets are non-existent, and any articles, such as combs, work
tools, knives, were attached by chains or cords to the waistbands of both males
and females.55

In chapter 1 I discussed how prominently needlework, particularly embroi-

dery, gured among desirable female accomplishments in medieval and early
modern Europe and in its colonies: it is not surprising, therefore, that needle-
cases were worn by women from chatelaines as a status symbol as well as for
convenience. 56
Tubular bronze cases found with needles still in them are common nds from
the Viking period in Europe, and a typical example of such a needlecase was
found in the ninth-century Viking occupation phase at High Street in Dublin,
Ireland. It would have been closed by a plug or bung at one or both ends and
was worn suspended from a ring at its midsection so that it hung horizontally.57
Few needlecases are known from late medieval sites, likely because many were
made of organic materials that have decayed; only ve examples have been iden-
tied in deposits from London. The earliest of these was found in a pit lled in
during the twelfth century and was made from the long bone of a bird; it was
pierced in the center of the shaft with two pairs of holes. Metal rings would have
been inserted through the holes to allow the case to be suspended from a chain or
girdle, along with other implements like cosmetic sets, keys, and so on. Because
this needlecase was fashioned from a segment of long bone, it required a plug
or closure at either end, or perhaps needles would have been inserted through
a scrap of textile that was placed inside the case. This example from London is
comparable to earlier examples from many sites in northern Europe as well as
one from Birka, Sweden, made of bird bone.58
The other examples from London came from deposits dated to the late thir-
teenth and late fourteenth centuries, and each had a slot in the side and a separate
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Fig. 3.10 A collection of needle packets from the Winterthur Museum collection.
These represent the practice of shopkeepers of purchasing needles in bulk, then
counting out a specic number of needles of a given size, carefully folding
them into paper packets, in this instance thick blue paper, for sale to customers.
(Courtesy The Winterthur Museum)
 The Needle 73

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Fig. 3.11 A lathe-turned bone needlecase from the St. Johns site (ST1-23-53C/CIA)
at St. Marys City, Maryland; length: 3.19 inches, exterior diameter 1 inch,
interior diameter 0.5 inch. Note screw threads at either end.
(Courtesy Historic St. Marys City)

cap. One case was made of calf leather, while three metal needlecases were fash-
ioned from thin copper-alloy sheeting. These had small slots made of an extra
strip of metal soldered onto either side of the main cylinder, through which a
thin cord or thong could be passed. The sheet-metal needlecases were folded or
rolled (the former being rectangular and the latter cylindrical) and the seams
soldered; none retained their caps, but one of the cylindrical needlecases had
a secondary compartment inside that still contained an iron needle made from
drawn wire, with the head attened and punched to form a tiny eye. The only
documentary evidence I have found for needlecases in North America is an entry
in the inventory of goods that belonged to John White, a tailor in Salem, Mas-
sachusetts, that was submitted in 1677; it notes a needle Case & 5 needles, 6s.
Since Whites total estate value was only ve pounds, six shillings, the needles
and case represented a good portion of the wealth he had in goods.59
Bone needlecases or pin poppets turn up regularly on colonial and later sites
in North America; indeed, almost every one of the fteen seventeenth-century
Chesapeake site collections I examined produced at least one turned bone pin
poppet (g. 3.11). Because so little is known about these objectswhere they
were manufactured and whenI have made every eort to track down informa-
tion about bone working, especially production of bone cylinders of this sort, in
hopes of shedding a little light on this category of artifact.
Bone artifacts are relatively common nds, but most worked bone objects re-
covered from sites in the Americas were intended as clothing fasteners. Some of
these are complete buttons in and of themselves, but many are single-hole bone
discs that were intended to serve as button blanks or button backs and would
have been covered with textile that matched the garment onto which they were
74 The Needle

sewn. Evidence for manufacture of bone buttons or button blanks, consisting of

the artifacts as well as manufacturing waste (usually at portions of cattle bone,
though other mammal, and even reptile, bone was used at times), is often found
in contexts associated with plantation workshops or with the living quarters of
enslaved Africans (for example, at Brimstone Hill in St. Kitts, West Indies, at
Monticello in Virginia) as well as at the encampments and villages of free or self-
emancipated Africans (for example, Fort Mose in Florida). This has given rise to
the interpretation that African craft workers fashioned these items, which they
undoubtedly did in some contexts, but similar deposits of manufacturing debris
have been found in Europe at both medieval and postmedieval sites as well as
from a number of late-eighteenth-century British and American military sites in
North America. Such waste is also found at almshouses and other institutional
sites.60
Bone button-making made use of at portions of animal bone that would
otherwise have been discarded as butchery waste, as did scale-making, that is, the
production of scales or side-plates for knife and fork handles. Horn was another
material used for making scales, although the horn had to be rendered at after
it was softened; large deposits of horn cores are often cited as evidence of the
initial steps in this process. But elsewhere there is evidence for bone working of
another sort, that is, the reworking of sawn cattle bone, especially metapodials,
into cylindrical objects that served various purposes. In cattle the metapodial is
the solid, straight bone right above the foot; it has a straight, hollow shaft. As a re-
sult, metapodials were commonly used for bone working, not just for making the
items listed above, but also for fashioning gaming pieces and other objects. Philip
Armitage has noted that the long, straight shaft of these bonescattle hind-limb
metatarsalswas ideal for turning on lathes to make knife handles and for split-
ting into slivers to make pins and bodkins.61
Early lathes are almost unknown from archaeological contexts, but the type
most likely used for bone turning before the late sixteenth century would have
been either pole lathes of the sort shown in early manuscript illustrations or
smaller bow-driven lathes. More ecient lathes were developed in the late six-
teenth century, permitting an increase in both output and elaboration of ex-
amples, including lathe-turned bone, ivory, and other material. Arthur Mac-
Gregor, in his comprehensive study of the technology of skeletal materials,
reviews the debate over whether the working of bone, antler, and ivory, and horn
in early times was merely a handicraft or a true industry. Bone turning clearly in-
volved skill, so it would not be done by just anyone who wanted to have an imple-
ment or object made of bone. But there is little conclusive evidence for the exis-
tence of a true industry for this work; rather, the archaeological evidence points
 The Needle 75

to itinerant craftsmen making objects on demand and leaving behind relatively

little waste and a few rough cuts. MacGregor thinks that many deposits cited as
evidence of bone or antler workshops are more likely representative of the eorts
of itinerant craftsmen rather than a full-scale industryalthough by the late six-
teenth century, because of the improvements in lathe technology, places such
as Nuremberg, Germany, became centers of ivory working.62
Abundant evidence of bone working and production of bone cylinders was
found in the Saxon settlement of Hamwih beneath modern Southampton, En-
gland, where at one site seven of eight pits examined were lled almost entirely
with sawn-o distal and proximal ends of mammal long bones. The archaeolo-
gists noted that the natural tubes resulting from the removal of the articular ends
of the bones could be used for handles, whistles, or hinges but do not suggest
they would have been made into needlecases. There was no evidence for the
manufacture of any nished articles on the site, leading to the assumption that
the shafts of the long bones were taken elsewhere in the settlement for the next
stage of manufacture. Other sites in Hamwih did produce a large range of objects
made from animal bone and antler, however, including weaving tools, spindle
whorls, handles, gaming pieces, combs, comb cases, and pins. At Hamwih, there
was a clear preference for making certain objects from specic bones: fused cattle
femurs for spindle whorls; cattle or horse metapodials for comb segments; and
antler for knife handles. Some of the bone pins were pierced and hence prob-
ably served as needles; others were fashioned like awls and have been interpreted
as pin-beaters or thread-pickers for use in textile manufacture[,] and the points
of these are frequently polished from contact with the yarn. 63
Extensive excavations in the western part of the fortied settlement of Oost-
Souburg, built in the late ninth century by local inhabitants on the former island
of Walcheren in the province of Zeeland, Netherlands, as a refuge against Viking
invasions, produced an impressive array of both manufactured bone artifacts and
waste from bone working dating to the tenth-century civilian occupation of the
site. The types of bone artifacts recovered included at least one comb (close in-
spection proved that most combs were made of antler, which is much tougher
than bone), thirteen needles and needle-shaped objects made from the bones
of large mammals (several from the pig bula, which is already needle-shaped,
and at least one from a cow metapodial), spindle whorls, several specimens of
an implement the archaeologists refer to as tridents, skates and prickers used by
skaters, a bead, a brooch, and a tubular ute-like object made of a sheep tibia.64
In Anglo-Danish York, England, antler [of red deer], and to a lesser extent
bone, was used for combs, knife-handles, game-pieces, pins, needles, and bod-
kins. Another use to which bone was put in Danish York was the production
76 The Needle

of skates, of which numerous examples have been found. Excavations on High

Street in Dublin produced evidence of intensive working of bone and antler from
the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries. Much of the material consists of comb-
makers waste and rejects; other objects made of bone and antler include game
pieces, dice, and objects decorated with dot-and-circle ornament that were ap-
parently intended for use as handles. Also found in eleventh- through twelfth-
century levels at High Street were carved bone trial-pieces (experimental or prac-
tice carvings); these are animal ribs or long bones inscribed with elaborate panels
of interlaced animals and geometric motifs.65
At Basing House, in Hampshire, England, in contexts dating about 15401645,
archaeologists found several bone objectscombs made from at sections of
bone as well as three turned bone cylinders, the function of which the archaeolo-
gists could not identify. All three are rather nely turned, with embellishments
such as baluster-type curves, beading, and cordons. Two have screw threads, indi-
cating that they may once have had tight-tting closures. These cylindrical bone
objects found at Basing House are the closest parallels I have found to the less-
elegant items from seventeenth-century sites in North America that have been
identied as needlecases (for example, a fragmentary example from the Jackson
House in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and another from Champlains Habi-
tation in Qubec City)although a rather sophisticated bone needlecase from
the late-seventeenth-century Josiah Winslow home site in Plymouth, Massachu-
setts, is similar to the Basing House examples, which, however, come from a do-
mestic rather than industrial context, thus bringing us no closer to knowing their
place of manufacture.66
Evidence of bone working during the mid- to late seventeenth century, in-
cluding sawn cattle metapodials, was found at the site of Bridewell Palace in
the City of London. Also in London, at the Royal Navy Victualling Yard oppo-
site Tower Hill in London, a depot established to supply Elizabethan eets with
meat products and other provisions, archaeologists found considerable evidence
for the manufacture of horn and bone objects. The middle period of occupa-
tion, 16351726, was remarkable for the increase in the number of sawn cattle
limb bones, indicating industrial production of some sort. Once again, nished
articles were not found in conjunction with the primary production phase.67
MacGregor, in his exhaustive typology of artifacts fashioned from skeletal ma-
terials notes that once metal sewing needles became available they entirely dis-
place[d] all those of bone and that, for storage of these metal needles, a num-
ber of putative bone cases survive. He mentions one case from the Limes fort at
Stockstadt, Germany, which contained several ne bone needles though none
of metal and notes that needlecases manufactured from the shafts of hollow
long bones are commonly found in pagan Saxon cemeteries on the Continent.
 The Needle 77

Viking age needlecases found in Scotland were fashioned from the pneumatic
leg bones of goose-sized birds and sometimes have a transverse perforation in the
center. Such a case from Jarlshof, Shetland, was plugged with iron at one end,
and many cases of this type were found at Birka in Sweden. Medieval needlecases
were open at both ends, with the needles being stuck through cloth pulled into
the tube on a string. But MacGregor says nothing about sixteenth- and seven-
teenth-century needlecases; instead, he mentions the late-eighteenth-century
explosion in the output of sewing accessories in bone and ivory, including needle-
cases, thimble cases, silk winders, yarn measures, lace bobbins, sewing clamps,
wax boxes, cotton barrels, and pincushion holders. He notes that many of these
are elaborately lathe-turned and intricately carved or pierced. Some are of com-
posite construction, several elements being combined to form sewing sets, the
constituent parts of which are linked by integral screw threads. 68
One expert on needlework collectibles claims that small cylindrical cases
known as pin-poppets, or pin-dollies, came into fashion in the late seventeenth
century, but archaeological evidence, from North American sites if not Euro-
pean ones, indicates an earlier date for their use and distribution. She also notes
that

pin-poppets were probably a development of the long, cylindrical form of

needlecase, and the pin-case . . . and initially they were used for both pins and
needles. About the mid-eighteenth century, however, they became specically
made to contain pins and, from being several inches in length became only
about 2in high. In days when it was still customary for women to carry a small
supply of pins about with them in order to be able to rectify any small mishap
which might occur to their gowns or their many rues and laces, these pin-
poppets were very popular and made charming little gifts, but they seem to
have passed from fashion by the end of the eighteenth century, since few ex-
amples are known from the 1800s.69

A good example of the shorter, eighteenth-century version of a pin poppet

was found at Notley Hall, St. Marys County, Maryland; it is just about two
inches long and one inch in diameter, with threads at either end for closures; the
threaded lid tting one end of the case was also recovered. A somewhat similar
bone object, about two inches long, threaded at one end, with a hole cut at the
other end for a cord to pass through, was found at a small 1840s sawmill camp
on Michigans Upper Peninsula. This may have been a cotton barrel or thread
box instead of a needle- or pin-case.70
Only rarely are bone needlecases found with both their closures; presumably
loss of a lid spelt catastrophe for the owner and perhaps that is why the cases were
discarded. Missing its cap that quite obviously was a tight-tting screw-thread clo-
78 The Needle

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Fig. 3.12 A late-seventeenth-century lathe-turned bone needlecase from the Katherine

Nanny Naylor privy, Boston. (Courtesy Massachusetts Historical Commission, Oce
of the Secretary of the Commonwealth, Cross Street Backlot Site, Boston)

sure is the lathe-turned, bone pin poppet, elegantly rouletted, recovered from
the late-seventeenth-century Katherine Naylor privy in Boston, Massachusetts
(g. 3.12). Two bone lids with screw threads and carved tops were found at Ald-
gate, London, in contexts dating from 1700 to 1720, and these are just the sort of
lids that would have been used on bone needlecases. It is possible, however, that
some screw-thread tops were covers for awl-like tools such as prickers or stilettos.71
Women could display their skills by fabricating their own needlebooks and
decorating them with fancy embroidery or canvas work, but needlebooks often
proved unsatisfactory because they could not prevent the needles stored in them
 The Needle 79

from rusting; tightly closed cylindrical cases generally proved more suitable.
Some of the earliest were made in the form of small gures carved from ivory;
these averaged three inches in height and were divided in the middle with the
top screwing into the bottom. Similar, much plainer examples were made from
wood or animal bone; in the Georgian era such cylindrical needlecases were in
wide use. The vast majority of these were tubular because they were turned on
a lathe (except those made of mother-of-pearl). Lathe-turning also allowed for
smoothing and decorating as well as cutting grooves for threading; the ornamen-
tal turning lathe was invented at the end of the seventeenth century and subse-
quently improved (in order to revolve the tool, not the object). Tubular needle-
cases were made from a variety of substances, including ivory, gold, tortoiseshell,
bone, beadwork, straw marquetry, and wood. French and Italian manufacturers
were highly skilled at carving mother-of-pearl into needlework cases and mani-
fold other sewing accessories, and their products were highly prized and expen-
sive. Embellishment of needlecases followed whatever designs were fashionable
at the time; between 1750 and 1815, for instance, there was something of a craze
for straw work done by prisoners of war.72
The dierence between a needlecase and bodkin case is size, the bodkin being
the larger of the two. Until the end of the eighteenth century the terms were used
interchangeably and could refer either to a small case holding only a few sew-
ing needles intended for feminine use or to a case holding a bodkin; but men as
well as women owned bodkin cases, because bodkins could be used by either sex
for lacing up garments. Netting needles, too, had special cases, cylindrical ones
somewhat larger than those for regular needles; netting needlecases were in-
tended to hold the meshes or gauges as well as the needles. Netting boxes, usually
for work making large, sturdy, workaday nets (versus bags, purses, hairnets, and
so on), were also tted out with a roller that held the foundation loop for the net-
ting. Such rollers, when used for daintier work, were commonly kept in needle-
work boxes rather than in the netting needlecase, because they would also be
put into service for some types of lacework and occasionally for tambour work.73

I N T ER PRET I NG NEEDL ES
Never use a bent needle, as it makes uneven stitches. In passing a needle, hand the
eye of the needle to the person, keeping the point towards yourself.
olive c. hapgood, School Needlework: A Course of Study in Sewing
Designed for Use in Schools, 1893

Needles found in medieval and early modern sites (that is, contexts earlier
than the third quarter of the seventeenth century) are dicult to classify accord-
ing to the criteria that became common once needles were mass manufactured.
80 The Needle

Early needles, even those made from machine-drawn wire, were produced indi-
vidually, and as mentioned above, early needles found in the British Isles or at
sites of any of Europes early colonies are all likely to have been manufactured
on the Continent, in Spain, Germany, or the Netherlands. Archaeological ex-
amples of early needles of iron or copper alloy are relatively rare, and as I have
noted, it is dicult to assign them to typological categories with precision. Here
I discuss nds from a variety of sites and, based on what can be observed from
published descriptions and drawings, attempt a provisional interpretation of the
archaeological specimens.
Five copper-alloy needles were recovered from various occupation phases at
Rattray, a Scottish royal burgh near Aberdeen occupied from the late twelfth
through fteenth centuries. All but one of these (the head of which was broken
o ) had been attened on one side only and had round, punched eyes; most
were long (the intact examples were about two, two and a half, and three inches
long, and the two broken specimens were one and three and a half inches in
length) and were probably intended for fairly rugged work, not everyday sewing
or embroidery.74
Excavations at Oyster Street, in the portion of the town of Portsmouth, En-
gland, known as Old Portsmouth, produced many nds postdating about 1600
from both domestic and industrial or commercial contexts. Among the small
nds were three needles, one of iron and two of copper alloy. The iron needle,
from a fourteenth-century context, was about four inches long and very pointed,
with a very small punched eye and extremely sharp point. Both of the copper-
alloy needles were from eighteenth-century contexts. A mid-eighteenth-century
level produced a rather stout-looking needle with an oval cross-section and elon-
gated oval eye. The tip of this needle is broken o, but the curve on the shank
appears to be its original form; it closely resembles pack needles such as the one
illustrated in g. 3.5e. The other copper-alloy needle, from an early-eighteenth-
century level at Oyster Street, is long and slender, round in cross-section, with
a attened head and tiny round eye; it is about three inches long and so was
likely used for something other than everyday sewing. These needles would have
served in textile work and leatherwork for a variety of sewing and stitching tasks.
None are ne sewing or embroidery needles.75
Needles are relatively rare nds at North American sites; most of the examples
of which I am aware are broken, often at the eye. There are exceptions, of course,
including a complete long-eyed copper-alloy needle of a fairly large size recov-
ered from a domestic context at Place-Royale in Qubec City that I would tenta-
tively identify as a darning needle. As discussed above, the shape and size of the
needles eye, as well as the presence of a gutter or groove, are the most diagnostic
 The Needle 81

criteria for distinguishing among types of sewing and special-purpose needles. If

the eye is missing, the next best criterion is overall size or ruggedness (length and
gauge) of the needle, the cross-section of the wire used for the needle, and, if one
is lucky, the taper or shape of the point. A spear-shaped or three-square point may
indicate a needle intended for use by an upholsterer or leatherworker. An exca-
vated needle that seems bent or curved should be inspected closely to determine
whether the curve was intentional; if so, it may have been an upholstery or collar
needle or was perhaps used in leatherwork. My survey of the literature and ex-
perience suggest to me that rugged, special-purpose needles are far more likely
to survive in archaeological contexts than ne sewing or embroidery needles.76
One special-purpose needle that survives well is the bodkin; bodkins were far
more than a type of needle, however. The attention given them in seventeenth-
century court cases as well as in other sources points to the potent role these
small objects played in the construction of personal identity.

A TA L E OF A BODK I N

Because bodkins were often worn on the person and inscribed with the owners
name or initials, they were highly important and charged with special signi-
cance in terms of personal identity and status. These excerpts from a court case
from seventeenth-century Ipswich, Massachusetts, illustrate the point:

Elizabeth Hunts complaint made before Samuel Symonds:

That the last Sabboth day (being the second day of may) my child stoode
uppon the seat by me with my bodkin in his hande, then he stept of the seat
in my lapp, laying hold on the waynscott, with the bodkin in his hande. and I
saw the child drop the bodkin downe. it glanct on the waynscott and so I hear
it gingle on the ore, betwixt Sara Day and the said Sara Roper. Then I saw the
said Sara put downe her hande betwixt Sara Day and her selfe, where I saw it
fall and I did apprehende she was taking it up to give it me; but she pullde up
her hande againe, and with her other hande moved her stoole, and Sarah Day
her chayer, both standing up, then the ore being cleare, & I seing it not won-
dred at it, suspecting then that the said Sara Roper had taken it up. Soe being
in type of exercise, I wished them not to trouble themselves, but lett it alone till
after Sermon. Then afterward in the tyme of contribucon, I the said Elizabeth
Hunt stood up looking over the waynscott, shewing my desire to have them
looke a little for it. Then the said Roper stood up and moved her stoole again
seeming to looke for it, and laying one hand on the waynscott and poynting
with the other said it were in that crack. Soe I then thought by her words she
82 The Needle

saw it, but could not get it. Then after the people were all gon I looked dili-
gently for it, Mr. Wilson being present but we could neither of us nde it.
Copy of Sarah Ropers answer to the complaint made before Samuell
Symonds:
Whereas in your warrant you are pleased to charge me wth stealing your bod-
kin, which is altogether false I stole it not. And in your complaint you say you
suspected that I had taken it up, in which supposition you are all much mis-
taken, as you were in yor charge, for I doe arme that I tooke it not up, neither
did I see it nor feele it, untill I came home and a little before night, sitting in
the howse, I was turning up the cu of my sleeve, & feeling some thing there,
pulled downe my cu, & there I found a bodkin, which I prsently shewed to
the folke in the howse, who read the name & said it was goodwife hunts bod-
kin. And prsently after, I spake to my brother to carry it, for I said may be the
woman will be troubled for it. But he refuseing to carry it, the next morning I
gave it to my sister, who deliverd it to her at the buriall of goodwife Whipple
And when the people came to the burying place, I went to goodman Smiths to
see if [I] could see goodwife hunt to tell her that I had sent the bodkin by my
sister but when I saw my sister there I thought she had given it her, & there-
fore said nothing to goodwife hunt. And as the bodkin was suddenly lost soe
it was suddenly found & as speedily returned to the owner[.] And therefore I
suppose noe reason of charging me with it, or to make any complaint against
me for it, by reason the owner received it without any damage. further in case
goodman hunt had bene greived with me, I thinke it had bene his place to
have complained, & not his wife likewise in case nothing will please her, but
she will goe about to prove me a theef, & that I have stolen her bodkin then,
if I mistake not, she proveth her self accessory to the law, of what she would
make me guilty of, in her receiving her bodkin without any due order of law. I
doe further apprehende goodwife hunts complaint to be groundles, for it is a
meere contradiction as he that is wise may easily discern, and we can proove
an utter falsehood as to the case.77

Silver bodkins gure prominently in two other Ipswich court cases, are some-
times listed in probate inventories, and were twice bequeathed by women in their
wills (table 3.4). In 1663, for example, the wife of John How was presented by the
grand jury for wearing a silk scarf and silver bodkin when she was a widowbut
the case was discharged. In this instance, I suspect Hows purported transgression
hinged on her transition from married woman to widow; Massachusetts sump-
tuary laws forbade ostentation in dress by anyone whose income was less than
two hundred pounds a year. Her accusers probably maliciously assumed that she
had lost status when she lost her husband, but apparently the court quickly de-
termined the case to be otherwise.78
 Table 3.4 Bodkins in seventeenth-century Essex County, Massachusetts: the documentary evidence

A. Bodkins mentioned in seventeenth-century Essex County, Massachusetts, probate inventories

Date Decedent Residence Relevant entries Estate value Source

1654 George Burrill, Sr. Lynn silver bodkin, thimble, 2 silver buttens, 6s. 848.20s. PR 1:179
1656 Henry Sewall, Sr. Rowley sisers, a bodkin and small things 2s.6d. 330.16s.4d. PR 1:233
1676 John Cole (wifes trunk) One wine cup, 4 silver spoons, 3 gold rings, 1 bodkin, 25.6s.6d. PR 3:122
1li.18s.
1677 John White, tailor Salem a walking Cane, a small old Chest, a Trencher Knif, 5.1s. PR 3:301; RF 6:301
a pen knife& a bodkin, 4s.6d.
1680 William Sutton Newbury 2 glas bottles, 1s., awl, Bodkin, hamer, 2 knives 2s., 11.7s.11d. PR 3:371
3s. (bodkin here a tool)
1680 Rebecca Howlet, [Mrs.], widow Newbury silver bodkin, 2s. 64.8s.6d. PR 3:417

B. Bodkins mentioned in seventeenth-century Essex County, Massachusetts, wills

Date Decedent Bequest Source

1641 Frances, wife of Robt. Hawes to Alis Haws her worst Philip & Cheny gown & two petticoat & a wast coat & two Aporns wth all PR 1:46; RF 3:8586
smale linnin sutable to it & a siluer bodkine & a payer of pillowbeers
1650 Elizabeth Lowle of Newbury I give to my Daughter Elizabeth all the remainder of my Howsehold stu Childbed linning & else PR 1:139
weareing Apparrell 1 siluer Tunn 1 siluer tipt Jugg 3 siluer spoones one gold ring, 1 siluer
bodkine, 2 deskes

C. Bodkins mentioned in seventeenth-century Essex County, Massachusetts, court cases

Date Name of accused Residence Charge Punishment Source

1663 wife of John How not given for wearing a silk scarf and silver bodkin discharged RF 3:70
1670 Sarah Roper Ipswich for stealing a bodkin not guilty RF 3:239.
1682 Grace Stout Ipswich for stealing linen & owning a silver thimble, a bodkin, guilty RF 8:281

Sources: PR 1: Essex County, Massachusetts, Probate Court 1916; PR 3: Essex County, Massachusetts, Probate Court 1920; RF 3: Essex County, Massachusetts, Quarterly
Court 1913; RF 6: Essex County, Massachusetts, Quarterly Court 1917; RF8: Essex County, Massachusetts, Quarterly Court 1921
84 The Needle

The case of alleged bodkin theft from 1670 is more complicated. Samuel Hunt
and his wife, Elizabeth, charged a young woman, Sarah Roper, a maidservant,
with stealing Goodwife Hunts bodkin after her young son, who had been play-
ing with it, dropped it during Sabbath services.
Sarah Roper was no stranger to the Ipswich court. In her book Good Wives,
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich details Ropers testy relationships with her neighbors. In
1665 Ropers employer Patience Denison complained to the court that she had
over the course of a year stolen at least ten pounds worth of goods and provisions
from the Denison household. The Denisons were well o, but Patience Denison
knew down to the smallest item exactly what had been taken from her household.
But what is of interest is that the way the case played out hinged on what Sarah
had done with her stolen goods: she distributed them to others in need, most
particularly to her nearly destitute friend Mary Bishop. Testimony by Goody
Bishop suggested that Sarah was, in eect, dispensing the sort of charity toward
the poor that was expected of Patience Denison as a wealthy and socially promi-
nent member of her community; Sarah herself indicated she thought Patience
Denison was stingy rather than charitable, wise, and kind as a good housewife
should be.79
The upshot was that Patience Denison had to be satised simply with dismiss-
ing Sarah Roperand was forced into the awkward and embarrassing position of
prosecuting the impoverished Mary Bishop, who had received the stolen goods.
As Ulrich notes, this incident lingered in the memories of Ipswich housewives,
especially among the communitys would-be gentry, that is, those who aspired to
be among the peers of Patience Denison. One such woman was Elizabeth Hunt,
whom Ulrich notes was a busybody and, it would appear, a pushy snob who felt
that Sarah Roper needed to be taught a lesson about deference to her betters.
Testimony in the Hunt versus Roper case indicates that Elizabeth Hunts bod-
kin fell or bounced into the cu of Sarah Ropers dress sleeve and that she had re-
turned the bodkin as soon as she found it. Even so, the Hunts had Sarah brought
up on a charge of theft and, when the judge ruled that there was a suspicion of
theft, appealed for a stronger sentence.
An interesting aspect of the testimony during the appeal is Elizabeth Hunts
claim that she had visited the house where Sarah Roper was employed and there
had seen her picking her teeth with Hunts bodkin. Presumably this was intended
to convey to the court Ropers disdain for her betters. Ulrich notes that the tooth-
picking incident was wholly a gment of Elizabeth Hunts imagination.
What intrigues me most about the episode is that Elizabeth Hunt chose to
keep her baby quiet in the meetinghouse by handing it a long, pointed object;
Ulrich says that she had given him the bodkin much as a mother today might
 The Needle 85

hand a child her car keys or a bracelet to distract it. But a child could easily put
its eye out with a bodkin! I suspect that Elizabeth Hunt the social climber had an
ulterior motive for selecting the bodkin above other objects with which to amuse
her child. Hunts bodkin was, it seems likely, made of silver and monogrammed
with her initials or name (this is how its rightful owner was determined). It was
thus a valuable and highly personalized possession and not an item typically
owned by women of Elizabeth Hunts social rank, which at the time of this case
was not much dierent from that of Sarah Roper (otherwise, as Ulrich points
out, the two women would not have been seated so close to each other in the
meetinghouse). Ulrich notes that Hunts motive in pursuing the charge likely
stemmed from her resentment at being seated so close to someone whom she
deemed an inferior; Hunt was dogged in insisting that Roper was a thief even
though it was clear that Roper had returned the bodkin as soon as someone was
able to read the name on it to her. This made public the fact that Roper could not
read. Though this was not unusual, the public airing of Ropers illiteracy while
presumably Goodwife Hunt could read gave Hunt ammunition in her battle to
force the community to recognize a social divide more wished-for than real.80
What lesson can the archaeologist take away from the cultural eld we can
reconstruct for seventeenth-century Ipswich, where silver bodkins were so obvi-
ously highly charged with meanings about personal identity, social rank, and
community notions about behavior appropriate to assigned social roles and gen-
der categories? Was the situation in Ipswich, still part of a settler colony and a
community in the making, utterly peculiar and local? I suspect not; I think that
we can interpret artifacts like bodkins from seventeenth-century and earlier con-
texts as only one of many objects through which discourses about self-identity
and personhood were enacted. Because bodkins were so personalindeed, often
personalizedand because they were used by women and men to present and
clothe their bodies by assisting them to lace themselves into their clothing, and
because they were normally carried about on the person or even worn by women
as part of outward social display as they peeked provocatively out of a womans
head-hugging coif, they were invested with meanings and with power. Bodkins
were only one of many small things that were deeply implicated in the pro-
cess historian Robert Blair St. George has characterized as conversing by signs.
Archaeologists would do well to attend to the mnemonic power of goods, as
Ulrich has urged historians to do. This requires close observation of the eld or
ground (the cultural context) in which their nds once operated, and an attempt
to reconstruct the discourses in which their ndings once so potently gured.81
 4

The Ubiquitous and Occasionally

Ordinary Thimble
I have worked with my Thimble, and like it extremely.
m. j. holroyd, Girlhood, 1793

In 1682, in Ipswich, Massachusetts, Grace Stout was convicted as a petty thief.

Her accuser, Samuel Pearce, was supported in his charge by the depositions of a
series of witnesses, but in the end a thimble was the instrument of her downfall.
The court-recorded depositions reveal that Moses Pengry, Jr., complained that
Grace had stolen seven shillings and some linen from him: His reasons were be-
cause she sometimes watched with his wife in the same room where these things
were; because she passed daily by his house morning and evening to Goodwife
Fosters where she worked, and when the theft was committed his wife was gone
from home . . . , and he also was away often; because they found a womans thimble
near the place where the linen was. 1
Why would a womans thimble found at the scene be conclusive evidence
that Grace Stout was the thief? Other depositions provide clues to the line of
reasoning the court followed in convicting Stout. She had a history of stealing
from her employers, having been caught red-handed and dismissed a year and a
half earlier by Joseph Porter. He found her rummaging in his chest; when he was
missing some money, he accused her of taking itand she produced it. Mem-
bers of the community seem to have eyed her suspiciously even earlier. Several
testied that, when anyone asked, Stout professed to have no money, but on
many occasions she produced cash to purchase a variety of goods, among them a
horn bottle, an earthenware porringer, a gilt box, a carved box with a drawer in it
and two locks, eyewater, a whisk, a bonnet, lutestring, linen cloth, a silver waist-
coat hook, lace, ribbon, stockings, a silver rump hook. Once, she gave money to
Nathaniel Knoulton when he went to Boston, where he purchased for her a sil-
ver thimble, a bodkin, and three yards of ribbon.2

86
 The Ubiquitous and Occasionally Ordinary Thimble 87

People felt aggrieved and victimized by Grace Stout, who they said was a
notorious thief, a liar and very naughty in all respects . . . and not t to live
in any honest mans house. The good citizens of Ipswich were just as oended
by her impudence, however: after hearing that a shilling had been taken from
Thomas Clarks daughter, Stout retorted that she scorned to steal a shilling, that
she had a way to get money that nobody knew and never should know. When
accused of having a pretty deal of money by Mary Pearce and her daughter,
she replied that if she had as much as ten shillings she would eat the keeler that
then she was kneading bread in.
Through her behavior, Grace Stout inverted the social order in more than
one way. She stole from people she worked for and apparently from others as
well; she never had a cent when asked for a loan, but at other times she gave
money or gifts to children and had money to spend on costly items such as a sil-
ver thimble.
Graces duties as housemaid involved mending and sewing, and perhaps she
did fancier work as well. The court calculated how much she had earned against
how much she had laid out since coming to Ipswich, including nes for abusing
the tithingman, her purchases, medical fees, and so on, concluding she had spent
more money than she could have come by honestly. This was taken as corrobo-
ration of various peoples accusations; because several people attested that she
never seemed to have any money or that they had no complaint against her (no
one appeared to be what one might consider a strong character witness), the
court seems to have required the further proof that Stout was spending above
her means. So in a certain sense her purchases, with both her earnings and her
ill-gotten gains, would include items that enabled her to ply her skills better. But
a housemaid with a silver thimble was overreaching herself, at least by the stan-
dards of late-seventeenth-century Massachusetts. Grace Stout may have sought
to strengthen her identity as a needlewoman by taking pleasure in the seemingly
innocent ownership of a few ne sewing implementsand perhaps an elegant
carved box to store thembut this overt display of consumption beyond her
means and station made her contemporaries uneasy and suspicious. In this in-
stance a womans thimble became matter out of place in a deeply felt social
sense as well as a clue that led to a thief s conviction. Grace Stout was perceived
as social dirt, a threat to the social order both tangibly through her appropria-
tion of others goods and symbolically through her ownership and display of ob-
jects above her station.3
The case of Grace Stout and her silver thimble shows how objects become
highly charged with import and send messages that seem confusing because they
are saying more than they seem to say. This tale is compelling evidence that
88 The Ubiquitous and Occasionally Ordinary Thimble

Fig. 4.1 The parts of a thimble.

even humble or seemingly inconsequential needlework tools such as thimbles

(g. 4.1) gured prominently in the construction and negotiation of identity and
served as symbols of status or, conversely, as indicators of behavior or ambitions
unbetting a persons perceived or assigned station in life.

THE HIST ORY A ND A RC H A E OL O GY O F THI M BLES

There is a good-sized body of literature on thimbles (indeed, Gay Ann Rogers

claims that thimbles have inspired more prose than any other needlework tool),
written by thimble collectors who often mention and illustrate archaeological
examples, but authors of such works often fail to cite sources for the archaeo-
logically recovered specimens. Collectors may draw on archaeological evidence
from museums and published sources, but what they write is not aimed at archae-
ologists and hence tends to be of spotty and limited use to those who need to be
able to make proper chronological attributions as well as meaningful interpreta-
tions of a fairly common artifact type. Collectors literature can be maddeningly
vague about the dating of thimbles, lumping everything from Egyptian to early
American nds under the category of early thimbles, and according to one ex-
pert, many sources perpetuate misinformation about the origins and antiquity of
metal thimbles (more on this below). But it must be said in fairness to the collec-
tors that archaeologists have seldom been of much help to them in their pursuit
of the history of thimbles. Edwin Holmes assesses the archaeological literature
acidly: It appears however that thimbles have never received much attention
from archaeologists and what little has been said about them is often nonsense. 4
For historical archaeologists interested in facts as opposed to nonsense, Ivor
Nol Humes brief treatment in his Guide to Artifacts of Colonial America, Erika
Hills article Thimbles and Thimble Rings from the Circum-Caribbean Region,
15001800: Chronology and Identication (1995), and Kathleen Deagans dis-
cussion of thimbles in Artifacts of the Spanish Colonies of Florida and the Carib-
bean, 15001800, Volume 2: Portable Personal Possessions (2002) are the most
 The Ubiquitous and Occasionally Ordinary Thimble 89

useful sources to date. Each source is necessarily limited in length and hence
in coverage. As a result they oer only tantalizing glimpses of the interpretive
potential of thimbles found at archaeological sites.5
In the following discussion I expand on the information that Nol Hume,
Hill, and Deagan have provided, oering a comprehensive guide to identica-
tion and dating of thimbles from the earliest times up to the twentieth century. I
also outline a framework for exploring the interpretive potential of thimbles from
a variety of archaeological contexts. I make liberal use of collectors works as well
as archaeological sources and unpublished artifact assemblages I have studied
in my research. The origins and antiquity of thimbles as well as their eventual
mass production and global distribution in the early modern era are of interest,
so although I emphasize thimbles likely to be found at historical sites postdating
European expansion, I also look back in time to trace the lineage of thimbles.
The thimble was invented to protect the nger and thumb in the production
of needle-sewn goods and garments. As a result, the evolution of the thimble
is closely linked to developments in textile production and metalworking and
other technologies of manufacture, both for needles and for thimbles.
Thimbles, numerous and seemingly ordinary, have a history that is not without
controversy. One author remarks that thimbles have been universal since about
300 bc in Syria and elsewhere throughout the world, but just when they were in-
vented and by whom remains a point of debate. The history of thimbles before
the sixteenth century has been reconstructed by thimble collectors who have
consulted archaeological evidence, though the results often are more anecdotal
than systematic (both because of the spottiness of archaeological publication of
such nds and the lack of stratigraphic control in many early excavations). John
von Hoelle, who has written several books on thimbles and thimble-makers, re-
marks in his Thimble Collectors Encyclopedia that since the publication in 1879
of a paper by H. Syer Cuming of the British Archaeological Association in which
he mistakenly attributed thimbles found at the site of Herculaneum to the early
Roman occupation layers there, it has been tacitly assumed that the Romans
were the inventors of the thimble (Von Hoelle describes this as the myth of the
legendary Roman thimbles of Herculaneum . . . quoted by British and Ameri-
can authors for more than a hundred years). In seeking the truth, Von Hoelle
examined all of the European museum specimens identied as Roman in origin
and concluded that none date earlier than the ninth century ad. This led him
to look beyond the Roman Empire for the origin of the thimble.6
In early prehistoric times it seems likely that it was women (though it could
have been men) who laced skins together using blunt bodkins of wood, bone, or
ivory that had been threaded with thin strips of leather or sinew; such a seam-
90 The Ubiquitous and Occasionally Ordinary Thimble

stress would undertake her lacing only after she had used an awl or similar tool
to punch holes in the hide; no pushing implement was required for the bodkin
because the awl had already done the work of making the holes for the lacing ma-
terial to go through. By the Mesolithic or Incipient Neolithic period (about ten
thousand years ago), the bodkin had evolved into a pointed needle with large eye.
Prehistoric needles were made of a variety of materialsbone, ivory, thorns
and were thinner and more polished than their bodkin predecessors.7
Strong pressure was needed to push a needle through a leather hide, so an
item known to archaeologists as a needle-pusher, or acutrudium, was brought
into use to aid in the pushing and to protect the ngers or thumb doing the
pushing; this consisted of a rock or small piece of wood. Eventually, people care-
fully selected stones of the right size and shape and drilled them specically for
needle-pushingtools of this sort have been found at many Neolithic sites in
Europe, southern Russia, Africa, and China. A particularly striking example was
recovered at the site of Eilsleben, near Magdeburg, Germany; it is made of black
amphibolite, with a large hole near the top into which a small nger would have
tted (though one author posits that this hole was drilled to permit the tool to be
suspended around the needleworkers neck on a cord); beneath this hole were
indentations drilled to catch the needle. Other examples from North Africa, aver-
aging about three inches in length, have a deep trough or groove drilled into one
face of the pebble from which the tool is formed.8
No evidence exists for the production of cloth per se before around 7000 bc,
but there is growing recognition among archaeologists that evidence exists for
some type of woven textile production during the Upper Paleolithic, based on
nds of what have been interpreted as shuttles, spindles, and a spindle weight, as
well as weavelike patterns carved onto bones at Magdalenian sites (about 15,000
8000 bc) in Europe. These nds have given rise to the growing acceptance of
the notion that some sort of basketry or simple weaving was practiced at this
time, but no physical examples of what these products may have been survive.
No needle-pushers from this time have been reported, but some very ne-eyed
needles have been excavated from both Gravettian and Magdalenian sites; nds
of pierced shell and tooth beads in Gravettian burials in France dating before
20,000 bc suggest at the very least string sewn or netted into bracelets, necklaces,
headgear, and perhaps even decorated clothing.9
Flax was used for textiles in Anatolia by the seventh millennium bc, and Ana-
tolia and Palestine had developed high-quality linen production well before
linen weaving became common in Egypt around seven thousand years ago. Fab-
rics such as linen were lighter in weight than skins and coarse fabrics and hence
required less eort to sew. This prompted the development of a smaller imple-
 The Ubiquitous and Occasionally Ordinary Thimble 91

ment that could be worn on a nger or the thumb; the earliest thimble was
probably a simple piece of leather wrapped around the nger to absorb the pres-
sure of the needle; other types of hybrid pressure tools, half thimble, half needle-
pusher, were also used, and in some cultures needleworkers protected their n-
gers by sewing small, caplike nger shields of leather or brous material. A stone
grooved on one side to accommodate a needle and on the other to t over a n-
ger was excavated at the Egyptian site of el-Lisht; the context of the nd dates it
to about 12001000 bc.10
During the Bronze Age (about 3000800 bc) the palm-held needle-pusher
evolved into a cast-bronze implement with an elongated oval shape. Many ex-
amples of these acutrudia have been found at sites of Roman, Byzantine, and
Ottoman occupation; some are elaborately decorated. The cast-bronze pushers
are thought to have been used by men who stitched heavy canvas for sails and
tents, by carpet-makers, leatherworkers, and sewers of heavy woolens. This type
of implement was used throughout the Middle East until the late eighteenth
century, and a version survives in the form of the sailors palm. Scholars posit that
sewing in Iron Age and Classical times fell into two broad categories: stitching
of lightweight textiles by women using leather wrapping to protect their ngers;
and heavy canvas and leather sewing by men using cast-bronze needle-pushers.11
The Chinese were the rst to discover the process of alloying carbon with iron
to make steel, and they invented the steel needle and sewing ring. Steel needles
were absolutely necessary for sewing ne silk and were originally produced for
Chinese silk workers. The silk trade brought steel needles to the West sometime
during the rst century bc, and their advantage over those of bronze or iron was
quickly perceived. It seems likely that the silk trade also brought to the West the
metal needle ring or sewing ring that later developed into what we now term a
thimble ring.12
Archaeological evidence reveals that the Chinese were using metal needle
rings, or zen-huan, as early as the second century ad. Many examples made of
bronze, brass, and silver have been excavated from sites dating to the Tang, Sung,
Manchu, and Han dynasties. Although some were cast in one piece, the ma-
jority were made in the at from a thin strip of metal and rolled to form a
ring, sometimes with overlapping ends; the ends were not soldered together but
left unjoined so that an individual could easily t the ring to his or her nger or
thumb. Sewing rings sometimes were elaborately decorated.
Although the concept of the needle ring reached Persia before the seventh
century and Byzantium by the ninth century, few metal thimbles with good
provenance have been found in sites dating before the ninth century ad in
Europealthough some imported Chinese-style rings may have come along the
92 The Ubiquitous and Occasionally Ordinary Thimble

silk routes with other goods. Even the thimble rings found at pre-ninth-century
Roman sites seem to have been imported.13
Excavations of the Byzantine occupation levels (ninth through thirteenth cen-
turies ad) at the sites of Antioch, Ephesus, and Corinth have yielded dozens of
bronze ring-type thimbles, similar to early Chinese examples, whereas the Ro-
man and Greek occupation layers of the same cities have produced no thim-
bles of any sort. The earliest thimbles in the Middle East likely were made of
camel bone. The city of Ctesiphon, near modern Baghdad, Iraq, was destroyed
in the seventh century ad and never reoccupied; here, excavators recovered two
ring-type thimbles made from sections of camel bone. Two copper-alloy thimble
rings were recovered from predynastic tombs at Naqada, Egypt, by Sir Flinders
Petrie.14
The type of thimble of greatest interest to archaeologists working at sites of
medieval and postmedieval date are those made not of exotic animal bone but of
brass, because brass thimbles could be mass-produced and hence were the most
aordable and the most widely distributed. Metalworkers of the early Islamic
empire developed the large, heavy, cast-bronze thimble that completely covered
the tip of the nger or thumb, and this type of thimble became nearly univer-
sal in later times. Brass thimbles of the Islamic empire were made in three basic
styles, dened by Von Hoelle as follows.15
Turko-Slavic thimbles are distinguished by their large, bulbous dome
indeed, they are shaped rather like turbanssuggesting Persian or Turkish inu-
ence; many have rudimentary lines as decoration. They are found throughout
the eastern Mediterranean as well as in Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary, in sites
dating from the thirteenth through the eighteenth centuries. They were cast in
bronze via the cire perd method, and the indentations were hammered in after
the thimble was cast. Although Von Hoelle mentions that some have ventila-
tion holes, another thimble expert, Estelle Zalkin, states emphatically that no
thimble was ever manufactured with vent holes in the cap or side. Perhaps,
then, the holes found in Turko-Slavic style thimbles resulted from the method
of manufacture (lost wax) or through use.16
Hispano-Moresque thimbles have pointed tops, date from the tenth to the f-
teenth century, and are found primarily in western North Africa and Spain, but
also in France and in Viking settlements as far north as Denmark. The indenta-
tions were carved right into the wax model used for casting the bronze thimbles,
which tended to be rather heavy but were often decorated on the band with geo-
metric, oral, and other patterns. John von Hoelle illustrates several examples of
this style of thimble from the collections of the Smithsonian Institution.17
Abbasid-Levantine-style thimbles often have a distinctive ledge-type rim jut-
 The Ubiquitous and Occasionally Ordinary Thimble 93

ting out from the base of a dome-shaped silhouette; they dier from the other two
styles because they are neither bulbous nor pointed at top. They tend to be deco-
rated with plain bands or a series of chevron motifs separating triangular areas
of hand-punched indentations; they look like miniature helmets. Such thim-
bles are found in sites throughout Asia Minor, particularly Israel, Syria, Trans-
Jordan, Iraq, and Iran, and date from around the ninth through twelfth cen-
turies, somewhat earlier than other cast-bronze Islamic thimbles. They also tend
to be relatively rare and are considered to have been used primarily by men who
stitched heavy canvas, leather, or carpets. John von Hoelle believes that it was
the Abbasid-Levantine style thimble that returning Crusaders introduced into
pre-Renaissance Europe, which is why this style was adopted by the earliest west-
ern European thimble-makers.18
Even though examples of the domed Abbasid-Levantine-style thimble may
have reached Europe among the booty of returning Crusaders, this type of thim-
ble was not immediately and universally adopted. Ring-type thimbles of bronze
and leather were commonly used for sewing lightweight fabrics until sometime
in the thirteenth century. The earliest reference to a thimble in Germany is
found in a passage written by Saint Hildegard von Bingen (10981190) in ad 1150;
Bingen used the word zieriskranz (ornamental wreath), referring to a metal sew-
ing ring, rather than the word ngerhut (thimble), which seems to have been
later in derivation. This leads to the inference that Bingen employed a ring-type
rather than a domed thimble.19
Germany, particularly Lower Saxony, was one of the main sources for brass in
medieval times because the raw materials for brass foundingcopper and cala-
minewere readily accessible to local miners. By 1373 an artisan named Praun
was established in Nuremberg as a thimble-maker, and soon the city of Nurem-
berg became a center of thimble-making, among other brass objects, and was
especially well known for the quality of the thimbles produced there. Examples of
early brass thimbles of European manufacture have been recovered from excava-
tions at such sites as Castle Raubritterburg Tannenger, in Darmstadt, Germany,
which was destroyed in 1399, and others are found in museum collections.20
What the Nuremberg thimble-makers perfected was the production of a
smaller, lighter thimble made of latten, an alloy of copper and calamine. The re-
sult is a porous and easily worked metal that can be polished like brass and that,
like copper and its alloys, produces a bright to dull green corrosion. Early latten
thimbles were cast in sand molds, though some were hammered into a shallow
die; the cast examples tended to be somewhat thick and squat from around the
twelfth century until the fteenth century, but in the late 1400s their form be-
came taller and thinner as casting techniques improved. After the twelfth cen-
94 The Ubiquitous and Occasionally Ordinary Thimble

tury, latten thimbles gradually replaced their leather counterparts, although in

some cultures people still used leather thimbles until well into the nineteenth
century.21
Interestingly, in thirteenth-century France, the method by which thimbles
were made dictated who could make them. Two metalworking guilds governed
thimble-making: the buckle-makers made latten thimbles using the sand-casting
method; button-makers made thimbles in copper and iron. Whereas the iron
thimbles were cast, copper thimbles were made using an iron dapping block,
dapping die, and hammer.22
This variation in production techniques, materials, and producers meant that
a variety of thimble shapes were produced. Overall, most early Western thimbles
are of the short dome type with indentations that were either drilled or ham-
mered. Many have a small hole in the top to facilitate sand-casting; others have
a small notch or two in the rim that helped secure the thimble to a lathe, which
was used to hold sand-cast thimbles while they were spun and smoothed with
a nishing tool to remove roughness and irregularities left by the casting pro-
cess. Sand-casting was the predominant technique for producing thimbles before
about 1530, when the metalsmiths of Nuremberg discovered the secret of rening
zinc from calamine. The alloy of copper and zinc could be rolled into a sheet
metal that produced better thimbles than earlier alloys of copper and raw cala-
mine because it was very malleable and could easily be hammered into thimble
form, indented, and polished to shine like gold. This development spurred the
formation in 1534 of a separate guild of thimble-makers, who made thimbles of
beaten metal, and dapping, also called deep drawing, became the chief means
of producing thimbles.23
The trade in Nuremberg thimbles was extensive, widespread and interna-
tional. Indeed, forty Nuremberg thimbles were included among the cargo of
the wreck of a Venetian merchantman, possibly the Gagiana, which sank near
Gnalic o the coast of Yugoslavia in 1583. The thimbles, along with a prodigious
quantity of Venetian glass, were intended for buyers in Asia Minor.24
From the middle of the sixteenth century until the eighteenth century Nurem-
berg thimbles were made in a distinctive style. The indentations usually began at
the top of the band and spiraled around the body of thimble until they reached
its top, and the side of the thimble met the top at nearly a ninety-degree angle
the domed look was gone. The new style of longer thimbles gave a space for orna-
mentation on the band, and by the late sixteenth century, a profusion of mottoes,
dates, and motifs were used. Some thimbles now had makers marks stamped on
the band just before the start of the indentations; marks included clover leaves,
goblets, keys, stars, and so forth. Of twenty-seven thimbles and ve thimble rings
 The Ubiquitous and Occasionally Ordinary Thimble 95

found at sites along the Thames in Southwark, London, in contexts dating from
1450 to 1700, eight have makers stamps. No two are alike, but all have been at-
tributed to Nuremburg thimble-makers.25
Meanwhile, thimble-makers in Holland, England, and Sweden continued to
employ the sand-casting method, with some renements, until the early eigh-
teenth century, when the secret of rening zinc became more widespread
throughout Europe. The deep-drawn method, now with motive power for the
presses, was adopted by all major mass-production thimble manufacturers of the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries.26
The decline of Nuremberg in the mid-seventeenth century led to the rise of
thimble-making in the Netherlands. The major Dutch thimble-making cities
were Schoonhoven, Urtecht, Vianen, and Amsterdam; here the trade was passed
down in families known as Vingerhoeds (thimble-makers). In 1687 the four lead-
ing Vingerhoeds formed a cartel that produced in excess of three and a half mil-
lion thimbles per year. The thimble monopolists set prices, quotas, and styles
and discontinued the use of makers marks among themselves. The Vingerhoeds
control over thimble production lasted until the 1730s, when English and Ger-
man production methods again predominated; by 1770 the Dutch manufacture
was limited almost solely to silver thimbles.27
The earliest metal thimbles used in England were imported from Europe
in the fourteenth century, and they looked very much like the pre-Renaissance
thimbles of Germany. Customs documents for 1550 reveal that thimbles were a
major item of trade; Holmes found listings in the Book of Rates at the London
Customs House Library for imports of large numbers of thimbles at steadily in-
creasing rates: ve shillings per thousand in 1550; thirteen shillings, four pence
in 1582; twenty shillings per thousand in 1610, and three pounds per thousand in
1642. It seems likely that before such imports appeared the English were using
leather nger caps instead of thimbles, and excavations in the City of London in-
dicate that it was not until after about 1350 that metal thimbles began to appear
in any quantity. By the sixteenth century a distinct English style of thimble came
into being. The new English thimble was tall and made in two pieces, one a strip
rolled into a cylinder and the other a round cap brazed to the elongated, cylin-
drical body of the thimble. Decoration on such thimbles was limited to hand-
chased chevron motifs, although often those produced before the Restoration
bore pious mottoes such as feare god or labour is profitable engraved
around the rim. Overall, these early English thimbles were fairly crude.28
Several copper-alloy thimbles were recovered from the wreck of the Mary
Rose, which sank in the Solent o Portsmouth, England, in 1545. Holmes writes
about eleven of these, noting that eight are ring-type thimbles with an open top
96 The Ubiquitous and Occasionally Ordinary Thimble

exactly the sort of heavy-duty thimble one would expect on shipboard for mend-
ing sails and so forth. The ring-type thimbles are in fact generally rougher than
might be expected and correspond to a thimble previously thought to date from
about 14501500. Since they were found along with far more sophisticated thim-
bles, it is clear that rather crudely made thimbles continued to be produced and
were perfectly adequate for heavy work, especially in the maritime world, well
into the sixteenth century and possibly beyond.29
Despite the emergence of a homegrown style of thimble, English metal thim-
ble production remained modest, and as noted, until the late seventeenth cen-
tury most of the brass thimbles used in England were imported. Hence thimbles
supplied to the English colonies in America originated on the Continent and
were transshipped through English ports or acquired by the colonists through
trade with Dutch or other European traders operating in the Americas.
The English thimble industry truly got started when in 1693 a Dutchman
named John Lofting, having secured a patent from William and Mary for a
thimble-knurling machine, established the rst English thimble mill at Islington,
later relocating to Great Marlow. Loftings manufacture of sand-cast brass thim-
bles constituted the beginning of large-scale thimble production in the British
Isles. The Dutch-style Lofting thimble dominated the exports to the American
colonies until the middle of the eighteenth century, and many thimbles found
in North American excavation contexts dating from the mid-1690s to about 1750
likely are products of Loftings factory.
By the middle of the eighteenth century, however, English thimble produc-
tion was centered in Birmingham, with more than a dozen manufacturers mak-
ing gold, silver, pinchbeck, steel, brass, and steel-topped thimbles. By the 1770s
brass thimbles, elegantly enameled, with cartouches painted with landscapes and
so forth and called Bilston-Batterseas, were made in South Staordshire. These
are relatively rare and tend to survive in collections, seldom appearing archaeo-
logically.30
Porcelain thimbles were rst developed by Meissen as an objet de galanterie,
but were gradually adopted by English porcelain manufacturers, notably Royal
Worcester; the late eighteenth century saw the introduction of porcelain thim-
bles by potteries in Worcester, Derby, and Chelsea, and since the eighteenth
century large numbers of ceramic thimbles have been produced, in some cases
for practical use but chiey as decorative collectors items or souvenirs.31
Until the late seventeenth century, most brass and silver thimbles used in the
American colonies were imported from Holland and Germany. Holmes states,
however, that even on the Continent thimbles of silver were too valuable to
 The Ubiquitous and Occasionally Ordinary Thimble 97

serve for domestic purposes until the latter half of the sixteenth century and
even then few have survived. So although there are early American-made sil-
ver thimbles, both European- and American-made silver thimbles predating the
eighteenth century are relatively rare in collections and hence noteworthy when
found in archaeological sites. Examples do exist in both contexts, however. The
Rhode Island Historical Society has a silver thimble ring made 16621672 with
the name esther willit inscribed around the band; although this example is
often cited as the earliest known American-made silver thimble, Gay Ann Rogers,
in her book American Silver Thimbles, expresses doubt that it was made by an
American silversmith. Found on the site of the Willett homestead on Aquidneck
Island in Rhode Island, the Willett thimble ring is topless, has a rather crudely
chased heart enclosing a circle (the inscription is also rather crude), and has
hand-punched squared indentations in concentric circles around the body. Two
other silver thimbles in the collections of the Rhode Island Historical Society
were recovered from the grave of Princess Ninigret (a daughter of Weunquesh,
chief sachem of the Narragansett, 16761690), so the thimbles buried with her
predate her death in 1660, but their place of manufacture remains unclear.32
The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation has in its collections a seventeenth-
century silver thimble bearing a chased tulip design, which suggests a Dutch
origin. This thimble is fairly short, domed, and made in two parts, with hand-
punched circular indentations in concentric circles around the body and arcing
across the crown; it has a plain band with no rim, but there is a thin chased line
just above the nger opening.33
Although most excavations at the many sites that once made up the town
lands of St. Marys City, Maryland, have resulted in the recovery of one or more
copper-alloy thimbles, two silver thimbles have been found. Both bear mark-
ings that have thus far eluded identication. One was unearthed at the site of
St. Johns, the other at the Van Sweringen site. Both are probably imported and
may have been brought to the colony by the women who were their owners. The
thimble recovered from the Van Sweringen site came from a lled-in cellar hole
beneath what archaeologist Henry Miller has identied as a coeehouse asso-
ciated with the main dwelling (g. 4.2).34
Most copper-alloy thimbles excavated from seventeenth-century sites in North
America reveal Dutch inuence. Dutch thimbles of this time period tend to be
undecorated; indeed, Dutch brass thimbles tend to remain fairly simple in de-
sign in contrast to the elaborate decoration found on silver thimbles of the same
period (for example, on the Colonial Williamsburg thimble). Erika Hill illus-
trates a good example of a Dutch-style thimble from the site of En Bas Saline,
98 The Ubiquitous and Occasionally Ordinary Thimble

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Fig. 4.2 Two silver thimbles found at St. Marys City. The left is from St. Johns
(ST1-23-2R/DQ; height: 0.736 inches; base diameter: 0.655 inches); the right is from
the van Sweringen site (ST1-19-442J/DQ; height: 0.669 inches; base diameter:
0.62 inches). (Courtesy Historic St. Marys City)

Haitia Spanish colonial site constructed atop an earlier Taino Indian village.
This is a cast-brass thimble with domed crown, and the center of the crown
lacks indentations, giving it the tonsured appearance characteristic of Euro-
pean thimbles predating 1650. This example bears large, circular indentations
hand-punched in a highly regular pattern of concentric circles as well as a notice-
able ledge-type rim. Later Dutch thimbles have wheel-applied knurlings that
cover the dome of the crown as well as the thimbles sides, as is the case for all
but one of the thimbles, both silver and copper alloy, from St. Marys City.35
American silversmiths did make silver, and occasionally gold, thimbles to or-
der for wealthy American colonists, but craftworkers could not compete with
the English producers of copper-alloy thimbles until the end of the eighteenth
century. Many smiths, jewelers, and merchants advertised in the colonial news-
papers the availability of shipments of thimbles and other goods from England,
especially in such major port cities as New York and Boston. These imports often
included steel-topped silver thimbles because silver tended to wear excessively;
on such thimbles the brazed joint between the silver body and steel top is readily
apparent. Some women preferred thimbles made wholly of silver, however, and
silversmiths like the Richardson family of Philadelphia did a good business in re-
topping silver thimbles. The Richardsons business records reveal that the colo-
nists taste was somewhat behind that of England, for the Richardsons often
complained that the thimble bodies sent to them were too tall. Evidently the
European fashion for thimbles with elongated bodies was not readily adopted in
the colonies, and for much of the eighteenth century colonial needleworkers de-
manded the shorter thimbles of the sort their seventeenth-century predecessors
had used.36
By the eighteenth century most silver and almost all brass thimbles found in
the English colonies were imported from England, and as noted above, the city
 The Ubiquitous and Occasionally Ordinary Thimble 99

of Birmingham was the center of English thimble production and hence the
likely source for thimbles excavated from English colonial sites in North America
and elsewhere. An American-based thimble industry was not established until
after the Revolution, when in 1794 Benjamin Halstead, a New York silversmith
of Dutch descent, founded the rst American thimble factory. By the second
quarter of the nineteenth century, there were thimble factories in New York;
Providence, Rhode Island; Longmeadow, Huntington, and Springeld, Massa-
chusetts; Newark, New Jersey; and Philadelphia producing millions of thimbles
in gold, silver, brass, and steel.37
In the rst half of the nineteenth century, thimbles were made even longer
and their walls even thinner than they had been in the eighteenth century; it is
unclear whether this change in shape was a result of demand (resulting, for ex-
ample, from a fashion for long ngernails). A new method of manufacture was
developed that involved die-stamping a at piece of silver, rolling it up and sol-
dering the seam, then soldering the ring to a top piece of a thimble made in the
regular manner (deep drawing).38
Holmes notes that some silver thimbles without hallmarks were made in imi-
tation of English designs in dominions of the British Empire, often in an attempt
to protect and encourage new industries. Several silversmiths in Australia, for
example, sought to emulate the established thimble manufacturers in Britain
by making branded thimbles of their own. The most prominent of the Austra-
lian brand names were Elgin, Nifty, and Palfrey. Because these thimbles were of
slightly poorer quality than the imported articles, they were not highly competi-
tive despite the tari placed on imported goods. Other British colonies and do-
minions developed their own thimble industries. In the second half of the nine-
teenth century, metalsmiths in India produced highly ornate thimbles of gold
and silver.39
Thimbles can be made of a dizzying array of materials, and many thimbles
made specically for collectors or for the souvenir trade may be impractical for
sewing and, indeed, never intended for use. Bone, ivory, wood, and stone thim-
bles tend either to be hand carved or formed on a lathe, while glass thimbles
may be hand blown or cast in a mold, then decorated either by being etched or
hand cut. Ceramic thimbles are normally cast in a mold, but they can be made
on a wheel, then decorated by hand painting or transfer printing. It is not impos-
sible that thimbles of ceramic, glass, or other nonmetallic composition could be
recovered from archaeological sites of fairly recent date, and certainly ones of
ceramic or glass, or fragments of them, would survive quite well in the ground. I
have not come across reports of any such nds, however. Unless there is evidence
to the contrary, I suggest that thimbles of this sort, if found archaeologically, are
100 The Ubiquitous and Occasionally Ordinary Thimble

best interpreted as items that may have been curated as part of a collection, as
keepsakes, or as souvenirsespecially if they bear commemorative slogans or de-
pictions of scenic localesrather than as elements of sewing kits.40

DAT I NG THI M BLES

In A History of Thimbles, Edwin Holmes notes that evolutionary pointers one

can use as guides for dating early thimbles are few. Given what we know about the
techniques for mass production of thimbles that were developed as early as the
sixteenth century and long continued in use, this is understandable. There are,
however, all sorts of subtle variations in thimble production and decoration that
can be of help to collectors if not to archaeologists (who are less likely to work with
thimbles distinguished by their valuable components such as precious metals or
gemstones or by elaborate ornamentation). But Holmes points out what for ar-
chaeologists is nothing new: The best way to date an early thimble with accu-
racy is to relate it to other objects with which it may have been found. Context
is all, but thimbles, like so many other objects, were often highly valued even
if not valuable in a monetary sense. As the example of Grace Stout illustrates,
a thimble could become a highly personalized object both because it was worn
on the body and hence personal in a direct sense and because it was used for
an activity considered quintessentially feminine, through which women could
choose to dene themselves, at least in part. For these reasons, women often went
to great lengths to keep track of and to curate their thimbles (more on thimble
cases below). So even close control of archaeological context does not assure
close dating of the object.41
The attributes of thimbles that carry chronological implications include their
manner of construction, the nature of the indentations, certain variations in the
treatment of the crown and rim, and the type of decoration. The only early thim-
bles that tended to be marked by their makers were those of silver and gold,
although many nineteenth- and twentieth-century thimbles of base metal and
other materials carry either makers marks or pattern and trademark names. Sil-
ver thimbles, while not common, are occasionally found on medieval and later
sites, but I am unaware of any excavated examples of made of gold. Hill provides
a chronology of thimbles based on morphological characteristics, which I have
adapted and expanded here (table 4.1).42
As noted above, the earliest brass thimbles were made in one of two ways: cast-
ing or dapping (hammering sheet metal into a die with a die stamp). Thimble
dapping began with a heavy iron block that had holes of dierent sizes let into it;
sheet metal, usually a copper alloy, was hammered into the holes with punches
 The Ubiquitous and Occasionally Ordinary Thimble 101

of graduated sizes; the metal was heated at intervalsannealedin a furnace to

soften it and render it malleable. Later thimbles were either cast or made in two
pieces from a strip of metal brazed at the joint, with the cap or crown added sepa-
rately. By the end of the eighteenth century the process known as deep drawing
was improved. The new process, sometimes called thimble spinning, involves
stamping a thin disk of sheet metal over a mandril to form a shallow cup, which
is then subjected to several stampings until the desired shape is formed; then the
rim is curled over and rolled back while the thimble blank is spun on a lathe.
The blank continues to spin on the lathe while a band is pressed into its lower
part and while a knurling wheel is applied to the upper sides of the thimble to
create the indentations.43
The earliest thimbles have no rim and no decoration, except perhaps a single
incised or lightly hand-punched line; by the 1500s they sometimes bore engraved
or hand-punched decorations around the sides. By the eighteenth century thim-
bles were sometimes made with a solid projecting rim around the edge, and from
the nineteenth century onward the rim was turned over mechanically.44
The indentations or knurlings on a thimble were added to make it easier to
push needles. All working thimbles (as opposed to those made, for example,
as souvenirs) have indentations of some sort, in the earliest examples punched
by hand. The term knurling refers to machine-applied indentations; thimble-
knurling machines and tools were introduced sometime in the late seventeenth
century, and the mechanically applied knurlings are easily distinguished from
hand-punched indentations. The size of the cavities or indentations normally
corresponds with size, or thickness, of the needle the thimble was likely to be
used with. In other words, the size of the indentations reects the nature of the
work for which the thimble was intended; larger, heavier thimbles have large in-
dentations, and smaller, lighter thimbles have smaller indentations. The latter
variety of thimble was far more prone to wear and decay so it is the heavier variety
of thimble that often survives best in archaeological contexts.45
In the late seventeenth century there was a change in the overall shape of sil-
ver thimbles; they were made in a shorter, more rounded form than before and
tended to have indentations covering the crown as well as the sides. Holmes
speculates that this is related to a change in the way people were sewing; the
earlier thimbles, with their bare, tonsure-like crowns, were likely used side-
waysthat is, the sides were used for needle-pushing, whereas the shorter
thimbles, indented on the crown, allowed the thimble wearer to push a needle
through fabric using the top of the thimble. During this time the nature of the in-
dentations changed as well; whereas sixteenth-century and earlier thimbles had
hand-punched indentations running around the body of the thimble in a spi-
 Table 4.1 Thimble and thimble ring chronology

Date range Diagnostic attributes Manufacturing technique Place of production

c. 12001000 bc leather nger shields; stone needle-pushers hand-sewn Egypt, Anatolia, Palestine
c. 3000 bc18th c. bronze acutrudia; at, elongated, grooved, casting Middle East, Roman, Byzantine, and
decorated Ottoman Empires
c. ad 200 bronze, brass, silver needle rings; elaborate casting; beaten sheet metal; strip China (imported to Middle East via Silk
decoration not joined Trade)
c. ad 600 camel bone thimble rings hand carving Middle East
c. ad 8001400 bronze thimble rings beaten sheet metal circum-Mediterranean
c. ad 12001700 Turko-Slavic style; bronze, large, bulbous lost-wax casting eastern Mediterranean, Bulgaria, Roma-
dome decorated with crude lines nia, and Hungary
c. ad 9001400 Hispano-Moresque style; bronze, pointed lost-wax casting western North Africa, Spain, France,
tops, molded indentations decorated on Denmark
band
c. ad 9001100 Abbasid-Levantine style; bronze, ledge- lost-wax casting Asia Minor (brought to Europe by return-
type rim, domed crown, hand-punched ing Crusaders)
indentations
before c. ad 1375 bronze thimble rings beaten sheet metal Europe; Germany
leather thimble rings hand sewn
c. 13751500 latten thimbles; domed crown, squat shape, sand casting, die-hammering Nuremberg, Germany
hand-punched indentations
c. 15501650 elongated body with band, at top inden- sand casting, dapping, or deep Nuremberg, Germany
tations spiraling up body of thimble, drawing
tonsured crown
before c. 1700 elongated body with band, at top inden- sand casting Netherlands, Sweden, England
tations spiraling up body of thimble,
tonsured crown
c. 16501730s elongated body with band, at top inden- deep drawing Netherlands; exported widely
tations spiraling up body of thimble,
tonsured crown, Vingerhoed monopoly
1500s elongated, two-piece; hand-chased decora- beaten sheet metal England
tion of chevrons or mottoes on band
mid-1690sc. 1750 Lofting patents knurling machine, establishes sand casting England; exported to North American
factory; Dutch-style thimble colonies
c. 1750 Birmingham becomes center of British deep drawing England
thimble-making: gold, silver, steel, pinch-
beck, brass
c. 1770late 1700s enameled brass thimbles; Bilston-Batterseas deep drawing, enameling England (southern Staordshire)
late 1700s porcelain thimbles casting/molding England (Worcester, Derby, Chelsea)
17941800s Halstead establishes thimble factory; spread deep drawing New York and other American cities
of American thimble-making: gold, silver,
brass, steel
1800s branded thimbles, e.g., Elgin, Nifty, deep drawing Australia
Palfrey; poor quality
1850c. 1900 ornate silver and gold various India
18571900s Iles patent thimbles; nonmetallic lining; deep-drawing; layering of materials England
ventilated
1884 Horner patent thimble: Dorcas; some deep-drawing; steel core, heavy England
have design registration no.; all Pat. or construction; attracted to mag-
Patent net
1889 U.S. patent for Dorcas

Sources: Hill 1995:85; Holmes 1985; Von Hoelle 1986

104 The Ubiquitous and Occasionally Ordinary Thimble

ral, during the seventeenth century the indentation tended to be either in the
form of small circles forming concentric rings around the body of the thimble
or small diamond-shaped indentations that created a honeycomb or wae pat-
tern. In the latter instances it is likely that the indentations, now properly called
knurlings, were applied mechanically. Indeed, by about 1650, almost all thim-
bles were indented using a knurling wheel. Of the two silver thimbles shown in
g. 4.2, the one on the left, with its hand-punched indentations, was likely made
earlier than the example on the right, which has regularly spaced knurlings on
both its crown and body.46
The fashion for fancy thimbles for women of the nobility began during the
reign of Elizabeth I of England (15581603), and the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries gave rise to ornate parlor thimbles made of gold, silver, porcelain,
enamel, mother-of-pearl, ivory, tortoiseshell, wood, bone, horn, glass, and jewels;
these thimbles were designed more for show than for sewing. At the same time,
mass-manufacturing techniques made it possible for thimbles both of precious
and base metals to be made in vast quantities, and it seems likely that archae-
ologists working on nineteenth-century sites will encounter examples of these
mass-produced but often handsome and well-made thimbles. Because nine-
teenth-century thimble-makers often took out patents on their designs or manu-
facturing techniques and produced illustrated catalogs of their products, a great
deal is known about these items. One such English thimble-manufacturing
family was that of Charles Iles, Sr., who patented a thimble with a nonmetallic
lining in 1857 and whose son Charles Iles, Jr., took out a series of patents in the
late 1800s and early 1900s for ventilated thimbles that were intended to im-
prove the wearers comfort by permitting perspiration to escape. These sorts of
thimbles are readily distinguishable by their composite layering of diering ma-
terials intended to provide the promised ventilation. 47
I have already mentioned the eorts thimble-makers undertook to improve
the strength and durability of silver thimbles by capping them with steel; this
practice began in the eighteenth century. The nineteenth century gave rise to
even more inventive ways of producing thimbles that combined the advantages
of silver with the durability of iron, and in 1884 an Englishman by the name of
Charles Horner patented a silver thimble with a steel core that proved to be ideal
for everyday, practical sewing. Horner was a master of marketing, and his eorts
to advertise and sell his new thimble were highly eective in making it widely
popular. He called his invention the Dorcas thimble, after a needlewoman men-
tioned in the Bible as someone who made coats and garments for the poor. This
name had already been adopted by many parish sewing circles in Victorian En-
gland and hence conveyed a strong sense of sewing linked to charity and good
 The Ubiquitous and Occasionally Ordinary Thimble 105

works. Horner enhanced his cleverly named product with handsome packaging
and sold it through vigorous advertising campaigns in a variety of media. The
Dorcas thimble was made in a wide range of patterns with both registered and
unregistered designs, and in 1889 Horner received a U.S. patent in order to pro-
tect the American market for his thimbles. Recognizing Dorcas thimbles is not
altogether a straightforward process if they have lost their packaging, however, be-
cause few were actually marked. The originals did not carry a trademark, and be-
cause their steel lining disqualied them from being sold as silver thimbles, they
were not hallmarked. Some models carry the design registration number (for ex-
ample, Reg. No. 210799 for The Shell design), and all have the abbreviation
Pat. (for patent, which occasionally is spelled out) and a size number stamped
on the rim. The main means of distinguishing Dorcas thimbles is their heavy
construction, their greater than normal weight (about fty-ve pennyweights per
dozen), and the fact that they are attracted to a magnet.48

THI M BL E SI Z ES A ND M A R K S

It is important for archaeologists to note the size of the thimbles recovered

from their sites, since the size is related both to the intended user as well as to the
thimbles intended use. Brass thimbles were supplied in three basic sizes: girls,
maids, and womens (also available was a fourth size, large, chiey for tailors and
men and women who engaged in heavy sewing). Silver thimbles, in contrast,
were initially custom-made as special orders for individual purchasers, but as the
demand for silver thimbles increased after the second quarter of the eighteenth
century, jewelers and silversmiths would either build up a stock in varying sizes
or make large numbers of thimbles and resell them to other retailers. Large con-
signments of such thimbles were exported to the American colonies from Lon-
don indenting houses.49
Until sometime in the twentieth century almost all young women were taught
to sew by their mothers, so throughout the centuries there was a large demand
for thimbles to t the ngers of very young girls. The demand, however, was
lled largely by childs and young womens thimbles made of inexpensive cop-
per alloy because youthful needleworkers tended to outgrow their small training
thimbles; as a result, the small-sized thimbles were likely to receive less wear than
adult thimbles. Exceptions might occur in institutional settings such as sewing
schoolsat nineteenth-century charity schools, for example, girls were expected
to be able to sew and to knit their own stockings by age vewhere institution-
ally supplied thimbles may have been used by a succession of students and hence
subjected to excessive wear.50
106 The Ubiquitous and Occasionally Ordinary Thimble

Table 4.2 Thimble sizes

Country Childs Small Medium Large

United States 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 6, 7, 8 9, 10, 11 12, 13, 14

Germany and Holland 1, 2 3, 4 5, 6, 7 8, 9, 10
England 10, 11, 12 9, 8, 7 6, 5 4, 3, 2, 1
France 4, 5, 6, 7 8 9, 10 11, 12
Norway 1 2, 3 4

Source: Zalkin 1988:19

Size marks did not become common on English thimbles before about 1880,
perhaps slightly earlier on American thimbles, but the numbers given to the sizes
diered not just between the two countries but in the United States among vari-
ous thimble manufacturers as well. Estelle Zalkin, in her Handbook of Thimbles
and Sewing Implements, notes that in the United States sizes 1 through 5 were
childrens sizes and were often sold in graduated sets to accommodate a childs
growth (table 4.2). In general, for thimbles manufactured in the United King-
dom, the higher the number, the smaller the thimble (sizes ranged from 00 to
9), whereas the reverse was true in the United States as well as in Germany, the
Netherlands, France, and Norway.51
If we look at four thimbles excavated from the Spencer-Peirce-Little site in
Newbury, Massachusetts (g. 4.3), we see that the second from the left is a steel-
lined silver thimble bearing the size mark 4 as well as the monogram LBW.
This personalized thimble must have held special signicance for its owner, who
remains unknown because no one we know of who lived at the site had these
initials. One can imagine a young woman somehow losing her thimble when
she came calling with her work at the ready to take up while visiting with the
female members of the household, unintentionally leaving behind this diminu-
tive calling card.
The monogrammed thimble is of nineteenth-century date, as is the thimble
in the far left of the image. This thimble, like the ones to the right of the silver
thimble, is copper alloy; it has regular, machine-impressed knurlings, and on its
band it bears the motto forget me not. Such motto thimbles were common
in the nineteenth century; an identical thimble, along with a second proclaim-
ing that it was from a friend, was found in a late-nineteenth-century privy
deposit in New Yorks Five Points neighborhood; excavation of the Cumber-
land/Gloucester Streets site in the Rocks neighborhood of Sydney, Australia, re-
covered several thimbles of a sort commonly found on Australian sites that were
embossed with such messages as esteem, the queen forever, remem-
 The Ubiquitous and Occasionally Ordinary Thimble 107

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Fig. 4.3 Four thimbles from the Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm in Newbury,

Massachusetts. Left to right: copper-alloy motto thimble (forget me not),
nineteenth century; steel-lined silver thimble marked 4 and monogrammed LBW,
nineteenth century; copper-alloy womans thimble and copper-alloy childs thimble,
both late eighteenth or early nineteenth century. (Photograph by Michael Hamilton)

ber me, and contentment. These emphasized the Victorian paradigm of

the genteel and accomplished lady. 52
The thimble on the far right in g. 4.3 is very small; it is a childs thimble. The
regular knurlings and rolled rim indicate that it dates from the late eighteenth
or early nineteenth centuries. The copper-alloy thimble to the left of the childs
thimble is also somewhat small, but it is probably intended for an adult nger.
It, too, is of late-eighteenth- or early-nineteenth-century date.
Holmes notes that the makers mark most frequently encountered on Ameri-
can thimbles is that of Simons Brothers Company of Philadelphia, which con-
sists of the letter S set in a shield. The company used several variations of this
mark, which was in use from 1880 onward and sometimes appears with the trade
names Priscilla or Quaker. Simons Brothers was begun in 1839 with thimble
manufacturing as its principal activity; it was a family business until 1969 and
pioneered trademarked designs such as Liberty Bell. 53
Another well-known American thimble-making rm was Ketcham and Mc-
Dougall of Brooklyn, New York, which produced nearly two-thirds of all the
marked American thimbles at present in the hands of collectors, so it seems
highly likely that their products might appear in nineteenth- and twentieth-
century archaeological sites. The company began in 1832 and in various guises
continued to make thimbles until 1932; its trademark, K&McD, was used from
108 The Ubiquitous and Occasionally Ordinary Thimble

1892 to 1932. Other marks one might nd on thimbles excavated from late-
nineteenth- and twentieth-century sites include Stern Brothers and Company,
New York (18901912); Goldsmith Stern and Company, New York; Webster
Company, North Attleboro, Massachusetts; H. Muhrs Sons, Philadelphia;
Thomas F. Brogan, New York; Untemeyer Robbins Company, New York; and
Waite Thresher and Company, Providence, Rhode Island. It is worth mention-
ing, however, that some rms distributed thimbles specially produced for them
to sell under their own brand name or logo, but they did not manufacture them.
In this context one might consider thimbles distributed through mail-order cata-
logs such as those of Montgomery Ward and Sears and Roebuck.54
It is highly uncommon for thimbles to be marked according to their country
of manufacture, but there are some general guidelines for determining where a
thimble originated. Thimble shape is the key, though decoration, size number-
ing, and in some cases marks can be helpful. In the nineteenth century, English
and American thimbles both had domed caps, but American thimbles tended to
be shorter than English and German ones, and the at-top thimble is an Ameri-
can development of the twentieth century. French thimbles of the nineteenth
century had either wae- or rectangular-patterned indentations, whereas Nor-
wegian thimbles were generally smooth-sided with indentations only in the cap.55
American gold and silver thimbles did not normally carry a mark until the
1860s, when the word sterling was introduced to indicate that an object had at
least 92.5 percent ne metal content; there were no hallmarks registered in the
United States, and hence the sterling mark merely provides an indication of
the country of origin and suggests that the article is no more than one hundred
years old. Another type of marking is the patent date; the item cannot be older
than date of patent (though it could date considerably later). Thimbles marked
coin are also American; this mark purports to establish that the silver content
of the object so marked is equivalent to that of silver coinage.56
According to Holmes, an experienced collector should be able to recognize
an American thimble at a glance: They are normally shorter and squarer than
thimbles from other countries and the size markings are small, precise, and easy
to dierentiate from those found elsewhere; American styles are also less ornate
and more conservative than their counterparts in Europe. He also speculates
that the early introduction of mass-production methods may have inuenced
the design of American thimbles, noting that their nish is invariably quite good
and that ornamental scrollwork, beading, and channelings are almost invariably
of a high standard. What is more, the squatness of American thimbles may have
been an advantage in the manufacturing process, allowing greater thickness. This
perhaps could also lead to better preservation in archaeological sites.57
 The Ubiquitous and Occasionally Ordinary Thimble 109

Somewhat problematic is the issue of thimbles found on Spanish colo-

nial sites. Holmes considers it likely that Spain would have developed its own
Moorish-inuenced thimble-making industry by at least the fteenth century;
he states that the introduction of metal thimbles to the New World would have
occurred with the arrival of Christopher Columbus on his rst voyage in 1492,
but these would have been mens thimbles made of heavy brass or iron and with
large indentations to match the heads of large needles. When Portuguese and
Spanish colonists were established in the Americas, regular supplies of thimbles
were sent from home. Holmess examination of colonial records of Mexico for
the year 1566 turned up such entries as 500 dedales de muger . . . 800 mara-
veds and Dedales para sastres a rreal y medio la dozena. Hills study of thim-
bles from circum-Caribbean sites, especially early Spanish colonial sites, does
not provide evidence of an Iberian origin for metal thimbles supplied to the out-
posts of the Spanish Empire. On the contrary: Hill identies two thimbles from
closely dated contexts as likely products of the Nuremberg thimble-makers. The
rst example was found at the site of Nueva Cadz, Venezuela (15151541), and
the second at the Convento de San Francisco in the Dominican Republic (rst
half of sixteenth century). Both are deep drawn, copper alloy, and rather squat;
they have regularly spaced hand-punched indentations running up the body in a
spiral from the band to the crown, terminating in the center of the crown (hence
no tonsure-like blank spot on the crown). Hill is convinced that these thimbles
were produced in Nuremberg and exported to Spain. She supports this interpre-
tation by citing documentary evidence of the trade in thimbles between Ger-
many and Spain. This trade developed as early as 1428 and involved many other
goods besides thimbles because Spain relied heavily on imports from Genoa
and northern Europe to supply its colonies. Manufactured goods were collected
from all over Europe in warehouses in Seville, then transshipped to the colonies.
Hills research makes it clear that thimbles found on Spanish colonial sites from
the time of their founding until around the middle of the seventeenth century
are likely to be products of Nuremberg. By the mid-seventeenth century, how-
ever, the source of supply was likely the Netherlands, whereas Spanish colonial
sites of the eighteenth century display a uniformity of shape and design which is
unmistakable and which identies them as of English origin. Thus the basic se-
quence of types of inexpensive copper-alloy thimbles and their changing sources
of supply is the same at both Spanish and English colonial sites.58
As for decoration, thimbles produced in America often displayed picturesque
views, especially waterfronts and agrarian scenes, while English thimble-makers
tended to employ oral decorations. As noted above, marks on thimbles can be
either makers marks, size marks, or registry marks, but such marks are far more
110 The Ubiquitous and Occasionally Ordinary Thimble

likely to appear on thimbles of silver and gold rather than those of base metals.
The location of marks can be a clue as to country of origin, even if the manufac-
turer is not known. American and Norwegian thimbles tend to be marked inside
the cap or sometimes on the band, whereas English and French examples tend
to be marked on the band. German marks, however, tend to be placed on the
second row of indentations. Zalkins Handbook provides a helpful key to many
pattern, trademark, and makers marks.59

THIMBLE CASES

It is worth noting that thimble cases were extremely common and important
items for seamstresses and needleworkers of all sorts, and here I oer only the
briefest of summaries of the sorts of thimble cases that are known to have existed.
In my research into archaeological collections, I came across several needle or
pin cases from excavated collections, but none of the collections I examined in-
cluded anything remotely resembling a thimble case. Nor did anyone respond
to my published queries to say that they had excavated a thimble case or a part
thereof, or something they wanted me to identify that happened to be a thimble
case. I cannot help but be a bit bemused by the fact that so many thimble cases
exist in private collections and museums and that seemingly none have survived
archaeologically. I suspect that perhaps some have come out of the ground that
I have not learned about and that others may not have been recognized for what
they are, but it is also true that many thimble cases were made of materials that
are unlikely to survive in archaeological contextsat least not in a suciently
intact state to be identied.
Needles and pins are obviously easy to lose and require some means of keep-
ing and storing; thimbles, one would think, are not tiny enough to be lost so
easily. But if the number of thimbles found in archaeological contexts is any
guide to go by (and we set aside for the moment the matter of discarding worn
thimbles), they did get lost with what for needleworkers must have been annoy-
ing frequency. Thimble cases, therefore, served the purpose of keeping thim-
bles, keeping them from being lost as well as keeping them to hand. When some-
one needed to sew, they needed a thimble as much as they needed thread and
needle, so it is not uncommon for thimble cases to be part of combination units
for storing other sewing implements as well as similarly small items that needed
to be to hand.
Holmes denes a thimble case as a small decorated container which is de-
signed especially to hold a thimble and nothing more. It seems likely that the
idea of creating a case to contain a thimble rst came from goldsmiths or silver-
 The Ubiquitous and Occasionally Ordinary Thimble 111

smiths who crafted ne thimbles, and by the eighteenth century costly thimbles
tended to be presented in a case, often quite fancy, but as a general rule thimble
cases were less expensive than the thimbles they contained. Some thimble cases
were made of silver or gold or high-quality porcelain, but the favored material for
truly classy thimble cases in the eighteenth century was shagreen, shark or sh
skin or an untanned leather. Ivory was also popular, but wood was the most com-
monly used. Many thimble cases were made as souvenirs and novelties in all sorts
of shapes (for example, acorns, walnuts, pinecones, eggs, barrels, beehives, shoes
or slippers, sailing ships, bowling pins, mushrooms, baskets, bottles, railway cars,
buckets, hats and hatboxes, electric lightbulbs, animals of all sorts, and so on and
on). In addition to wood, cases were made of various base metals, leather, lac-
quered paper, mother-of-pearl, mussel shell, tortoiseshell, beadwork, vegetable
ivory, coquilla, bone, plush, glass, stones such as agates, and almost any other
material one can think of. Of all the materials mentioned above, few are likely to
survive archaeologically (glass, porcelain, precious metals, and stone being note-
worthy exceptions). This alone helps account for the fact that archaeologists do
not report regular nds of thimble cases. Although it is certainly possible that
thimble cases might be recovered, especially from nineteenth- and twentieth-
century sites, it seems likely that for the majority of needleworkers in colonial
and later times, the place for a thimble was the sewing box or workbasket rather
than in a separate thimble case.60

I N T ER PRET I NG THI M BL ES

Thimbles, humble little objects though they may be, have the potential to
tell us about many things if we subject them to interpretive scrutiny. The size
and quality of a thimble can provide clues as to the sort of sewing activity for
which it was intended and whether it was likely to be worn by an adult man
or woman or by a child in accomplishing this purpose. Wear on a thimble can
speak to long and hard use, but lack of wear is not necessarily an indication that
a thimble was never used. Maids or childs thimbles, for example, were not toys,
but a child might have outgrown such a thimble along with her childish cloth-
ing and playthings. We know that although most were utilitarian, some thimbles
were actively deployed in demonstrations of femininity and social rank as well
as in the construction of personal and social identities. So thimbles can be inter-
preted in ways that inform us about gender and class and work. They can also in-
form us about how institutions (for example, schools, orphanages, poorhouses),
colonizers, and religious proselytizers used carefully selected items of material
culture as a medium for inculcating values associated with such objects. The
112 The Ubiquitous and Occasionally Ordinary Thimble

case study that follows oers a way of re-envisioning and reinterpreting thimbles
found at sites occupied by Native Americans during the colonial period in North
America as something other than merely trade goods.

propagating the gospel and civilizing the

natives: thimbles for magunco
In the seventeenth century, New England was not a distinctive region of the
Americas controlled by a single European power; rather, it constituted a number
of settler colonies established by dierent groups for varied reasons. The present-
day Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the seventeenth century was divided
into the colonies of Plymouth and of Massachusetts Bay, their leaders often at
odds with one another over religious, political, and economic issues and in dis-
agreement about how to interact with the indigenous Algonkian-speakers who
continued to reside in what had become English territory and who had cul-
tural dierences of their own.
Excavations by the Fiske Memorial Center for Archaeological Research under
the direction of Stephen A. Mrozwoski at Magunco Hill, in what is now Ash-
land, Massachusetts, produced evidence both of cultural transformation and re-
sistance based on the analysis of Indian use of European materials in this late-
seventeenth- and early-eighteenth-century Praying Indian Town. Magunco,
also known in the native language as Makunkokoag, Magunkaquog, or Magun-
kook, was established about 1674 by missionary John Eliot for Christianized Nip-
muc Indians. Eliot was a Puritan minister who sought to Christianize the Indians
of the Massachusetts Bay Colony through his preaching as well as through trans-
lation of a catechism, the Bible, and other religious tracts into Algonkian; he also
spearheaded the eort to resettle Indian converts in their own towns, where they
could continue to speak (and to read and write) their own language and follow
their own laws while nevertheless subscribing to the values of Christianity and
Puritan culture by living in English-style houses and adopting European dress
and material culture.61
At Magunco, archaeologists recovered a number of identical copper-alloy
thimbles, likely of English manufacture; all were small, maids or childs size. In-
terpreting these thimbles merely as sewing tools seems insucient. Although ar-
chaeologists often write about thimbles that have been altered by Native Ameri-
cans for use as personal adornment or as tinklers axed to fringed clothing, none
of the Magunco thimbles had holes driven through their crowns. Indeed, they
displayed no apparent use-wear. It is altogether possible that the Magunco thim-
bles represent another front in the battle waged by John Eliot to Christianize the
 The Ubiquitous and Occasionally Ordinary Thimble 113

indigenous people of Massachusetts. As such, they can be interpreted as gifts

with a hidden agenda, as prestationa gift or oering in fulllment of a duty or
servicein this case in service of the ideology of colonialism and Christianity as
much as in benevolent generosity. A mass-produced and globally distributed ob-
ject such as a thimble represents more than an attempt to draw Native Americans
into the world system of capitalist exchange. In the words of Nicholas Thomas,
such a good becomes an alienated thing when put into circulation and is far
more than a commodity. It may become imbued with new meaning and new
signicance, and it may embody a complicated set of values that are not inher-
ent to the object but are seen as arising out of qualities that its appropriate use
are thought to impart or inculcate.62
To the colonizer and missionary, thimbles (and, presumably, needles, thread,
and textilesall less likely than thimbles to be found archaeologically) were a
perfect medium for conveying a suite of values that linked ideals of femininity
and womanhood, cleanliness, and godliness, as well as the production of proper,
modest, European-style dress. Although it is not known whether women num-
bered among Eliots missionaries, it seems likely that if the thimbles were to serve
their purpose, Englishwomen would have been sent to instruct young Indian
women and girls in sewing and needlework. Because the Magunco thimbles are
all too small for adult use, it would appear that the missionaries targeted the
younger female converts as potentially more receptive than adult women to in-
struction in European techniques of sewing.63
The Magunco thimbles would have been diminutive yet powerful tools of the
missionaries in their eorts to instill Christian values, for the very act of sewing in-
corporated many values espoused in Christian teachings: it required clean hands,
self-sacrice, and self-discipline. Skill in sewing was an imperative for European
women and girls of all ages and social stationsa womans always having work
to hand prevented idleness that might lead to inappropriate behavior. Hence mis-
sionaries through the ages have stressed instruction in sewing and needlework
along with biblical instructionindeed, sewing schools and missions have often
made Bible verses or biblical scenes the required subjects of samplers and em-
broidered pictures produced by their pupils.
Although we can provide a context for understanding why missionaries might
have thought thimbles as eective as Bibles for their purpose of conveying West-
ern, Christian ideals to converted Indians, it is impossible to assess how strongly
Indian women embraced this new skill and the values associated with it. As noted
above, little if any wear can be detected on the thimbles (this is often the case
for thimbles intended for youngstersyoung ngers tend to outgrow the thim-
114 The Ubiquitous and Occasionally Ordinary Thimble

bles before they are subjected to much wear), and we have no indication that
the thimbles were reappropriated by the Christianized Indians for purposes other
than those for which they were intended. Perhaps they were simply discarded?
Whatever the explanation may be, we cannot assume that the presence at
Magunco of English thimbles, in numbers large or small, is by any stretch of the
imagination an index to acculturation or the wholesale adoption by Christian-
ized Nipmucs of the value system such items represented to Europeans. As one
of the more subtle ploys of colonialism, the thimbles alert us to the intentions
of the colonizers and missionaries and leave us to speculate as to the actions and
responses of their congregation. 64
 5

Shears and Scissors

Marriage resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they cannot be separated; often
moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing anyone who comes between
them.
sydney smith, Lady Hollands Memoir, 1855

We are but two halves of a pair of scissors, when apart . . . but together we are
something.
charles dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, 18431844

Cutting implements are critical to sewing and needlework of all types, for cut-
ting fabric, yarn, or thread, for creating buttonholes, fringes, and so on and on.
Scissors and shears had to be strong and sturdy to accomplish their purpose, and
since their rst appearance in the Bronze Age, these implements have tended to
be made of hardy metals that are capable of being sharpened and resharpened.
Hence shears and scissors, particularly those made of steel, are often well pre-
served in the ground and are common archaeological nds, especially on medi-
eval or later sites; indeed, a Museum of London archaeologist has remarked that
blades from knives or shears are among the most common and varied metal-
work nds on medieval sites. Historical archaeologists have devoted little time
or attention to the scissors they nd, and too often they tend to assume that vir-
tually all scissors were used for sewing. But scissors, like many another common
tools, served many functions and in fact were important tools for work or in the
home. 1
The basic components of a pair of shears are two blades joined by two arms to
a central sprung bow. The junction of the blade and the handle may have single
or multiple semicircular recesses, and the tip of the blade as well as the top of the
blade may vary in form. Both scissors and shears have two opposite cutting edges
working one against the other, but the cutting operation of scissors depends on

115
116 Shears and Scissors

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Fig. 5.1 The parts of a pair of scissors. The scissors at the top have a round, or bodkin,
pointed blade, the lower a vigo point. (After Himsworth 1953:154)

a riveted center, calling for more delicate adjustment during manufacture. Scis-
sors consist of a pair of opposed blades with arms, pivoted together in the center;
at the end of each arm is a loop (also known as a bow and sometimes as a nger
ring) for manipulating the scissors, and above the pivot, at the junction of the
blade and arm, there may be a stop to prevent the arms overlapping (g. 5.1).
Scissors represent a great departure from the knife because they are adapted to
cut materials such as hair, wool, and woven fabrics, though in medieval times
razors and shears seem to have been interchangeable for the task of beard cut-
ting and hair trimming. 2

THE HIST ORY A ND A RC H A E OL O GY O F S CI SS O RS

Shears probably predate scissors. J. B. Himsworth states that shears appeared

in the Bronze Age but oers no examples to support this early date. There is
rm evidence of shears in the Iron Age, around 1000 bc. The earliest shears con-
sisted of two knives joined by a single U-shaped spring, the springing action made
possible because of irons malleability; examples have been found at La Tne,
France, in Roman Egypt, and in Parthian Iran. One source illustrates what it
calls the earliest known shears excavated from La Tne (third century bc).3
Shears of a simple, unchanging pattern have been used since at least the Iron
Age for sheepshearing, and the introduction of scissors into Europe sometime in
the sixth or seventh century did not aect use of shears for this operation. With
shears, a person could work the blades together with a single-handed simulta-
neous cutting action, leaving the second hand free to hold or steady the item
being cut. This permitted a person to obtain an entire eece of wool rather than
just pull away tufts with a comb. In antiquity, wild sheep tended to have hairy
coats, but with domestication herders continuously selected woolly sheep over
hairy ones. Early textile producers plucked sheep at the time of molting. Though
 Shears and Scissors 117

this gave an extremely ne product, over time sheep then developed a coat that
was more woolly than hairy. Because wool bers tend to molt earlier than the
hair and kemp, it thus became desirable to nd a way to remove the sheeps coat
in its entirety. Until the later Iron Age textile producers commonly obtained
wool by combing sheep, spinning the wool, then weaving the cloth to shape. It
seems likely that sheepshearing was the main use for shears at rst, but by the
end of the Roman period, when textiles were rst woven in lengths, shears were
also employed to cut cloth. Shears are frequent nds in British contexts of the
Middle and Late Iron Age and are often found in conjunction with such other
cutting tools as razors and scissors. Because such nds at times predate the shift
to weaving in lengths, some archaeologists have interpreted all of these items as
toilet implements, used for cutting hair, rather than for textile production.4
A study of knives, scissors, shears, and folding knives from medieval sites in
London allowed archaeologists to develop in-depth understanding of the meth-
ods of construction and quality of materials used in producing cutting imple-
ments and the sheaths used to cover them. Included among the ve hundred
specimens studied were fty-four pairs of shears and three pairs of scissors;
the shears were recovered from contexts dating from the late twelfth through
the early to mid-fteenth centuries, while the scissors appeared in fourteenth-
century contexts.5
The form of shears has remained remarkably consistent over time, with medi-
eval shears looking as much like modern examples as they do the more ancient
specimens. The distinction between scissors and shears may never have been
abandoned by cutlers, but in recent times the terms scissors and shears seem
to be used interchangeably without denoting any clear distinction in the shape,
size, or construction of one item versus the other. At the time of its founding
in 1624, however, the Cutlers Company of Sheeld, England, included both
scissorsmiths and shearsmithsshear-making and scissor-making were classied
as completely separate trades. The closest I have come to a denition of why some
cutting implements with two blades that operate on a pivot are called shears I
found in the ocial company history of the American cutlery company, J. Wiss
and Sons: Technically, the dividing line between a pair of scissors and a pair of
shears is an arbitrary measurement. Shears generally measure six inches or more
in length, have one small handle for the thumb and the other larger, for the in-
sertion of two or more ngers. The varieties smaller than six inches are usually
catalogued as scissors and are made with two small matching handles. 6
This makes it clear that twentieth-century scissor-makers refer to overall size
and unequal size of the bows or nger loops rather than to construction to dis-
tinguish scissors from shears, that over time the term shears has come to mean
118 Shears and Scissors

large scissors and scissors with dierently sized bows. I have attempted here to
maintain the distinction between scissors and shears based on manner of con-
struction versus that based on size (that is, scissors have blades that pivot on a pin
whereas shears operate via a springy bow) to avoid adding to the confusion I am
aware some archaeologists experience in attempting to classify these objects, ex-
cept when it seems ridiculous to reject terms that have been in constant use
pinking shears or pruning shears, for instanceand that are clearly understood
by everyone to refer to a specic two-bladed cutting implement.7
Shears at times appear as motifs on medieval English gravestones as well as
on secular sculptures, and the motif has been taken by some to stand as a sym-
bol for a person who pursued the trade of wool dealer or stapler, someone who
dealt in raw wool. Eleanora Carus-Wilson notes, however, that the types of shears
that appear in such sculptures are often not ones that would have been used to
shear sheep to obtain raw wool; rather, most shears depicted have at blades that
are wider at the end than at the base. Such shears, often referred to as fullers
shears, were used for shearing cloth, for cutting and cropping the surface to give
it a close nish. In such cases, then, the shears that appear in sculpture represent
not staplers or dealers in raw wool but men who dealt in manufactured woolens,
that is, nished cloth.8
Others say that shears symbolized womanhood and hence marked the grave of
a female; some have posited that sharp-pointed shears were intended for use by
women, whereas square-ended ones were used by clothiers for cutting nap and
thus were mens tools. But, as with most implements, it is dicult to make a case
that a certain type of object was used exclusively by men or by women or that
an implement was always used for the purpose for which it was intended. For
example, an illustration exists of an abbess cutting o the hair of a queen with
square-ended shears, and both sharp and blunt shears, along with swords, have
been found in mens graves. This does not negate the fact, however, that certain
items took on symbolic import that arose from how they were most commonly
used and the type of person who most commonly used them.9
Scissors were introduced into Europe around the sixth or seventh century
examples made of iron are found in Roman occupation layers at British sites,
and iron scissors dating from 250 bc to 150 bc are also found in France and Ger-
manybut scissors do not seem to have come into general use until the late
thirteenth or early fourteenth century. Margrethe de Neergaard posits that the
continued preference for shears well after scissors were introduced arises out of
conservatism as well as the fact that shears can be made fairly easily compared to
scissors. She suggests that by the late medieval period, the advantages aorded by
scissorsnger loops that make one-handed operation simple and long, slender
 Shears and Scissors 119

blades that make cutting in a straight line easywere recognized by specialist

tradesmen such as hatters, glovers, tailors, and barbers, while in most households
shears continued to be favored for a variety of domestic uses. Neergaard points
out that the ubiquity of knives, shears and scabbards on archaeological sites in
the city of London and elsewhere in the country and in Europe is a further nal
reection of their importance in medieval life. They were much-used, easily
available items, readily discarded and replaced. 10
During the medieval period scissors began to be fashioned according to the
purposes for which they were intended, taking on a variety of forms. In medi-
eval and later times, there were many European centers producing ne-quality
cutlery. Among the best known were Paris, Thiers, and Chtellerault in France;
Nuremberg, Solingen, and Ramscheid in Germany; Toledo and Seville in Spain;
Eskilstuna in Sweden; and Namur in Belgium. By the sixteenth century Moulins
in France was known for its ne scissors, and France led the industry in pro-
duction of high-quality and often elaborate scissors embellished with precious
metals until late in the seventeenth century. In the eighteenth century, ne scis-
sors were also made in Spain, whose craftsmen specialized in damascened scis-
sors, gilded and painted, with elaborate decoration on both shanks and blades,
as well as in Italy and Germany.11
In Britain, cutlery-making existed as a separate trade in London by the twelfth
century, and a cutlers guild formed by the thirteenth century; London cutlers
dominated the trade within Britain for more than two hundred years. Beginning
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the production of high-quality cut-
lery was based in Englands Hallamshire district, in the West Riding of Yorkshire,
with Sheeld at its center. Evidence exists of ironworking and knife-making in
Sheeld from at least the twelfth century onward; there were large deposits of
iron ore and coal nearby and two fast-owing rivers, the Sheaf and the Don, that
provided power seats for hundreds of waterwheels. Available locally as well was
an abundant supply of good-quality sandstone, which was used in making grind-
stones. Knives and scissors made in Sheeld were of the highest quality and were
exported all over the world, in especially large numbers to the British colonies in
the Americas, and throughout the nineteenth century Sheeld dominated the
American market for high-quality knives and scissors. Hence the vast majority
of scissors found in archaeological work at colonial and postcolonial sites in the
Americas (and elsewhere) are likely to have been imported from Sheeld, En-
gland.12
Not until the beginning of the nineteenth century was cutlery-making seri-
ously undertaken in the United States; the rst rm to incorporate was the Meri-
den Cutlery Company, founded in 1835 in Meriden, Connecticut, with the aim
120 Shears and Scissors

of manufacturing pocketknives. Also in Connecticut, the Empire Knife Com-

pany formed in West Winstead in 1845 to produce knives and razors, and the
Miller Brothers in Southington began making pocketknives in 1850. Soon the
Southington Cutlery Company began making knives and razors, and the Wil-
liam Rogers Manufacturing Company of Hartford was one of several Connecti-
cut cutlery rms established in the nineteenth century. None were known for
scissor-making, however.13
The Clauss Shear Company was founded in Toledo, Ohio, in 1877, at rst
manufacturing bread knives but eventually becoming well known for its scis-
sors. American manufacturers tended to copy Sheeld styles. Indeed, many of
the Connecticut rms employed craftsmen from Sheeld, who brought with
them their skill and expertisebut the American rms, being new to the cut-
lery trades, readily adopted the latest technological advances, unlike their more
conservative counterparts in Sheeld.14
Jacob Wiss, a Swiss migr trained as a cutler and gunsmith, arrived in Newark,
New Jersey, in 1847 and went to work for Rochus Heinisch, an Austrian cutler
who had set up a shear manufactory in Newark in 1825. By 1848 Wiss was in
business for himself; the rm produced high-quality shears and, during the Civil
War, both surgical scissors for the medical sta of the Union Army and shears
for the tailors who cut cloth to be made into Union uniforms. After Jacob Wisss
death in 1880, his son Frederick took over the business and initiated an aggres-
sive international marketing campaign that gave Wiss cutlery a rm place in the
market both in America and abroad.15

M A K I NG SHEA RS A ND S CI SS O RS

The principal operations in producing shears and scissors are forging, grind-
ing, heat treating, polishing, and nishing, yet these processes can require more
than 170 steps to transform the raw bar of steel to its nal, ready-for-sale state,
and most of these steps are hand operations requiring expert craftsmanship. Met-
allurgical analysis of the collection of scissors and shears from medieval London
sites revealed a high degree of standardization in the production of shears, most
of which were forged from a single piece of iron that had a steel cutting edge scarf-
welded to a wrought iron back. Throughout the medieval period the left blade of
the shears always overlapped the right, and the cutting surface was at, while the
reverse side was usually somewhat rounded with a chamfer at the cutting edge.16
Scissor-making did not become automated until rather late in the nineteenth
century. Before that, all the processes in manufacturing scissorsforging, boring,
hardening, shaping, grinding, ling shanks and bows, putting together with rivet
 Shears and Scissors 121

or screw, polishing and burnishingwere done by hand. This contributed to a

lack of standardization; many fancy patterns for scissors came into being only
because the cutlers crafted each pair by hand. A range of small tools could be
tted into the scissor-makers anvil for the rough forging and shaping of scissors,
but ornamental details were led by hand and drilled. Shanks and bows were n-
ished o by hand burnishing. Much of the nishing work was done by women
the Sheeld cutlery trade was composed of many small-scale shops operated at
the household level of production, and often both skills and shops were passed
down through families over the generations.17
In her research into the cutlery trades in Sheeld, Joan Unwin found only
seven pre-eighteenth-century probate inventories for scissorsmiths. Several of
the inventories failed to list any items relevant to the trade the men pursued, al-
though one man, William Burley (d. 1696/97) left behind ten gross of scissors
valued at ve pounds. As for the others, Joshua Russell, d. 1692/3, had a smithy
with two hearths and a complement of tools for eachbellows, stock, anvil, cool-
trough, hammers and tongs, while Francis Bronell, d. 1698, had two stocks and
anvils in his smith . . . as did Thomas Hunt d. 1696. Four of the seven scissorsmiths
had equipment and tools for grinding and glazing, two of them at a Wheel. Only
one inventory mentions les and only two had very small amounts of iron and
steel. 18
As these inventory entries reveal, the scissorsmith required equipment much
the same as that used by others in the cutlery trades: a forging hearth, an anvil,
hammers, and tongs. The smith forged each half of a pair of scissors separately,
rst heating a rod of iron in the hearth, then shaping the blade, bow, and connect-
ing shank using dies set into his anvil. Sheeld smiths initially used blister steel to
forge cutting edges, but about 1742 Benjamin Huntsman developed high-quality
crucible steel. Nevertheless, steel was costly, so throughout the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, scissorsmiths forge-welded a narrow strip of steel along the
cutting edge of the iron blades during the initial forging.19
Bows could be formed by bending the end of the iron rod around to form a
circle; the end could then be welded to the shank, producing what was known
as a shot bow. The weld was not absolutely necessary, however, and Continen-
tal scissorsmiths right up to the twentieth century often left the bow detached
from the shank. Another method of producing the bow was by widening a hole
punched through the end of the shank; this method was often used on later small
scissors.20
After the two halves of a pair of scissors were completed, the next step in forging
was to match the halves (this was called putting together) and to set the blades
so that they could cut eectively. Scissor assembly was skilled work, involving
122 Shears and Scissors

careful grinding of the blade and setting it by giving it a slight twist. This twist
makes it possible for the blade edges to keep on cut all along the length of the
blades. If the two blades were simply pivoted together they would not work prop-
erly because the material they are trying to cut will force them apart. The blades
must therefore be made to curve or twist inwards from pivot to point, so that in
use they only touch at the cutting point where the pressure is concentrated. 21
When closed and not in use, scissor blades should touch only at their tips.
Once the two halves were riveted together at the shank end of the blade, all
surfaces were led to remove traces of work and rough edges; then they were
polished to create smooth and decorative nishes. The same nishing processes
were used in the nal stage of manufacturing shears.22
When mass-mechanical methods of production became popular at the end
of the nineteenth century, much of the variety in the design and even types of
scissors was lost, and engineering practice limited manufacturing ranges to a few
basic styles and patterns. Stamping machines eliminated much of the need for
handwork along with stylistic variation among scissors. Mechanically produced
scissors fall into one of four broad categories: hot drop-forged of forging steel with
welded high-carbon crucible steel blades; hot drop-forged of a single piece of
forging steel; cold-pressed from steel strips; and cast iron. The rst process results
in the best-quality scissors, which are nearly unbreakable. Cold-pressed scissors
lack temper, so their blades readily become dull, and cast-iron scissors and shears
are brittle and will snap under pressure.23

T Y P ES OF SHE A RS A ND S CI SS O RS

There are many types of scissors designed to serve specic functions within
the realm of sewing and tailoring, but this is only the beginning. And given that
until the late nineteenth century scissors were produced one pair at a time by
skilled artisans, the variations among sewing scissors alone, in terms of decora-
tion and minor dierences in the shaping of dierent elements, are manifold.
As with so many other types of implement, items sold as sewing scissors or bar-
bers scissors could be used to cut all manner of things, so although what follows
can help guide the archaeologist toward the interpretation of which scissors were
intended for what purpose, it cannot oer insight into alternative, opportunis-
tic, idiosyncratic, andperhapseven criminal uses to which such implements
might be put.24
It is also worth noting that it is sometimes dicult to identify with condence
a whole object from merely one of its parts, but this is something archaeologists
are all too frequently forced to do. Implements that are not scissors might have
 Shears and Scissors 123

bows or nger holes for ease of operation; candlesnuers, boiled-egg cutters, and
sugar tongs are examples of such objects. A pair of candlesnuers from the Estbe
House (17551810) at Place-Royale in Qubec City oers a good example. Be-
cause it is nearly intact, this artifact is easily identied as a pair of candlesnuers
(mouchettes en fer)but the blade tip that has broken o, if found elsewhere
than in association with the snuers, might be identied as a fragment of a scis-
sors blade (and of course the same is true of the bows and upper shanks of such
an object).25
In late-seventeenth-century deposits at Tilbury Fort in Essex, England, for
instance, archaeologists recovered a fragment of a copper-alloy object that they
tentatively identied as part of a pair of scissors, although all that survived was
a portion of the shank and the very beginnings of a loop or bow. They acknowl-
edge, however, that copper alloy scissors are very uncommon and may have had
inserted iron blades for added strength. Alternatively this piece could be part of
another two handled pivoted object such as a candle snuer. The latter inter-
pretation seems the most likely of the two.26

shears

Comes the blind fury with Th abhorred shears

And slits the thin-spun life.
john milton, Lycidas, 1637

Examination of the fty-four examples recovered from London archaeologi-

cal contexts dating from the twelfth through the fteenth centuries revealed only
minor changes in the appearance and construction of shears over the centuries.
The earliest medieval shears consisted merely of two wide blades, the upper blade
straight or sloping, each blade tapering to the tip, and a plain handle. The bow
held the tension; all the bows were oval or circular and averaged about one-third
of the total arm length. Shears dated to the fourteenth century have rectangular-
section handles, with central ridges, possibly decorative, possibly as a means of
strengthening the loop. Handles long in proportion to the blades allowed greater
leverage, and more pressure could be exerted.27
The shears from London sites varied in length, ranging from just under three
inches long to about twelve and a half inches long. Extra length, combined with
a wide span across the bow, made for a very strong cutting action; a combination
of long handle and long blades was best for a continuous cutting action, while
accurate and continuous cutting required long and relatively slender blades.
Sheep shears require slender, pointed blades with an overall length of between
twelve and eighteenth inches; long-bladed shears were also useful for cutting
124 Shears and Scissors

cloth. The smallest shears t into the palm of the hand and are worked by the
nger and thumb; small shears serve best for a single exact cutcutting thread,
for instance. The small fourteenth- and fteenth-century shears from London
all have a single recess, curved upper blades, and tapering or angled blade tips;
these could have served a variety of domestic purposes. Small, domestic shears
for cutting thread or hair were still in use in postmedieval times; a blade from
such a pair was found in a seventeenth-century context by archaeologists moni-
toring drainage work at the Perth Museum and Art Gallery on George Street in
Perth, Scotland. Two examples from the London collection have slender blades
with silver inlay, making it seem likely that this type of shears was intended for
use in sewing and needlework and that such examples are the precursors to the
elaborate needlepoint scissors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 28
Cloth shears are similar to sheep shears in that they are quite large, but they
have broad, pointed blades to ensure a straight cut. Fullers shears are distinctive
in shape and size; from medieval times up until the early nineteenth century
when cloth-shearing was mechanized, they were huge, heavy, and broad-ended,
with a stout outer framework into which two at blades, broader at the end than
at the base, were set. As noted earlier, they were used in cloth nishing to cut o
the ends of bers raised by teazels (teazling is akin to giving the cloth a severe
brushing, which raises bre ends to the surface). The ends were then closely
cropped, giving the fabric a soft, even surface. Shearers, as they were called, were
skilled craftsmen whose tools were specialized, expensive, and highly valued
and they could weigh as much as thirty-ve pounds. Fullers shears had long,
wide blades with a straight upper edge at right angles to the squared tip of the
blade. The shears were laid at on the cloth with the shearers left hand inserted
through the stirrup grip on the lower blade, allowing the blades to be opened
and closed with the same hand.29
Not all fullers shears were immense. The larger versions tended to be used
primarily in the rst shearing of the cloth, which took place at the fulling mill,
but smaller shears might be used in subsequent re-shearings by the shearman or
even a nal time just before the cloth was made up by the tailor: occasionally
small instead of great shears had to be used, as for certain striped cloths, where
the surface of the stripes varied. 30
Shears seem to have been acquired and discarded as readily in the early En-
glish colonies as they were in medieval and postmedieval Britain; many examples
are reported in the archaeological literature. An incomplete large shears blade
was found in the destruction layers (about 1650) at Bolingbroke Castle in Lin-
colnshire. A pair of iron shears was found at the seventeenth-century site known
as the Maine at Governors Land, near Jamestown, Virginia.31
 Shears and Scissors 125

scissors
There is a great variety of types of scissors for diverse purposes, sewing being
just one activity for which scissors were necessary. In what follows I attempt to
provide as much detail about how to dierentiate one type of scissors from an-
other, but again I must add the caveat that people could use a pair of scissors any
way they wished. I do suspect, however, that if someone in a household went to
the trouble and expense to purchase a pair of specialty scissors, he or she had a
denite purpose in mind. My search through the literature supports this infer-
ence in a circumstantial way, for it seems that by far the most commonly found
type of scissors on the majority of sites are best interpreted as general-purpose
or all-purpose domestic utility scissors. These are generally fairly small (about
four to six inches long), with thin blades, and for the most part lack ornamen-
tation. Examples have been found at Bolingbroke Castle (16501675); at a site
south of Aldgate High Street, in Aldgate, London (c. 16701750/70), at Oyster
Street, Portsmouth (one pair from a late-sixteenth- to seventeenth-century fea-
ture and another from a mid-seventeenth-century feature).32
Sewing scissors. First it is useful to comprehend the possible formal and stylis-
tic variation among the various parts of scissors, which in the nineteenth century
was considerable. Bows could be uted, at, wire, bevel, or bevel-curl in sec-
tion (g. 5.2). Shapes of bows ranged from variations on ovals to nearly circular,
and some scissors had oset bows, that is, one bow (usually the thumb grip) is
larger than the other. Sheeld scissorsmiths had a colorful vocabulary to refer to
the style of shanks: bead-neck; winged Spanish; thread-neck; square sarum; re-
verse glass; ddle joint; common tup; leaf sarum; uted beaded with curl swamp
joint; and combinations of and variations on these. Scissor blades were classied
according to their prole: at, bodkin, or rapier. Illustrated here are three pairs
of eighteenth-century English (probably Sheeld) sewing scissors from the col-
lections of the Winterthur Museum. From left to right, the blade types are at,
bodkin (or round), and rapier (or pointed); the bow types are, from right to left,
bevel, wire, and at. All three have unusually elaborate shanks (g. 5.3).
Buttonhole scissors. Buttonhole scissors, a Victorian invention, have special
slotted jaws and a small screw at the shank end of the blades (g. 5.4). This could
be adjusted to the size of the buttonhole to be cut; one manual advised that a
button-hole should be long enough to reach across the button; it cannot be cut
so well with common scissars [sic] as with those made for the purpose. Before
this specialized implement was devised, a needleworker would cut a buttonhole
with a cutter or seam-knife, a small tool about three to four inches long, with
a handle of bone or other material and a blade that was sharp and somewhat
126 Shears and Scissors

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Fig. 5.2 Some bow and shank styles as dened by Sheeld scissorsmiths.
(After Himsworth 1953:59156)

spade-shaped. The seam-knife was more commonly used for cutting stitches to
unpick seams, and by the nineteenth century small folding or pocketknives were
preferred for these purposes.33
Tailors trimmers with side-bent shank; tailors or dressmakers shears. Tailors
make use of small scissors or cuts, medium-sized scissors known as trimmers, and
large-bladed scissors up to sixteen inches long, which cut six to eight inches
and several layers of cloth at once. These large specimens, as noted above, are
commonly called shears both because of their size and because one of the bows
or nger loops is larger than the other. This diering size of the bows gives them
an oset from the shanks and blades, hence the descriptive phrase side-bent
shank (g. 5.5).34
Pinking shears likewise have a side bite, dierent-sized bows, and distinctive
serrated-edge blades for cutting fabric.
Lace scissors. These small scissors have a protuberance at the end of one of
the blade points, as though a lump of metal had dropped on to it and not been
led o. This type of scissors was particularly used for Carrickmacross lace, in
which the design is formed by cutting away the top layer of material from the
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Fig. 5.3 Three pairs of eighteenth-century English sewing scissors displaying

a range of bow and shank shapes as well as diering blade sections.
(Courtesy The Winterthur Museum)

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Fig. 5.4 A contemporary example of buttonholing scissors with adjustable screw.

128 Shears and Scissors

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Fig. 5.5 Tailors or dressmakers shears, distinguished by oset bow.

underlying layer of net. The pattern is achieved by cutting with great delicacy
and precision, requiring specialized scissors. The small bump at the tip of the
scissor blade helped keep the two layers of material carefully separated, lessen-
ing the risk of a false cut.35
Scissors for personal hygiene: Barbers scissors. Scissors designed for profes-
sional haircutting often have a small, curved protuberance o of one of the bows
(sometimes called a cockade); this is a nger grip or brace (g. 5.6). The blades
tend to be at and the shanks straight (Sheeld scissorsmiths referred to this
plain, straight style as a quaker shank).36
Scissors for personal hygiene: Manicure scissors. Manicure scissors are made
in a variety of patterns and in quarter-inch size variations between three and
four inches in length. The blades are curved to accommodate the curve of the
nails over the ngertips and to reach the cuticles for trimming. Such scissors are
known from at least the sixteenth century; Mary Andere cites an order dated
from 1560 for a pair of scissors, of Moulin manufacture, garnished with copper-
gilt, for trimming the nails of M. the King. 37
Culinary scissors. Scissors (or shears) can be put to good use in the kitchen,
and certainly all good cooks would tend to keep a pair of such scissors on hand.
There is also a range of scissor types that the well-appointed dining room might
have boasted; these are highly specialized and likely to have been used only in
the wealthiest households.
Shears and scissors designed for use by cooks take many forms and sometimes
closely resemble their counterparts intended for other purposes, though such
special-purpose implements would not likely be found in contexts predating the
nineteenth century or in ordinary households. Probably the most common sort
 Shears and Scissors 129

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Fig. 5.6 Barbers scissors (often called barbers shears) with nger rest.
Barbers scissors range in overall length from about 5 to 7 inches long and were
made with or without nger rests.

of kitchen shears are heavyweight sh or chicken shears with oset bows, the
wide, sharp blades of which could easily cut through bones as well as skin and
esh (gs. 5.7, no. 8 Fischschwanzsheere, and 5.8). A portion of a page from the
Friedrick Dick catalog from about 1912 shows several evil-looking implements
intended to give a cook or chef advantage over various potentially recalcitrant
animal parts (g. 5.7). Each has a spring as well as a locking device, which, given
the seemingly lethal sharpness of the blades, makes eminently good sense.
Another type of culinary scissors was sugar scissors or, as depicted here, sugar
pliers (Zuckerzange), used to cut lumps from a hard cone of sugar (g. 5.9).
Grape scissors (ciseaux raisin) are very elaborate scissors that were usually
gilded or of gold and were fanciful in shape; they were intended to permit a
dinner guest to gracefully separate grapes from their stems at table. Such items
would have been used only in the most elegant of households.38
An egg cutter (coupe-oeuf or pince coupe-oeuf ) normally has only a single
blade that cleanly beheads the top of a boiled egg, so these tools are probably
better categorized as a type of pincer. Only occasionally do they assume a form
resembling scissors, instead coming in a variety of ingenious shapes.39
Other specialty scissors. Scissor-makers have long catered to special needs by
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Fig. 5.7 A selection of meat, poultry, and sh shears from the Friedrick Dick Company
catalog, c. 1912. The graterlike implement (No. 8) just below the large poultry shears
in the center (No. 1) is a sh scaler. (Courtesy The Winterthur Library:
Printed Book and Periodical Collection)

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Fig. 5.8 Shears for sh or poultry, available in three sizes from the
Friedrick Dick catalog, c. 1912. (Courtesy The Winterthur Library:
Printed Book and Periodical Collection)
 Shears and Scissors 131

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Fig. 5.9 Steel sugar pliers used to remove lumps from a solid cone of sugar,
available plated in either nickel or silver from the Friedrick Dick catalog, c. 1912.
(Courtesy The Winterthur Library: Printed Book and Periodical Collection)

producing a variety of scissors for special-purpose use. Surgical scissors, for in-
stance, are made for the medical profession and include dissecting scissors, made
either with or without probe points, as well as angular, roweling, and apothe-
caries scissors. The archaeologist excavating deposits at hospitals, inrmaries,
and asylums is likely to encounter such implements.
Folding pocket scissors and lamp-trimmers scissors (also known as candle-
snuers) also fall into the category of special-purpose scissors, although, as noted
earlier, they may be easily confused with small sewing scissors. Anglers scissors
are special-purpose scissors designed to hold open the mouth of a sh while the
angler extracts the hook; they have serrations along the outer edges of both blades
to prevent slipping, along with a spacer bar to keep the blades open at the de-
sired width. The other (inside) edges of the blades tend to be sharpened in the
normal fashion.

I N T ER PRET I NG S CI SS O RS

At rst glance, scissors appear to be lacking in potential for social and cultural
interpretations of the sort I have been able to wrest from other types of needle-
work implements. Could scissors have much of anything to do with, for example,
the construction of identity or with gender? They are, after all, quintessentially
utilitarian. But there are clues that lead me to think that as archaeologists we
may wish to subject scissors and scissorlike objects to the same sorts of interro-
gation I recommend for other small nds. As we have seen, scissors are made in
varied shapes and sizes and to dierent specications for various purposes, and
with care we can determine the intended uses for a pair of scissors. This does not
132 Shears and Scissors

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Fig. 5.10 Portrait of Allethenia Fisk Farrar, painted in Vermont c. 1835 and attributed
to itinerant folk portraitist Asahel Powers. The subject has a pair of sewing
scissors on a chain attached to her waistband with a chatelaine hook.
(Courtesy Historic New England/SPNEA)

mean they were always used in appropriate ways, but it does lead us further
than assuming that all scissors were sewing scissors. Even sewing scissors came in
a variety of styles designed to assist the needlewoman or tailor to perform special-
ized sewing tasks with ease and eciency, and it is clear that seemingly ordinary
all-purpose utility scissors could vary widely in quality.
The portrait of Vermont resident Allethenia Fisk Farrar, painted about 1835
by Asahel Lynde Powers, reveals how great pride in a pair of high-quality (and
hence expensive) scissors could be (g. 5.10). Farrars scissors were likely made
in Sheeld, England (they have a round tup shank (see g. 5.2), at bows, and
pointed or rapier bladevery eective for buttonholing as well as for snipping
 Shears and Scissors 133

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Fig. 5.11 Detail of Farrar portrait showing sewing scissors.

(Courtesy Historic New England/SPNEA)

ne embroidery threads and tiny hemstitching; g. 5.11). She has elected to be

portrayed at her sewing with her scissors displayed prominently; the portrait con-
veys that she is an accomplished needlewoman, a dutiful wife, and a woman of
good character. What is more, her scissors are literally attached to her person,
depending from an elaborate chain axed to a chatelaine hook slipped over her
wide belt. All of this bespeaks wealth, as do the lush fabric and lace of her cos-
tume, the small gold brooch at her dcolletage, and the large buckle so promi-
nently clasping her belt round her cinched-in waist. That a pair of scissors could
be considered so precious as to become part of a womans costume and a part of
her presentation of self is evidence that, in some instances, scissors could become
intimately associated with personhood and gender identity and could serve as a
medium to convey messages about the self and the careful construction of an
image of domesticity and femininity.

the unkind cut for archaeologists

Most archaeologists who do recover scissors from their sites fail to nd many
pairs; instead they nd the occasional rusted or broken example that is costly to
conserve and dicult to interpret. My study of many archaeological collections
leads me to conclude that on the majority of sites a single pair of all-purpose
utility scissors is the most common nd. It is rare that a site produces multiple
pairs of scissors, but even a site that oers up several examples may not provide
the archaeologist with much fodder for the interpretive mill.
We can take an object lesson from the scissors found at the site of Charles
Gift (18ST704) at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station in St. Marys County,
Maryland. At this late-seventeenth-century site, fragments of three pairs of iron
scissors were found. All were badly corroded; one small pair of utility or sewing
scissors looks for all the world like a collection of corrosion lumps (g. 5.12). An
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Fig. 5.12 The corroded remains of a pair of small utility scissors found in a late-
seventeenth-century deposit at the site of Charles Gift in St. Marys County,
Maryland. (Courtesy Naval Air Station Patuxent River, MD)

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Fig. 5.13 X-ray photograph of the scissors from Charles Gift in St. Marys County,
Maryland, showing how little actual metal remains after the scissors spent more than
three hundred years in the soil. (Courtesy Naval Air Station Patuxent River, MD)
 Shears and Scissors 135

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Fig. 5.14 Half of a small pair of nineteenth-century embroidery scissors

found at the Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm, Newbury, Massachusetts.
(Photograph by Michael Hamilton)

X-ray photograph of the same pair of scissors reveals that very little iron remained
after the scissors had spent three hundred years in the ground (g. 5.13). It is im-
possible to study details (such as marks, steel treatment on the blades, and so on)
on such badly corroded specimens.40
At the St. Johns site in St. Marys City, Maryland, archaeologists recovered a
surprising minimum of nine pairs of scissors. This was a site occupied over a long
period by a succession of well-to-do households, so it is not too surprising that
the assemblage should be rich and varied. But this is a high number of scissors
nonetheless. Curator Silas Hurry noted that only three specimens came from
dated contexts, and these were all assigned to the 16851715 or terminal phase of
occupation at the site. Hurry further concluded that the assemblage of scissors
lacked any temporally diagnostic attributes, which is not unexpected.41
Distinctive features of scissors are likely to arise from dierent intended pur-
poses, as we have seen, or simply from stylistic variation, given that until the
later nineteenth century scissors were not mass-produced but manufactured by
scissorsmiths separately, by hand, in small workshops. What is remarkable about
the St. Johns assemblage is that three of the scissors are marked, one with the
lowercase initials pc, another with a 7, and a third with a mark resembling a
spade of the sort that appears on playing cards. One specimen has incised lines
known as decorative stringing in scissorsmith parlance.
The St. Johns scissors do not exhibit much variation in size, though the blades
136 Shears and Scissors

dier in shape and include bodkin or round, rapier or pointed, and vigo or blunt-
pointed types. Nevertheless, most seem to fall into the category of multipurpose
utility scissors. One nearly intact pair, however (No. 75S/AEU), has protrusions
that appear to be nger guards, which suggests that this was a pair of barbers
scissors intended for cutting hair.
So it would appear that even when blessed by an abundance of scissors from
a single site, the archaeologist can oer only limited speculation about their in-
tended purposes and, because the recovered scissors are often fragmentary or
poorly preserved, even less in the way of interpretation of their relative quality
and likely social signicance. Under most circumstances it would be unwise to
attempt to assign scissors to any gender-specic task category or to state with cer-
tainty that they are sewing implements unless they exhibit characteristics specic
to scissors designed to cut fabric or to assist with such tasks as buttonholing or
embroidery, as is the case with half of a small pair of embroidery scissors found
at the Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm in Newbury, Massachusetts (g. 5.14). Close
inspection of scissors is nevertheless likely to provide insight into many house-
hold activities.
 6

Findings
Notions, Accessories, and the Artifacts of Textile Production

Thus far I have attempted to show how seemingly simple and commonplace
artifacts that everybody readily recognizes and knowspins, needles, thim-
bles, and scissorshave complex histories and even more complex and varied
social meanings than we might at rst think they do, and I have oered ways to
enrich our interpretations of these humble nds. In this chapter I consider items
related to sewing and textile working that are far more likely to go unrecognized
and hence unremarked and unstudied. For this reason I have compiled some-
thing of a grab-bag, or workbasket, if you will, of artifacts associated with such
activities as spinning, weaving, and lace-making as well as with the production
of nished garmentssewing accessories and the ndings or small details that
give a garment or curtain or other piece of work a nished look and help make
it t and hang correctly. An early-twentieth-century manual on home sewing,
published by the Womans Institute of Scranton, Pennsylvania, opens with the
observation that in dressmaking and home sewing, there is always need for n-
ishing helps, some of which are essential to the completion of a garment or article
and others of which are merely conveniences. These items are known as nd-
ings. They include all sorts of notions, such as snap fasteners, elastic, tape, and
so on, without which a garment usually cannot be satisfactorily nished. Like
the home sewer, the archaeologist needs to be thoroughly familiar with what is
available along this line. 1

T E X T I L E PRODUC TI ON

As Elizabeth Barber points out in Prehistoric Textiles, cloth seldom survives

the millenniaindeed, only under unusually propitious conditions do textiles
of any age survive archaeologically. The chief evidence for textile production in

137
138 Findings

prehistoric times comes in the form of tools, or parts of tools, used in spinning
and weaving, as well as in artistic depictions of these activities or of individuals
wearing garments fashioned from string or woven bers. Considerable attention
has been given to these sorts of evidence in the published literature, and because
Barbers book is such a marvelous synthesis and culmination of archaeological
research on ancient textiles, I do not attempt a comprehensive coverage of early
spinning and weaving here. Nor do I discuss the types of industrial machinery,
such as power looms and spinning mules, used in factories. Rather, I focus on
items likely to be found at farmsteads or household compounds where small-
scale domestic production took place. An archaeological case study of home-
based weaving helps us to understand how the processes and equipment used in
home-based textile production changed in the medieval and early modern eras
as demand for new types of textiles encouraged the adoption of new technolo-
gies to produce them.2

spinning equipment
The rst type of tool used for spinning was a simple stick, or spindle, onto
which yarn was wound, to which at some point in prehistory a weight, known
as a whorl, was added. This allowed the stick to act as a ywheel. Spindles were
usually straight sticks made of wood or bone, sometimes with a hook or notch at
the upper end; whorls were made of varied materialswood, stone, red clay,
and so onand could be placed anywhere on the stick but in most instances
would be tted at one end or the other. Barber provides the best survey of the evi-
dence for the use of spindle whorls in prehistoric times. Nine bone spindle whorls
were among those found in late Saxon (late-ninth to early-twelfth-century) de-
posits in the City of London; these were made from the hemispherical fused fe-
mur heads of cattle ranging in weight from twelve to twenty-seven grams; stone
whorls from similarly dated deposits were conically shaped of a local calcite mud-
stone weighing between fteen to twenty-three grams. The weight of the whorl
aected both the thickness of the thread and the amount of twist imparted to it.3
Spindle wheels placed the spindle between uprights at one end of a benchlike
platform that had a large, hand-turned wheel upon which the yarn was turned
and given a twist as it was fed to the spindle. There is considerable debate about
when and where this simple machine was invented; some textile historians be-
lieve it was invented in China between ad 500 and 1000, whereas others con-
sider India the likely place of origin. The Chinese seem to have a solid claim
to the invention of a type of treadle-powered spinning wheel by the fourteenth
century, although this diered quite a bit from the treadle wheels used later
in Europe. The spinning wheels listed in early probate inventories recorded in
 Findings 139

North America are of two types, both of them invented in Europe sometime
around 1600. Probate inventories list spinning wheels among the furnishings of
almost every seventeenth-century household, often distinguishing lint or linen
wheels from wheels for spinning woolen or cotton yarn (table 6.1). The former
type of wheel was also known as the Saxony or ax wheel and was used for spin-
ning both worsted and linen yarns. It was relatively small and could be worked
continuously because it had a yer of wood or metal attached to the spindle,
along with two whorls, one attached to the spindle and a second of smaller diame-
ter forming part of the bobbin. The spinner could be seated while doing this sort
of work. The other type of wheel was called a great wheel or wool wheel and was,
as its name implies, used to spin woolen yarn. It required the spinner to hold the
carded roll of ber in one hand, attaching some ber to the spindle while turn-
ing the wheel by hand or with a little wooden peg while she walked backward to
eect a twist on the ber, then walk back toward the wheel while turning it in
the opposite direction so that the yarn was taken up on the spindle.4
The archaeology of textile production often extends beyond artifacts and
households to the broader landscape. In parts of England the remains of ax-
retting pools sometimes survive as features of the medieval landscape; the retting
process, which allowed the hard outer portion of the ax plant to decay so that
the bers inside could be separated and prepared for spinning, often involved
complex feature systems of watercourses, pools, and sluices. Local place-names
or eld names often provide clues to the location of places where this activity
took place. It is possible that similar landscape features survive elsewhere, for
instance, in places where colonial settlers established textile industries and that
have not since been subjected to intensive development.5
Households that produced their own yarn often began with the raw product,
and it is quite common for inventories with linen wheels to list as well various
tools for processing ax (hackles or brakes, for instance) and for those listing wool
wheels to include cards or, occasionally, wool combs. Combing was an earlier
method than carding, in which wool passed through the teeth of a comb, which
removed short bers, aligning the rest. Spun combed bers lie close and at,
producing a smooth, hard yarn known as worsted yarn. Carding, by contrast, re-
sulted in bers that were only roughly aligned, leaving in short bers; carded
bers were mixed and criss-crossed and when spun retained air pockets that
made for a warm and soft yarn known as woolen yarn. Combing was considered
a specialized task and was often done by men; wool combs were large and heavy
(weighing about seven pounds), with three to nine rows of teeth made of varying
lengths of tempered steel set into horn at an angle of about 80 degrees. Scandina-
vian wool combs or togcombs came into use in the eighteenth century; they had
 Table 6.1 Seventeenth-century Essex County, Massachusetts, probate inventory evidence for carding and spinning

Date Decedent Residence Relevant entries Estate value Source

1644 Mrs. Margaret Pease Salem one whele, 2s.5d. 19.2s.8d. PR 1:40
1644 Joanna Cummings Salem whell, 4s. 33. PR 1:36
1644 John Talbey Salem one wheele to spin with, 4s. ? PR 1:39
1644 Isabel West Salem a whele, 8s. 54.12s. PR 1:41
1646 Mrs. Mary Hersome, widow Wenham 2 wheles & a reele, 6s.; a parsell of tow, 2s.; one not totaled PR 1: 7
Bundell of lyning yarne, 5s.
1646 Mrs. Emme Mason, widow Salem hatchell, 2s.6d., 6s.; one hake 3s.6d.; one lining 25.16s. PR 1:57
wheele, ; one Cotton wheele, 2s.; in yaron,
16s.8d.
1648 Thomas Firman Ipswich In Kitchen, a whelle & 5 ould Chairs, 7s. not given PR 1:95
1648 John Balch Salem yearne, akes & hempe, 1li.4s. not given PR 1:97
1653 Mrs. Margery Knowlton, widow Ipswich white thred & a remnant of new cloth, lots of 158.15s.3d. PR 1:163
cloth, ax, towe; 2li.1-4 of yarne at 2s.4d.,
5s.3d.; lennen yarne 1s.2d.
1653/1654 Mrs. Elinor Treslere Salem spinning wheels 26.19s. PR 1:211
1654 George Burrill, Sr. Lynn a pcell of linnen, yearne, & winding blads, 4s. not given PR 1:180
6d.; 2 linnen wheeles 2 churnes & other
lumber pinns, needles 1li. 4s.
1654/1655 William Knight Lynn thre spininge whealls, a pare of woll cards, 8s. 154.15s. PR 1:214
1655 Mrs. Abigail Averill Ipswich linen wheel 3s.; pair of tow cards, 1s.; an ould 77.4s.11d. PR 1:201
tunill with a spindle and a peece of ould linin,
6d.
1655 Henry Fay, weaver Newbury a wheel and Iron spindle, 3s. 18.7s. PR 1:216
1655 Rebecca Bacon Salem 12lb. of wool & 5 lb. of yarne, 1li.13s. 195.8s.6d. PR 1:227
1658 Susan French, widow Ipswich a linen wheele & 2 chaires, 5s. 12.11s.6d. PR 1:272
1659 Mrs. Jane Lambert, widow Rowley whelles and Cards, 4s.; Cotton wool, yearn and 539.16s.4d. PR 1:300
hemp, 10s.
1660 Humphrey Reyner Rowley thred tape & sycers, 1li.5s.6d.; whele & cars, 5s. not given PR 1:322
1662 Mrs. Anne Lume Rowley whelle and cards, 4s. 49.2s.6d. PR 1:371
1663 Martha Harrield Ipswich tooe old whels and tooe old chayers, 5s.; 49.16s.6d. PR 2:115120
1663 Mrs. Mary Smith, widow Marblehead 3 yds of Cotton, 7s.; 2 wheles, 7s. 144.3s.6d. PR 1:410
1664 Mrs. Grace Sallows Salem? 6 pare of stockins & a spinning wheele, 12s. 113.13s.3d. PR 1:444
1670 Mrs. Elizabeth Stacey Ipswich two ould wheeles 29.2s. PR 2:172
1671 Mrs. Abigail Wells Ipswich lennen wheele, 4s.6d.; misc. textiles 63.18s.5d PR 2:241
1672/1673 Ann Burt Lynn 2 wheeles, too cheirs & other lumber, 1li. 47.2s.6d. PR 2:361362
1673 Mrs. Elizabeth Manseld Lynn a whelle and Lumber 1li.5s. 184.18s. PR 2:382383
1675/1676 Mrs. Margaret Kimball Ipswich Cotton wooll, two pare of Cards, basket, Combe 98.10s.9d. PR 3:46
parsell bellows, one pear candlestick,
Trunckes, one linnen wheele, 2li.3s.
at Hampton one ould spinin whell, 1s. 2.10s.10d. PR 3:46
1676 Miell Lambard Salem? 20 pound of woll, 1li.; 1 tabel and 2 whells and not given RF 6:230
cards, 1 kneding trof, 15s.
1676 Samuel Putnam Salem? 26 pound of yarne, 2li.9d.; 20 pound woolle, 191.7s.3d. RF 6:230
1li.; one wheell & Chair, hors takell, 7s.6d.
 Table 6.1 Continued

Date Decedent Residence Relevant entries Estate value Source

1676 John Huchinson Salem one wheell, tow pare pillowberes, 10s.6d; wool- 273.5s.6d. RF 6:231
len yarne & woolle, 2 li.
1677 John Haomons Gloucester one chest & 2 wheeles, 8s., 1li.18s. 20.16s. PR 3:201
1678 Mrs. Ann Condy Marblehead 1 old spinning wheel, 2s.5d. 0.4s.6d. PR 3:281
1679 Samuel Manseld, weaver Lynn See text 154.8s.6d PR 3:306
1679 Nathaniel Parker, carpenter Newbury bedstead, sledd and reele, 1li. 161.6s. PR 3:316
1680 William Sutton Newbury wheele for spining, 4s.; ve pound of cotton 30.19s.6d. PR 3:371
yarne
1681 Mrs. Jane Williams Ipswich? a payer of cards and a coten wheele, 6s. 33.5s.6d. PR 3:406
1681 Mrs. Margaret Bishop, widow Ipswich 2 silver spons thimble & clasps, 1li.19s.; 2 spin- 710.0s.1d. PR 3:411
ning wheeles, trenchers, sives, scales &
qurens, meal tub & meal trough, 1li.,16s.
1681 Mrs. Rebecca Howlet, widow Newbury twelve pounds of cotton yarne, 1li.10s 64.8s.6d. PR 3:416417

Sources: PR 1: Essex County, Massachusetts, Probate Court 1916; PR 2: Essex County, Massachusetts, Probate Court 1917; PR 3: Essex County, Massachusetts, Probate
Court 1920; RF 6: Essex County, Massachusetts, Quarterly Courts 1917
 Findings 143

only one row of teeth and in fact resemble a pitchfork with extra tines and a very
short handle. Cards were large, at, square or oblong wooden paddles bristling
on one side with teeth formed of dozens of small wire hooks set in leather; they
were used for combing the woolen (or cotton) bers until they ran roughly paral-
lel to one another. In early cards the wires were quite straight, whereas later they
were bent or hooked towards the handles. It is possible that the teeth of such cards
might be found archaeologically, depending on the preservation conditions at
a site, but it seems likely that if the teeth were badly corroded the archaeologist
would most likely assume they were the tips of corroded nails or tacks.6
Spinning wheels were made almost entirely of wood, with metal for the spindle
and wheel axle only, and leather for the bearings, so they do not survive archaeo-
logically, although a spindle for collecting the spun yarn made of metal, such
as Henry Fays wheele and Iron spindle listed among his weaving equipment
(table 6.1) might be recovered.7
The spun yarn would be rewound onto the spools or shuttles used by the
weaver to project the weft threads across the warp (note in table 6.1 Henry Fays
spooleing wheele), and it is possible that some portion of the winder might be
of metal: the bobbin is pushed on to a slightly tapered spindle, usually made of
metal or wood, turned by a driving wheel (g. 6.1). Bobbin winders often closely
resemble spinning wheels, but normally the winder would be used in conjunc-
tion with a swift, a more or less cone-shaped form that rotates as the yarn is
wound o and guided on to the bobbin by one hand held close to it, the other
hand turning the wheel. 8

weaving equipment
Early looms were often of a type referred to as warp-weighted because the
warp threads were held parallel and in tension by tying them in small bunches to
weights of stone, pottery, or metal. Such looms were upright, perhaps set into the
ground on posts or leaned against a wall, and the weaver(s) would stand before
them and work from the top downward. In Europe such looms were in use dur-
ing the Neolithic era, and examples continue in use today in some parts of the
world. The warp-weighted loom continued in common use in England on both
urban and rural sites throughout the Saxon period; references to other sorts of
looms being used in London do not appear until the twelfth century. In the City
of London evidence of weaving is restricted to the occurrence of loom weights
and pin-beaters, both of which were used with warp-weighted looms (although
pin beaters were also used on other sorts of looms). 9
Pin beaters or thread-pickers were used to beat in the weft on a loom. These
are simply short, straight lengths of turned bone or antler tapering to a point at
144 Findings

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Fig. 6.1 A nineteenth-century handloom weaving and spinning workshop.

(Courtesy The Winterthur Library: Printed Book and Periodical Collection)

either end, and they took on a high polish from use; they are rarely found in post-
tenth-century contexts. In areas where the two-beamed vertical loom (versus
warp-weighted loom) was usedpre-Roman Denmark, for examplethe weav-
ing tools found include pin beaters, sword beaters, and weaving combs. Sword
beaters were about ten inches to twenty inches in length and are found on sites
as early as the Bronze Age; they were sometimes made of wood or of iron as well
as of bone (including sea mammal bone). Pin beaters (sometimes called dagger
beaters) were shorter than sword beaters and vary in shape from cigar-shaped
(circular or ovate in section and tapering to a point at either end from an inter-
mediate swelling, found in large numbers on Roman sites both on the Continent
and in Britain); single-pointed, curved-section beaters made from limb bones
(Anglo-Saxon and Viking period); and single-pointed with a at chisel-like butt
at the opposite end (Late Saxon). In Northern Britain from the Iron Age onward,
long-handled bone weaving combs were used instead of pin beaters.10
The City of London Saxon loom weights tended to be found in groups of two
 Findings 145

to four and most were charred, leading the archaeologists to speculate that they
represent the remains of burned looms. Weights used on the same loom tend to
look alike, because they would have to have been carefully balanced to provide
even tension for the warp. The groupings of loom weights from the London de-
posits, therefore, are close in size, shape, and weight, while the overall assemblage
of weights from Saxon deposits fall into three weight categories, heavy, medium,
and light. This evidence is congruent with ndings from deposits of similar date
in Winchester and Chichester, and it seems likely that the heavier weights af-
fected the type of cloth being woven and the spacing of the warp ends.11
Loom weights, then, provide for the archaeologist solid and long-lasting evi-
dence of the weavers craft; the horizontal treadle loom that seems to have come
into use in Europe by about ad 1000 and the later drawloom, which was in use at
least by the seventeenth century, were constructed almost entirely of wood and
hence leave less of an archaeological signature than do earlier types of looms.
So it would seem that archaeologists working at later medieval and early mod-
ern sites would recover little in the way of evidence for weaving (except for the
rare scrap of fabric), but some elements of looms and their accessories can and
do survive to be unearthed and interpreted.12
Before the nineteenth century, a region that might boast a textile industry
was not characterized by factory production but by small-scale domestic produc-
tion that was carried on in peoples homes or workshops in towns and villages and
on farmsteads in rural areas. A good example is Barnsley, in the West Riding of
Yorkshire, England. Barnsley became a major center of British linen production,
and by the early eighteenth century certain entrepreneurially minded residents
initiated attempts to organize the industry. Not until the end of the eighteenth
century, however, did linen entrepreneurs like Foljambe Wood add to their ax-
processing works, warehouses, and bleachgrounds factory residences of the sort
that soon became typical of the industry. Factory residences were tenement
rows where weavers both lived and wove. Rents were cheap enough to lure fami-
lies away from farms, and the concentration of weavers into the residential devel-
opments proved advantageous for the capitalists because it meant that almost all
members of the family could participate in various aspects of the weaving pro-
cess while under the owners watchful eye. The power loom was introduced in
the mid-1830s, and this development eventually put an end to the family system
of production that for so long had characterized the handloom weaving indus-
try. Despite the predominance of home-based handloom weaving over several
centuries, surprisingly little is known about the lives of cottage weavers.13
At Houndhill, near Barnsley in Yorkshire, England, the Elmhirst family prac-
ticed cottage weaving from the mid-sixteenth century until the early seven-
146 Findings

teenth century, and at the same residence, new owners took up weaving again in
the late eighteenth century. The family seat had consisted of a two-winged house
with associated farm buildings, one of which was referred to locally as a weav-
ing house, none of which survived above ground. Excavation of the building
gave every indication that it had been a weavers workshop, for the nds included
not only pits that may have served for operations such as dyeing and preparation
of wool and possibly ax but also several items clearly associated with looms.
Denis Ashurst notes that apart from the workshop structure and the documentary
record, the early phase of weaving was not represented archaeologically; rather,
the nds all seem to date to the second half of the eighteenth century, when the
weaving of white linen and twill and ne-quality damasks was the major source
of prosperity in the area. The nds are in keeping with this sort of production.14
Among these nds were two sizes of lead weights, known as lingoes, a large
one weighing seven and a half ounces and a smaller one weighing ve and a half
ounces.15 These would have functioned in a drawloom. In medieval looms the
depression of a foot pedal caused a series of string healds to lift up alternate warp
threads, thus producing a gap or shed through which the shuttle might pass; for
weaving complicated designs such as damasks, certain of the warp threads had to
be raised out of sequence. The drawloom made this possible: its use in Europe
began with the Italian silk industry, although it was known earlier in China and
the East. Although most Western scholars had assumed that the drawloom was
introduced to China in medieval times, Dieter Kuhn, noted scholar of Chi-
nese textile technologyespecially silk weavinghas demonstrated through his
analysis of Han dynasty (206 bcad 220) textiles and texts that an early form of
drawloom was among the types of looms used to produce gured fabrics in the
later Han dynasty. From Italy the drawloom found its way into France and En-
gland, where it was used until around 1800. The drawloom possessed a heald-
harness by which the weaver controlled the majority of the warp threads that
bound the cloth together, as well as a gure-harness with which the draw-boy,
the weavers assistant, drew up selected threads to make the design. Each warp
thread used in the design was encircled by a small loop, or mail, from which a
cord coupling passed upward over a series of pulleys to the draw-boy. He drew
up the threads as required, following a squared and colored chart as a guide. In
order to bring the threads back into position after being raised, each mail had a
lingoe hung below it.16
The form of lingoes did not change over time; they were elongated, solid lead
cylinders, about ve to six inches long, widened and attened at the top, where
a hole was punched through which the thread could pass.
At Houndhill the archaeologists also found an iron weight (one pound, three
 Findings 147

ounces), about six inches long, that worked in conjunction with a counterbal-
ance consisting of an iron can with a lead-weighted bottom, which would have
been lled with enough sand to match the opposing iron weight. The weight
served as a friction brake to maintain tension in the warp threads.17
Another artifact pertaining to weaving found at Houndhill was a reed, which
consists of a number of metal strips a few inches long, each one gripped at the
top and bottom by a binding of pitched linen or hempen thread determining
the distance between each strip. The reed, which replaced the pin beater, was
used to beat the trailing weft thread back into the warp threads after the shuttle
had passed across the loom. The example from Houndhill probably dates to be-
tween 1750 and 1800; it had either seventeen or twenty-three strips to the inch,
the metal strips being held in pine battens.18
A plate from a nineteenth-century German book illustrating various types of
hand work and the tools used in each process depicts a cottage handloom weav-
ing and spinning shop in which a man and two women are employed (g. 6.1).
In the right foreground, a woman is spinning yarn for use by the weavers, and
another spinner sits behind her, facing the large window lighting the room; a
woman is operating the loom in the background while a man weaves in the fore-
ground. Two weights holding tension in the warp are clearly visible. There is no
evidence of mechanization of any sort, even though the workshop is a factory
of sorts because it incorporates multiple stages in the process of cloth produc-
tion. The loom weights are the most likely evidence to be recovered from the
archaeological record; little else here would survive.
A similar scene of a handloom weaving operation shows spinning wheels oper-
ated by women and a handloom operated by a male in the foreground (g. 6.2).
In the background, however, we see into a second room that has been equipped
with power looms connected to a leather-belt main drive, overseen by a female
operative. This larger, partially mechanized shop with its cast-iron machine parts
would have a more robust archaeological signature than the shop depicted in g.
6.1, though its most distinctive signature would arise in the form of evidence for
power generation and power transmission (that is, a dam and mill pond or a fast-
running stream with sluiceway leading to a pit for a waterwheel, or a mounting
for a steam engine and the coal ash and clinkers left over from stoking the en-
gines boiler).
There is ample evidence for handloom weaving in the seventeenth-century
probate records of Essex County, Massachusetts. I have summarized the entries
pertaining to weaving from the published volumes of Essex County inventories
as well as entries listing what the inventory takers tended to refer to as home-
made cloth (table 6.2). Although most inventories of weavers shops lack detail,
148 Findings

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Fig. 6.2 A partially mechanized nineteenth-century handloom weaving and spinning

workshop. (Courtesy The Winterthur Library: Printed Book and Periodical Collection)

there are exceptions, such as the inventory of Samuel Manseld of Lynn, who
died in 1679 of smallpox, leaving a widow and three small children. He was iden-
tied as a weaver by the inventory takers, and the items listed in his estate inven-
tory reveal that he had a weaving shop equipped for producing both ne linen
and coarser woolen cloth (kersey, spelled phonetically in the inventory).19

A loome & weavors tackling belonging to it, 31i. 19s 6d., 41i.15s. 6d.;
raisir Hone, siser, 6s. 6d., 16s. 6d.;
wool, 10s.;
Lyning yarne, 11i. 10s.;
a reele & wheele, 10s., 3 li.;
A Loome, Lathe & blocks, tridles, stretchers & irons belonging to it, 21i. 5s;
2 pare of temples, 2s.;
a pare of Blocks & wheels, 1s. 6d.;
2 pare of shafts, 2s., 5s. 6d;
woolen yarne, 9s.;
10 dozen buttons, 5s.;
 Findings 149

2 Lamps, 2s., halfe a coverlid, slea & Harnis, 19s.6d;

A sheep rack, 5s., a rave, 3s., a shitle, 2s. an ould slea, 3s., 13s.;
a forke & rake, 2s. 6d, 2 ell sleas & harniss belonging to them, 11i. 10s., 11i.
12s. 6d.;
1 yard slea for carsye & harnis belonging to it, 8s.,
2 sleas & harnis for them for Lyning, 10s., 18s.;
total 1541i. 8s. 6d.

Manseld seems to have had a small workshop where yarn was spun as well as
woven into fabric much like the shop depicted in g. 6.1; the listings also hint
at basic processing of ax to produce linen thread. He had at least two looms
fully assembled and operational at the time of his death, and those plus the
other items associated with his craft comprised a sizeable portion of his estates
value. The second loom mentioned in Manselds inventory was equipped with
irons, which may have been weights similar to those found at the Houndhill
site mentioned above (although those were of lead); if so, we can infer that he
was producing a linen damask or other fancy weave on a drawloom.
If we were to consider Manselds house and workshop (though there is no
indication that the two were not one and the same) as furnished in his probate
inventory as a potential archaeological site, we would quickly conclude that little
of the equipment for spinning and weaving would survive. Looms, like spinning
wheels, were made of wood, with few if any parts made of metal or other ma-
terial that might survive well archaeologically. The lead and iron weights used
in specialized drawlooms survive, as we have seen, and one might nd heddles
of wire, although many were made of string.20
The only persons named as weavers in seventeenth-century Essex County,
Massachusetts, were men, and most of the male weavers seem to have worked
solo rather than run a workshop. Weavers accounts indicate that they acquired
spun yarn from local women who spun at home; payment for the yarn often in-
volved a complex system of barter rather than cash. Although historic house mu-
seums and Colonial Revival notions of early industry tend to envision women at
looms as well as at their spinning wheels, it seems that in seventeenth-century
New England weaving was considered a skilled occupation that was done mainly
by men.
This changed, however, as over the course of the eighteenth century weav-
ing as well as spinning came to be identied with the womanly arts to such an
extent that household cloth production became powerfully emblematic of all
womens work. Archaeologist Joyce Clements investigated a loom house, pos-
sibly originally constructed in the eighteenth century, that was an outbuilding at
 Table 6.2 Seventeenth-century Essex County, Massachusetts, evidence for weaving in probate records

Date Decedent Residence Relevant entries Estate value Source

1636 Mrs. Sarah Dillingham Ipswich 6 yds. of Loomworke, 5s. 385.14s.5d. PR 1:3
1638 Thomas Payne Salem Item I give Thomas my son Loomes & Sluices with there my not valued PR 1:37
appurtenances concerning his trade as weaver. (will) shopp
1647 Luke Heard, linen weaver Ipswich Tooles, 6li., linen 2li.9s. not given PR 1:81
1648 Michael Hopkinson Rowley one payre of loomes, 1li.; one shutel 3sh, one tenipel, 1 warp- 116.19s.8d. PR 1:253254
ing woof, one rings and one payre of heels, 7s., one ridel,
1li.12s.; three slayes, 9s.; three wheels, 2s.8d; Cotton woll and
yarne, 5li.10s.; ve slayds, 12s.6d.; red Corsay three yards, 15s
1655 Henry Fay, weaver Newbury a loame and warping beame, a spooleing wheele, sleyes and har- 18.7s. RF 1:406407
nesses and other appurtenances, 2li.10s; a wheele and Iron
spindle, 3s.
1655 Robert Long, weaver Newbury appointed attorney of Hays estate n/a RF 1:407
1656 Hugh Smith, weaver Rowley payre of looms & tacklings not given PR 1:236
1666 Frances Lawes Salem weaving tackle 192 PR 2:51
1670 Mrs. Elizabeth Stacey Ipswich 7 yards of home made cloth & two ould wheeles [no loom] 29.2s. PR 2:172
1675 John Witt, Sr. Lynn A Loome for to weave in, sleas & Harness &c., 5li. not given PR 3:56
1676 John Littlehal slain in war Ipswich? a loome and gares to it, 5li.10s. not given PR 3:22
1676 Richard Kenball, weaver Wenham a weavers loom and taclend, 2li.5s. 980.16s.6d. PR 3:73
1678 Amos Stickney Newbury wooll in the house, 3li.; a Loame with all tackling for weaving, 248.10s. PR 3:243
10li., parcel of new homemade cloth, 3li.10s.
1679 Samuel Manseld, weaver Lynn See text 154.8s.6d PR 3:306

Sources: PR 1: Essex County, Massachusetts, Probate Court 1916; PR 2: Essex County, Massachusetts, Probate Court 1917; PR 3: Essex County, Massachusetts, Probate
Court 1920; RF 1: Essex County, Massachusetts, Quarterly Courts 1911
 Findings 151

a farmstead in Bedford, Massachusetts. Documentary evidence linked the prop-

erty to the Abbott family and indicated clearly that the loom house was part of the
domain of Allice Abbott, who was bequeathed the whole of the loom or chaise
house on the husbands death in 1802. Cloth manufacture became critical to
Allices ability to continue to support herself and her children in her widowhood.
The loom house or room was an important element of the working farm, and it
seems likely that it housed the two spinning wheels and a clock wheel for mea-
suring spun wool into skeins, stored in baskets, and the loom and tackling men-
tioned in Allices husbands household inventory. Archaeological investigations
proved that the building was L-shaped, although its dimensions could not be de-
termined with certainty. The eastern portion of the building contained the loom
room; the abundance of window glass in the ll of the buildings cellar indicates
that it was well lighted with many windows. Unlike the slightly earlier cottage
workshop excavated at Houndhill, however, the loom house at the Abbott Farm
site produced no artifacts related to the cloth production that took place there.21

L AC E M A K I NG
Nineteen little round holes gaping for a wire,
Every pin that I stick in,
gets me one the nigher.
Childrens lace-making rhyme (Spenceley 1976:167)

There are many kinds and several ways of making lace. By the nineteenth cen-
tury in both England and the United States machine-made lace had become
common, gradually supplanting the cottage industry of handmade lace. Hand-
made lace of the sort known as bobbin lace, pillow lace, or in some cases bone
lace required special implements or accessories beyond pins. Indeed, there is a
special assemblage that characterizes bobbin lacemaking, and only when the
elements of the lace-makers toolkit are found together can the archaeologist con-
dently interpret excavated material as evidence of on-site lace-making.22
Lace was long a luxury item, and wearing lace was once a privilege of the
wealthiest members of society. In the early modern era, as the fashion for wear-
ing lace became more widespread and the demand for lace increased, region-
ally based lace-making industries developed that kept large numbers of women,
children, and some men at work for long hours in less than ideal conditions.
In recent times, as handmade lace has again become a rare and expensive lux-
ury good, our notions of lace have grown increasingly romantic, nostalgic, and
unrealistic. Most lace was produced under circumstances far dierent from the
image most people hold in mind: that of well-dressed, genteel ladies exhibiting
their femininity through their prowess at the delicate art of lace-making. As one
152 Findings

scholar unequivocally states, The production of hand-made lace was a far cry
from the rustic bliss which many contemporaries and lovers of lace imagined.
. . . [T]he conditions and eects of the employment of children in this industry
must be equated with some of the most notorious of industrial occupations in
nineteenth-century England. 23
Lace-making was an important cottage industry in certain areas of the Conti-
nent and in the British Isles from very early times until well into the nineteenth
century, and it should come as no surprise that lace-making was also done by
people who emigrated to Europes colonies. The earliest pillow lace was made in
Italy in the early sixteenth century, but the technique quickly spread to Belgium,
where several centers of production arose. In the eighteenth century, the French
town of Valenciennes was for a time a commercial center of lace production.
Here the lace industry was for the most part initiated and controlled by the entre-
preneurial Tribout family; the Valenciennes lace-workers were mainly women,
many from poor families, and they received their training in local workhouses.
Few of these women managed to rise out of poverty, but the lace-makers did
occupy a distinct social category above that of the poorest folk. In England, the
development of the Midland pillow-lace industry is usually attributed to the in-
uence of Flemings who ed from the Netherlands . . . bringing their lacemaking
skills with them. Four counties in the English Midlands became centers of
lace production: Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, and Northamp-
tonshire. Of these, Buckinghamshire was the most important, and much of the
lace made in the English Midlands was known as Buckinghamshire lace. An-
other center of lace-making emerged in Devonshire, England, in and around the
town of Honiton, sometime in the sixteenth century and was well established by
the early seventeenth century. Contemporary commentators compared Honiton
lace favorably with that produced in Antwerp and Flanders, and in the seven-
teenth century Honiton lace sold for four times as much as Buckinghamshire
lace, so it was recognizably dierent from lace made in the Midlands.24
The names given to dierent types of lace are based on the notion that the
name denotes the technique and not the actual place where any given lace was
madein other words, the commonest means of naming a type of lace is by
giving it the name of the place where it was rst known to have been made.
Buckinghamshire lace and Honiton lace were in fact produced over a wider
geographic area than the names indicate; what the names do imply is that the
laces were produced with somewhat dierent techniques and patterns. What is
important for the archaeologist to know is that the dierent techniques required
dierent styles of bobbins: this is the key to interpreting from archaeological nds
what sort of lace was being made.25
 Findings 153

By the eighteenth century, lace-making centers also developed in North

America. In Ipswich, Massachusetts, for instance, a lively cottage industry caught
the attention of the new United States government. A report submitted to the
secretary of the Treasury in the 1790s noted that in Ipswich bobbin lace was made
for cash as part of an extensive putting-out industry in which more than six hun-
dred women participated. And Rolla Milton Tryon, in his Household Manufac-
tures in the United States, 16401860, declared, In the town of Ipswich, Mas-
sachusetts, from August, 1789, to August, 1790, there were 28,496 yards of lace
and 13,483 yards of edging manufactured in the family way. The population of
the town at this time was 4,562. 26
Even in areas in which lace-making was never a major cottage industry, it was
a valuable supplement to family income, especially in rural agricultural commu-
nities. The evidence for lace and possible lace-making from seventeenth-century
Essex County, Massachusetts, shows how both the ownership of lace and the pro-
duction of lace functioned in the early years of the Massachusetts Bay Colony
(table 6.3). From the estate values listed for owners of lace, we see that these
were people at the upper end of the social scale. The only entry for someone
who may have been a lace-maker, that of Jane Gaines, widow of Lynn, shows us
that she was not wealthy, though womens estates were generally valued much
below that of mens because they usually consisted of only their clothes, linens,
and personal portable possessions.
Household production involved women and children (and the occasional
male). In Oxfordshire, England, in the last quarter of the eighteenth century,
women from the villages brought their completed work for sale to buyers from
London or High Wycombe who set themselves up to receive goods once a month
at the Nags Head Inn in the town of Thame. On average a woman received the
equivalent of a shilling to one shilling, six pence, for a days work, although of
course the price paid varied according to the quality and intricacy of the work.
It is extremely dicult to construct an accurate demographic prole of cottage
industries such as lace-making, not just because the work was carried out at the
household level but chiey because eighteenth- and nineteenth-century census
takers tended to neglect to record occupations pursued by women and children.
A months worth of lace-making, however, could result in a signicant supple-
ment to a households income. Indeed, in Puerto Rico during the early twenti-
eth century there was a revival of bobbin lacemaking when women who could
not follow their husbands who found work in the United States attempted to
support themselves and their children by producing lace for sale to American
buyers. The Puerto Rican case serves as a cautionary tale for those who assume
that the rise in the nineteenth century of the machine-made lace industry sup-
 Table 6.3 Seventeenth-century Essex County, Massachusetts, probate inventory entries regarding lace and possible lace-making

Date Decedent Residence Relevant entries Estate value Source

1641 Frances Hawes Salem half an ell of lase [bequest] not given PR 1:46
1644 Joanna Cummings Salem I give goody eld one of my lase han carchefes wich is at will, not valued PR 1:35
good bornes
1644 Margery Wathin Salem 4 necke handkerchiefes laced, 5s.4d.; 3 laced neckclothes at 39.13s.5d. PR 1:39
18d. & 2 at 6d. pr, 5s.5d.pr.
1645 Mrs. Jane Gaines, widow Lynn bonelass & thread & a pinn coshen, 1s. 43. 5s. 7d. PR 1:44
1648 Thomas Firman Ipswich [in parlor] 6 boxes & 8 thred lases & some small things, 8s. not given PR 1:95
1653 John Cogswell, Jr. Ipswich in lace 5li. 247.5s.8d. PR 1:157
1654 George Burrill, Sr. Lynn a pcell of lace, 2s. 848.10s. PR 1:179
1654 George Willims Salem Lace & Filletten, 2s. not given PR 1:198
1661 Thomas Wiles Salem 1 Child blanket, silv. lace, 1li. 10s. not given PR 1:382
1672 Mrs. Margaret Lake Ipswich a small box with seavarrall Samplers, lases and broidred 141.7s. PR 2:291
works, 10li.
1676 John Cole(died Marblehead) Pemaquid 1 parcell statute Lace, 2s.6d not given PR 3:121
1677 Nathaniel Mighell, merchant? Salem bone lace 13s. 224.7s.3 1/2d. PR 3:173
1678 Deacon Thomas Howlett Ipswich silke & bone Lase, 5s. 9d. 452.11s.4d. PR 3:252

Sources: PR 1: Essex County, Massachusetts, Probate Court 1916; PR 2: Essex County, Massachusetts, Probate Court 1917; PR 3: Essex County, Massachusetts, Probate
Court 1920
 Findings 155

planted lace-making by hand as an income-producing opportunity for women;

handmade lace has never lost its cachet as embellishment for elegant attire. It
is a mistake to assume without supporting contextual evidence that lace bob-
bins found in nineteenth-century archaeological deposits reect a leisure pas-
time pursued solely by wealthy women.27
In the lace-making districts, lace-makers began to learn their craft at a young
age, and many children were taught to make lace at special lace schools. Such
schools were normally run by a woman in a single, unventilated room of her own
cottage, into which twenty or thirty children were packed. Children of ve or
six worked from between four and six to eight hours a day, while older children
worked from six in the morning to eight or ten at night.28
In the lace schools each lace-maker had to provide her own pillow (a hard,
round cushion stued with straw); these were usually made by specialist pillow-
makers. The pillow was supported on the workers knees or on a three-legged
pillow-horse. The lace-maker axed a strip of parchment pricked out in holes
with the lace pattern, then placed a pin through each hole. The thread from
which the lace was made was wound onto bobbins, which before the nineteenth
century were often made of bone (later examples are made of wood or other ma-
terialsthe Ipswich lace-makers used bobbins made of what they called bam-
boo though they are, in fact, made of a variety of materials). A bobbin is usually
about the size of a pencil; on the end opposite the part of the bobbin holding
the thread the lace-maker often placed a wire strung with several beads, known
as spangles, to add weight and thus maintain tension on the threads while the
work was in progress.29
Lace pins had to be good-quality pins of brass so they would not rust, and they
tend to be slightly longer than ordinary pins; these could prove quite expensive
for lace-makers in North America, who had to import both pins and thread for
their work. The professional lace-makers of Ipswich used as few pins as possible
both to save money and to make the work go faster. Of the surviving samples of
Ipswich lace, many have rather large openings that seem to reect this economy
with pins; the lace is also uneven in texture because the bobbins used in Ipswich
were too light to produce adequate tension on the threads.30
The lace was made by twisting and crossing the threads to form a ground
and the pattern, or gimp, was formed by interweaving a thread thicker than the
ground threads according to the pattern pinned out through the parchment. The
lace-maker was forced into a stooping, almost crouching, position as she worked
at her pillow; many women attempted to avoid the neck and back pain such
stooping caused by wearing sti busks in their corsets. This practice constricted
the ribs and sternum and eventually caused disgurement and made the women
156 Findings

more susceptible to the disease that plagued and killed most lace-makers, con-
sumption. All lace-makers, even children, were said to suer from dyspepsia.31
The most diagnostic element of the lace-makers equipment is the bobbin
upon which a supply of thread was wound; ordinary bobbins average about three
and a half to four inches in length (not including the spangle; see below). The
thread was wound around the neck and looped with a half-hitch around the
head; the shank could be inscribed or decorated. Bobbin shanks were sometimes
elaborately carved, and as a result, some bobbins constitute small masterpieces
of folk art in and of themselves, although one author makes it clear that the
very elaborate bobbins . . . were no better, from a practical point of view, than
the plain, ordinary and commonplace ones. 32 The materials from which bob-
bins were most often made were wood or bone, because both were cheap (wood
being the cheaper of the two, although it was more subject to wear than bone)
and readily available. Horn was not an appropriate material for making turned
bobbins. The wood chosen for bobbin-making was normally a close-grained hard-
wood or a fruitwood; bone could be obtained from a butcher or a slaughter-
house. Types of wood included damson, maple, spindlewood, yew, blackthorn,
may, oak, bog-oak, walnut, boxwood, cherry, plum, and apple; some better-
class bobbins were made of ebony. One source indicated that bone bobbins
were made of chicken bones, though, being hollow and quite brittle when dry,
chicken bones seem highly unsuitable for this purpose. Bone bobbins I have seen,
like needlecases and other objects, were made from cow metapodials or other
dense mammal bone.33
In lace-making districts, bobbins were produced by full-time bobbin-makers,
who turned the wood or bone on a small lathe powered by a foot-treadle. Marta
Cotterell Rael has conducted a study of two thousand surviving Ipswich lace
bobbins, which were very plain, light, and hollow and made from ve dierent
materials indigenous to late-eighteenth-century New England. They are, essen-
tially, tapered tubes produced cheaply and in great numbers for industrial use;
none bear weights or spangles. It is fortunate that so many of these bobbins sur-
vive in museums because they surely would not last long in archaeological con-
texts.34
Often lace-makers attached to the nonworking end of a bobbin a weight in
order to hold the tension on the treads so that the resulting lace would be tight
and even. These weights, known as spangles, consisted of a series of beads, usually
of glass, strung on a wire.
Lace-makers needed good light, which is why paintings and photographs so
often depict lace-makers working out of doors. Most of the work was done in-
doors, however, and lace-makers employed a number of ingenious devices for
 Findings 157

maximizing available light. Among these were lace-makers lamps (these were
made from about 1780 to the mid-nineteenth century) and lace-makers candle-
stools. A lace-makers lamp resembled an ordinary candlestick but was made of
glass, with a hollow glass sphere with a hole at the top; the sphere would be lled
with water to condense the light.35
A Mrs. Roberts of Spratton in Northamptonshire described candlestools and
how they were used to provide light for a large number of lace-makers in the
school she attended in the early nineteenth century:

In the evenings eighteen girls worked by one tallow candle, value one penny;
the candle-stool stood about as high as an ordinary table with four legs. In
the middle of this was what was known as the pole-board, with six holes in a
circle and one in the centre. In the centre hole was a long stick with a socket
for the candle at one end and peg-holes through the sides, so that it could be
raised or lowered at will. In the other six holes were placed pieces of wood hol-
lowed out like a cup, and into each of these was placed a bottle made of very
thin glass and lled with water. These bottles acted as strong condensers or
lenses, and the eighteen girls sat round the table, three to each bottle, their
stools being upon dierent levels, the highest near the bottle, which threw the
light down upon the work like a burning glass.36

Another artifact that may serve part of a lace-making assemblage, at least in

nineteenth-century English contexts, where its use is well documented, is what
was called a dicky pot. Normally lace-makers avoided having a re in the grate
or replace in the lace schools both because the students were packed in so
closely that a re would be unsafe and because soot from a re might soil the
lace. One solution for keeping warm was to ll a small, unglazed earthenware
pot with hot ashes or charcoal. The lace-maker would keep this dicky pot close
to her feet, beneath the hem of her dress. Dicky pots were shaped rather like
chamber pots, but it would be a simple matter to distinguish fragments of un-
glazed earthenware dicky pots used to hold ashes or coals, which undoubtedly
would show evidence of interior sooting, burning, or heat-spalling, from those of
a glazed chamber pot.37
Parents felt compelled to put their children to lace by sending them to lace
schools by age four or ve out of economic necessity. Farm laborers earned very
little, and far from enough to support a large family, so the additional income
from the lace-making eorts of a mother and her children could help a family
secure a modicum of comfort. Even so, most families in lace-making districts
remained poor, in part because they were often caught in a cycle of selling their
lace either to dealers who forced them to buy all the raw materials from them
158 Findings

and deducted the cost from the purchase price or to local grocers or shopkeepers
who forced them into a credit arrangement in which little cash ever changed
hands. In the 1840s, Oxfordshire lace-making families subsisted on a meager diet
of bread and butter or potatoes, with meat perhaps once a week.38
In addition to serving as a supplement to family income in rural agricultural
communities, lace-making was often seen as a form of poor relief. In the eigh-
teenth century the overseers of the poor in various Bedfordshire parishes at-
tempted to organize lace-making enterprises. Workhouses had specialized
lace-making rooms (these doubled as sleeping rooms as well as workrooms), the
furnishings of which included pillow-horses. An inventory from 1774 of the lace-
making room at Bedford St. Pauls workhouse lists two chairs, a lace horse, a ask
stool, a bedstead, a bed, two blankets, a large coer, a quilt, a pillow, and the
parish pall. In the adjacent room were two bobbin wheels.39
The vicissitudes of the lace market aected a lace-makers income as much or
more than her skill at the trade. When lace-makers received less for their work
during times when demand was slack, they often faced a stark choice: they could
enter the poorhouse or supplement their lace-making income by turning to pros-
titution.
Artifacts associated with lace-making have been found at many sites, ranging
from rural to urban, though in each instance the evidence points to small-scale,
household-level production by one person, probably a woman. This is especially
true of the lathe-turned bone lace bobbin found at the Triplex Middle cabin at
the Hermitage in Tennessee found along with many other sewing and needle-
work tools at this dwelling, occupied by an enslaved seamstress. It may be that this
lone bobbin was not used for its intended purpose, for the neck portion, where
the thread would have been wound, was broken o and the edge led at. Many
pins were found at the Triplex Middle, and some of these could have been used
in lace-making, but spangle beads that would have been attached to lace bob-
bins do not seem to have been found.40
At both the Five Points in New York and the Cumberland/Gloucester Street
sites in Sydneys Rocks neighborhood there were deposits that produced all of
the elements of a lace-making assemblage: bobbins or fragments of bobbins, pins,
spangle beads, and, in a cesspit behind a shop on Gloucester Street in Sydney,
many parts of a bobbin winder used for loading thread onto the bobbins. At Five
Points bobbin fragments were from the tips of long, baluster-type bobbins com-
monly used in making Buckinghamshire-style (also known as Midlands) or tor-
chon lace. The bobbin tips had holes to receive wires with spangles on them,
and the bobbin tips were found in association with seventeen multicolored beads
(blue, black, clear, and green). Rebecca Yamin notes that every type of bead
 Findings 159

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Fig. 6.3 Fragment of a bone lace bobbin found at the Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm,
Newbury, Massachusetts. The portion that would have held the thread is missing, but
the short, bulbous shank resembles those of bobbins used in making Honiton-style
lace. (Photograph by Michael Hamilton)

used in a spangle was recovered: top bead, square cuts, and large bottom beads.
The sites in the Rocks produced a variety of bobbin types, mostly of the elon-
gated, baluster type that, like the Five Points bobbins, would have held spangles;
indeed, several intact bobbins and a tip or spangle head were found. But an-
other site in the Rocks produced a short, bulbous bobbin of the sort referred to as
South Bucks, Huguenots, or thumpers; it resembles a bone bobbin found
at the Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm in Newbury, Massachusetts, which has been
interpreted as a bobbin used to produce Honiton-style lace, although Honiton
bobbins tend to be quite slender (g. 6.3).41

SEW I NG AC C ESS OR I ES

Aids to assist the needleworker are varied and numerous, with far more ex-
amples surviving in collections and museums than in archaeological sites. There
are, nevertheless, many sewing aids that are likely to survive in archaeological
contexts; some are relatively easy to recognize, others are not. Here I discuss
selected sewing accessories that are likely to be found by archaeologists, albeit
not commonly reported, as well as ones that are reported fairly regularly in the
literature. Much of the information on archaeologically recovered sewing items
is published in hard-to-nd nd sources or remains buried in artifact catalogs
or in obscure site reports. I have been fortunate that many colleagues have sent
me copies of their reports and articles and thus have made the task of locating
materials that have very limited circulation less daunting.42
160 Findings

thread winders, spools, and similar objects

Thread winders are small, at objects, with a series of points between which
thread or silk could be wound. They were made in a wide variety of shapes:
square, slight rounded, rectangular, star-shaped, and so on. They range in diame-
ter from less than an inch (for ne silks) to about two inches for heavier weights of
thread, even larger for very thick wools and silks. They also varied considerably in
material and were made of ivory, wood, mother-of-pearl, bone, glass, straw-work,
and horn. Winders were a necessity at a time when thread was spun at home or
purchased from a merchant or peddler in skeins or hanks; it had to be wound
onto something before sewing commenced so that it would not become tangled
or soiled. I have not come across mention of thread winders in the archaeological
literature apart from a modied lice comb from Five Points, interpreted as a silk
winder. I suspect that some star- and animal-shaped thread winders are thought
by archaeologists to be gaming pieces rather than items related to sewing.43
Spools for thread are not common nds on archaeological sites dating be-
fore the nineteenth century because spools as we know them were not made
before the nineteenth century, when machine-twisted and nished thread was
rst manufactured. Before that time, thread was kept on winders, as noted above,
or on spindles or reels (sometimes called bobbins) or in cotton barrels. A late-
seventeenth-century wooden spool or spindle from the Katherine Nanny Naylor
privy in Boston is, therefore, a most unusual nd, whereas the large numbers of
wooden spools for commercial thread found at late-nineteenth-century sites in
West Oakland, California, during excavations before the Cypress Freeway Re-
location Project, are not in the least surprising. Excavations in the South of Mar-
ket neighborhood in San Francisco produced a wide array of hand-carved bone
objects that were probably once part of matching needlework sets made up of
a spool or reel, needlecase, waxer, tape measure, emery, or pincushion, or per-
haps even elements of combination stands. Combination stands, popular in the
Victorian era, consisted of multiple needlework tools (for example, emery-tape
measure-pincushion or emery and spool holder) connected to one another and
to decorative bases via screw threads. Portions of such stands were often made of
vegetable ivory and other substances besides bone. Archaeologists are likely to
nd only the independent elements of combination stands, but the screw threads
are a clue to their service as elements of a multipart assembly of sewing acces-
sories.44

needlework clamps
Clamps of various sorts were used by needlewomen to hold fabric fast while
being stitched or thread taut when being wound; the clamp served as an extra
 Findings 161

hand. Although a clamp can be basic and utilitarian, those made for home sew-
ing were often quite fanciful and hence are prized by collectors. To permit the
clamp to be rmly attached to a table, it possesses a thumbscrew-operated slip-
vise. Axed to the top of the vise might be a sewing bird or hemming clamp, a
pincushion to which fabric could be secured by pinning, or a reel or cage onto
which thread could be wound.45
For the sake of clarity, therefore, it is best to refer to the dierent sorts of
clamps according to their intended function, for example, winding clamp, net-
ting clamp, or hemming clamp. Needlework clamps, like most other sewing tools
and accessories, were made of varied materials. Many early examples were carved
in ivory, wood, or bone, while later ones tended to be made of metal, though
often combining a variety of materials, including fabric, shell, and so forth.46
The netting clamp has a netting hook at the top, though it may be capped as
well with a pincushion and reel to render it a multipurpose clamp. A winding
clamp has only a reel or a cage atop the vise. A hemming clamp can take various
forms; most popular in Europe during the nineteenth century was the pincush-
ion clamp. The pincushion alone would not grip the fabric, but instead the ma-
terial would be gripped against a surface by the clamp itself. In America, clamps
topped by animal gures were popular in the nineteenth century. Animals of all
sorts were depicted (for example, sh, butteries, dolphins, and mythical crea-
tures), most of them gripping the fabric in their mouths, the mouth being opened
by squeezing the animals tail, which, when released, clamped down again tightly
by means of a spring mechanism. By far the most popular were sewing birds.
Thousands of these, made of steel, iron, bronze, brass, silver, tin, pewter, base
metal, and plated metal, were sold in the United States. American sewing birds
were rst made in Meriden, Connecticut, where Charles Waterman took out
a patent to manufacture the device in 1853. Watermans patent included spe-
cic features: the bird grasps the fabric in its bill which opens when the tail is
pressed downward . . . has a feather pattern only on top of the bird . . . [and]
there is an emery ball cup on the back of the bird. The only other decorative
touch on the early Waterman clamp might be a pierced thumbscrew; the stand
and clamp itself are undecorated. Other manufacturers quickly entered produc-
tion by changing details of the sewing bird and clamp, and seemingly endless
decorative variations and embellishments appeared. This was a simple matter be-
cause the components of sewing birds were produced by die-casting and mold-
ing; molds could be changed readily, and parts produced in the molds could
be assembled in many combinations. As a result, highly decorated examples, in-
cluding ones with die-cast clamps bearing oral or other motifs, were in wide
distribution. The thumbscrews, too, were often ornate, whether solid or pierced,
often taking the form of a heart, though pierced four-lobed openings or even
162 Findings

star-shaped thumbplates are known. Archaeologists who nd a thumbscrew sepa-

rated from its clamp might consider the possibility, especially if the item is quite
decorative, that it was once part of a sewing bird or other needlework clamp.47
Because sewing birds had nationwide distribution via stores, mail-order cata-
logs, and itinerant peddlers, examples have been found at archaeological sites in
far-ung parts of the United States. A splendid, nearly complete example of a cast
copper-alloy sewing bird was found at the Chinese Mining Camp site north of
Warren, Idaho, occupied from about 1880 to 1910. The upper portion of the bird
is missing (though part of the spring mechanism survives), but its lower portion
is decorated in a feather pattern (indicating that it is not a Waterman clamp).
The clamp is cast with trailing vines and owers, and the thumbscrew bears a
similar pattern of trailing vines around a four-lobed pierced opening. Unlike the
little animated sewing bird that served as mentor to the young lady depicted in
in chapter 1 (see g. 1.1), who spent hours in the sewing room, the sewing bird
from the Chinese Mining Camp cannot be interpreted as part of an idyllic do-
mestic sewing scene because the occupants of the camp were male. The inves-
tigators infer that the sewing bird was used to hold canvas being repaired for use
in lining miners trenches.48

quilt stamps and quilt patterns

Quilting, the process of sewing together three separate layers of fabric (top,
lling, and backing), made use of few implements that would survive archaeo-
logically or which could be linked directly to quilting as opposed to other forms of
sewing. Quilters did, however, sometimes use special tools that permitted them
to quilt regular stitched patterns. Among these were marking stamps (pewter cast-
ings that could be xed into a wooden handle), used to mark quilt squares and
household textiles; these were introduced in the nineteenth century after the dis-
covery of an ink that would last and not rot fabric. These pewter castings could
be found in archaeological contexts. Those cast in the form of letters and num-
bers might be mistaken for pieces of printers type unless one examined them
closely, but other castings in the form of lovebirds, leaves, and hearts are likely
to be recognized as quilters stamps.49
Quilters also made use of patterns or templates of paper or tin for cutting out
fabric that would be used as appliqus on the quilt top (an appliqud quilt is
one in which the top layer, usually of one piece, has fabric cutouts sewn onto
it). The Winterthur Museum has in its textile and needlework collection a large
number of tin quilt patterns. The shapes are variable and imaginative, depicting
the human form (usually women), stars, birds, farmyard animals, and so on (g.
6.4). They have the charm of folk art but were in fact mass-produced. Examples
 Findings 163

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Fig. 6.4 An assortment of quilt patterns; despite their charming folksiness, these are
mass-produced cutouts of sheet tin. (Courtesy The Winterthur Museum)

of these patterns of sheet tin could survive in some nineteenth-century or other

archaeological contexts.

stilettos
Stilettos are pointed implements used to make holes in sti fabrics such as can-
vas, felt, or leather or to prepare a hole in a fabric for a needle to pass through.
In this capacity they are, in essence, upscale versions of awls for home sewing,
often made of precious metal, ivory, or bone in fancy shapes and designsal-
though at the lower end of the price scale many stilettos, of plain steel, some
with handles of wood or other inexpensive material such as celluloid or plastic,
look for all the world like awls. Stilettos sharp points also served well to pull out
tacking threads or unpick stitches. Stilettos became common elements of sew-
ing kits by the early eighteenth century. They were often included in workboxes
along with other matching tools or, when sold separately, came with matching
cases both to ward against loss and to protect the user from injury. They dier
from bodkins and other sorts of needles by lacking an eye through which thread,
yarn, tape, or ribbon could be threaded.50
An object handcrafted of bone that could have served as a stiletto or an awl was
164 Findings

recovered from the Triplex Middle cabin at the Hermitage in Tennessee; archae-
ologist Jillian Galle notes that its small, thin point could have been used in the
creation of cutwork or for pushing thread through white work or that, alterna-
tively, it could have been used as a drizzler, a specialized tool for unpicking silver
and gold threads from worn fabric. From a shallow, stone-lined privy in the back
lot of a tenement in New Yorks Five Points neighborhood came an impressive ar-
ray of fancy needlework tools, among them a lathe-turned bone stiletto. Heather
Griggs interprets these nds, which included such items as a bone comb altered
to serve as a silk winder, a bone handle for an embroidery or crochet hook, parts
of lace bobbins, and a fragment of a folding ruler, as representing the contents
of a sewing box lled with tools for mending petticoats and stockings and for
embroidering handkerchiefs while its owner waited for gentlemenclients of
the brothel located at this addressto call. Although the assemblage is impres-
sive because it contains such unusual, varied, and evocative items, these were
not matching needlework tools from a fancy sewing box but objects assembled
to suit the owners tastes, needs, and income; they in fact may have served as an
alternative income strategy. Rebecca Yamin suggests that the needlework tools
and other artifacts recovered from the brothel privy reect a middle-class signa-
ture, an attempt in the midst of squalor to project to clientele a sense of luxury
and respectability.51

K N I T T I NG AC C ESS O R I ES

Knitting needles, either a pair or in some cases three or four needles, were,
of course, the primary implements required for the knitter, but as with so many
other activities, pastimes, and crafts, all sorts of devices were developed to help
the knitter improve her eciency and to protect her needles from breakage and
loss.

knitting sheaths
Knitting sheaths are not in common use anymore, but in earlier times it was
quite usual for knitters to attach to their belt or apron strings a sheath into which
one needle, or one end of a two-ended curved needle, could be supported.
Wooden sheaths have a history of about 250 years; they usually show signs of
wear indicating long use. Small heart-shaped devices in metal come from West
Cumberland, England; many date to 17851820. Ceramic knitting sheaths are
rare. They were possibly given as love tokens or bought as souvenirsthey are
not suited to their purpose so probably were never used. Although large num-
bers of knitting sheaths survive in museums and in private collections, I have not
 Findings 165

come across any mention of knitting sheaths recovered from archaeological con-
texts. But their very abundance as surviving artifacts leads me to think that some,
at least, should have found their way into the archaeological record in conditions
favorable for their preservation.52

knitting gauges
Miss Lambert, in The Hand-book of Needlework, refers to a lire or gauge, a
steel instrument, as an item developed by wire-drawers for ascertaining the sizes
of their wires, noting that a similar device with graduated notches around its
edge, is used for measuring the diameters of netting and knitting needles. Knit-
ting needle gauges made it possible to measure the diameter of needles, which
did not bear size marks, to match pairs for sale or use and to make certain that
the right needles were used for a knitting project. Gauges were made in many
shapes, bells and circles being most common, although over two dozen varieties
have been recorded; most are steel, but examples in ivory and other materials are
known. Gay Ann Rogers illustrates a late-nineteenth-century bell-shaped steel
gauge bearing the legend h walker london along with a trademark depict-
ing an archer with drawn bow. A nearly identical gauge in my own collection
bears the name of the famous needle manufacturer Abel Morrall, with the trade-
mark symbol of a unicorn rampant bearing an arrow. Both gauges are about two
and three-quarter inches long. Along the outer edges of each is a series of gradu-
ated circular cuts, each numbered, and in the center there are additional holes
for measuring large needles. Although I am unaware of knitting needle gauges
from archaeological contexts, it seems highly likely that they could be found,
especially in late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century sites, given the rela-
tive durability of steel, which might rust yet nevertheless retain its unmistakable
shape, and the wide distribution of these items as handy advertising for manu-
facturers of needles and sewing notions.53

knitting needle guards

These small items, sometimes called needle ends, are made in pairs and were
connected by a ribbon, chain, cord, or elastic so that they could be tightly axed
over the opposite ends of a pair of knitting needles. Examples exist in collections
of guards joined by a coiled copper-alloy spring, though this type of guard is rela-
tively rare. The guards, ranging from about one-half inch to two inches in length,
were made in a variety of materials, including ivory, bone, horn, mother-of-pearl,
wood, gilded metal, brass, silver, and gold. In form they are often small, caplike
tubes with a hole or attached loop near the top through which the connecting
band could be tied. But knitting needle guards also took a variety of imaginative
166 Findings

forms such as boots, sh, shoes, animal feet, keys, acorns, and so forth. Archae-
ologists seldom report nding knitting needle guards at their sites, but a very ne,
albeit relatively plain, pair of mother-of-pearl knitting needle guards was found
at the Triplex Middle slave cabin at the Hermitage in Tennessee and two non-
matching guards were found in a privy behind an 1840s brothel at 12 Orange
Street in New Yorks Five Points.54

knitting needle cases

Cases for storing needles were considered more sophisticated than needle
guards. Knitting needle guards were eective at keeping stitches from slipping o
a needle, but cases had to be specially designed to hold needles that held stitches
of a work in progress. Hence they tend to look like elongated needlecases but
have a slit down the middle through which to hang the knitting in progress. They
also have a removable end to allow the needle with knitting on it to slide into the
case. The cases are thus quite distinctive, but the removable ends, if found ar-
chaeologically, might be mistaken for just about any sort of needlecase closure.
I am unaware of any archaeological examples of knitting needle cases.55

A I DS FOR M ENDI NG A ND DA R N I NG

Sewing manuals and training schools for girls and boys stressed the impor-
tance of forming the habit of careful mending of garments and linens as a regular
task, one that demonstrated the qualities of thrift, industry, and economy: every
woman and every girl should take pride in knowing how to darn a pair of stock-
ings, to patch a worn garment, and to mend a tear. 56
The most important mending technique was darning, by which is meant the
repairing of a tear or a hole by weaving a thread back and forth. Patching was
considered a last resort when holes were too big to be darned. Darners or darning
balls, commonly shaped like eggs or mushrooms on stems, were placed under
the hole while a repair was made, preventing the darning threads from drawing
too tight so that they would remain open enough so that every other thread could
be picked up when the weaving process began. Glove darners came in some-
what dierent shapes, some having round balls at each end of a handle of wood,
metal, bone, or ivory, others having a single ball. Obviously, these nger-sized
darners are smaller than ones used for mending stockings and the like.57
Although the vast majority of darners were made of wood and are unlikely
to survive in archaeological contexts, other, more expensive materials were also
used. The Sears Roebuck catalog of 1897 advertised highly ornamental darners
with white enameled balls and silver handles that, at a dollar and seventy-ve
 Findings 167

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Fig. 6.5 Cast lead hem weight of the sort that was mass-produced in the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries. The bar through the center of the weight allows it
to be sewn securely into a hem. (After Womens Institute 1936:Findings 9)

cents, were at the expensive end of the price range for darners. Broken darn-
ing eggs were found in 1880s and 1890s deposits associated with no fewer than
thirteen households in West Oakland, and with ve households in the South
of Market neighborhood in San Francisco, giving some idea of how ubiquitous
such items would have been in the days when home sewing was common and
when relatively little stigma was attached to buying secondhand and repaired
garments or to repairing ones clothing. All of the West Oakland and San Fran-
cisco darners are handleless, egg-shaped, and made of handblown white glass
with a pontil mark on the narrow end of the egg; the same items in other con-
texts served as setting or nesting eggs to encourage hens to lay. Indeed, an ex-
ample recovered at George Washingtons Ferry Farm near Fredericksburg, Vir-
ginia, has been identied as a nest egg. 58

HEM WEIGH T S

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, small lead weights were some-
times placed within the hems of mens coats to keep their coattails from ap-
ping. Early hem weights are dicult to distinguish from pieces of lead sprue or
attened lead shot, unless context makes their purpose starkly apparent; by the
nineteenth century hem weights were fashioned so that they could easily be sewn
onto the fabric and stay in place (g. 6.5). These regulation weights or coat
weights were used to give weight to the lower edges of suit coats, to hold a cowl
neckline drapery in place, and in panels, and so on; they came in four sizes, the
largest about the size of a half dollar.59
In 1989 the burials of eleven young adult males were accidentally encoun-
tered during road construction between the Eye Peninsula and Stornaway at
Braigh, near Aignish, on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. The men buried
here, outside the nearby town cemetery, were probably not from Lewis but likely
were shipwreck victims; it seems that their bodies washed up and were buried
168 Findings

by local folk sometime around the year 1700. Finds of coins, buttons, cloth, and
other artifacts suggest that the men were buried in their clothing and with what-
ever personal eects they had been wearing or had in their pockets when they
drowned. One man had worn an iron whittle tang knife suspended from his waist
belt; this had probably been sheathed, although the sheathing material did not
survive. Archaeologists also found two small lead artifacts, one of which was prob-
ably a button. One of the skeletons had a semicircular lead sphere between his
thighs, and this item was likely a hem weight.60

The variety of needlework accessories is nearly endless, and here I have dis-
cussed only some of the items most likely to be recovered by archaeologists. In
the next chapter I put these and other implements of needlework and sewing
into a broader context of the cultural and social worlds of weavers, lace-makers,
tailors, and seamstresses.
 7

Stitching Together the Evidence

Artistic and popular images of women, alone or in groups, occupied con-

tentedly and industriously at their sewing or needlework, along with histories of
needlework and sewing tools, have created a lasting impression of sewing as the
ultimate feminine domestic art. Although this carefully crafted nostalgic vision
has more than a grain of truth, it is nevertheless a narrow perspective that over-
looks other settings for sewing as well as the range of attitudes that needlewomen
held toward their work.
Until recent times, almost all women were expected to master the skills of sew-
ing and mending, and many were expected to learn the arts of rened needle-
work. As a result, sewing and needlework and the artifacts associated with such
work often came to stand as icons for femininity and feminine industry. Indeed,
sewing or work baskets often appear in paintings or other depictions of women
as symbols of industry and perhaps even of charity and womanly virtue. The tomb
of Englishwoman Maria Wentworth, erected at Toddington, Bedfordshire, after
her death in 1632, consists of a sculpture of Maria seated on a cushion beneath a
canopy supported by pillars, a stone workbasket at her feet. Carved as part of the
basket are scissors and other implements. This powerful depiction tells us just
how closely associated the workbasket was with the desirable qualities of woman-
hood. Just as women from early times carried their work with them so that they
could take it up at any opportune moment, so Maria Wentworths workbasket
accompanies her into the afterlife.1
This would have been as true for nineteenth-century women traveling by
steamboat to the American West as it was for a highborn woman in seventeenth-
century England. It helps explain why, in her study of the material culture of
steamboat passengers who sailed on the last voyage of the sternwheeler Bertrand,
which sank in 1865 after hitting a snag in the Missouri River, Annalies Corbin

169
170 Stitching Together the Evidence

found fewer sewing tools in the below-decks stored baggage linked to women
than she expected. Two of the baggage assemblages she studied were linked
to women who escaped the sinking but lost all their baggage; from their stored
boxes Corbin cataloged sewing supplies. Box 72, which belonged to the John S.
Atchison family, contained many items that Mrs. Atchison may have intended to
use in making clothing and other items, including plaid silk dress pieces, silk and
velvet ribbon fragments, 148 buttons, 818 beads, fragments of beadwork, seventy-
ve copper-alloy and steel straight pins, twenty-one hooks, and seventeen eyes.
The box belonging to Annie and Fannie Campbell, who at ages nineteen and
sixteen, respectively, were intending to join their family in Montana, contained
118 buttons, 131 beads, two Chinese boxes that may have been intended as sew-
ing boxes, seventeen copper-alloy hooks, nineteen eyes, and sixty-seven copper-
alloy straight pins. The stored baggage, then, held sewing supplies for projects
that the women intended to undertake after they reached their destination; the
fact that no sewing implements (that is, needles, scissors, thimbles, and so forth)
were found in the containers in the hold of the steamship is far from surprising.
Women travelers would have carried their sewing tools with them, in a portable
workbox or workbasket, so that they could sew or knit or mend to occupy their
hands and minds while traveling. It is easy to imagine that Mrs. Atchison and
Fannie and Annie Campbell carried their workbaskets with them as they stepped
from the doomed Bertrand to safety.2
Whether as participants in establishing colonial settler colonies, moving to
newly opened frontiers, or following their husbands to military postings or new
places of employment, women were expected to bring with them the useful
skills of sewing and home dressmaking. Wives of army ocers in the nineteenth-
century American West, most of whom were adept at ne needlework but had
little or no training in dressmaking, relied on their ingenuity and the company of
other women for support and information about fashions, patterns, and cutting
and sewing techniques. Often the work was rewarding, but even though sew-
ing bees and special occasions occasionally lightened the burden, . . . sewing
was hard, never-ending work. Army women shared much the same experiences
as their sisters elsewhere when they could not turn to professional seamstresses
or purchase ready-made clothing for themselves and their families, for until late
in the nineteenth century home dressmaking tended to be conned to fairly
simple garments. Women of humble means could not aord the fabrics required
to produce fashionable garments nor the toolsscissors or shearsrequired for
cutting out the material; even some poor dressmakers could not aord all the
equipment they needed. Women who could aord not to sew preferred to turn
 Stitching Together the Evidence 171

to professional seamstresses, sometimes servants or enslaved Africans, and for

their husbands to have their clothes produced by tailors. An eighteenth-century
engraving of a tailors shop shows the shop as an exclusively male domain, fully
professionalized and clearly separate from domestic life (g. 7.1).3
It is important to consider what Barbara Burman calls both the hardware
and the software of home sewing and dressmaking to understand the nature
and scale of home and professional sewing in diering contexts, which is pre-
cisely what some archaeologists have been at pains to do. Burman makes the im-
portant point that

unwaged needlework in the home was not necessarily dierentiated . . . in

terms of value or status. Women have sewed curtains, knitted jumpers, em-
broidered household linen, made dresses, darned and redarned, turned col-
lars, mended and remodelled all manner of things for themselves and for their
families, all within a range of domestic tasks deemed part of the household
economy. Equally, women with enough will and hours in the day to do so have
often used their needle skills purely for pleasure in the making of utilitarian
and non-utilitarian items or in making a range of goods for sale for charity or
as gifts. Many of the same women have reapplied the same variety of skills to
sew for a network of neighbours or workmates for money, or taken in sewing
as waged piece-work on a regular basis.4

Taking in sewing as piecework could only supplement a familys income and

would seldom have permitted a single woman to support herself. Archaeologists
tend to classify buttons and hooks and eyes as part of a households sewing equip-
ment and, if they recover large numbers of buttons, to assume automatically that
this indicates that an exceptional amount of sewing took place at a site. Other in-
terpretations consider that buttons might be lost during laundering activities or
that buttons functioned somehow as trade tokens, especially in a closed commu-
nity such as a womens prison. Eleanor Conlin Casella, for instance, interprets
the large number of buttons found in certain areas of the Ross Female Factory,
a convict settlement in Tasmania, Australia, as trade tokens used to secure such
illicit goods as alcohol and tobacco. In her study of Delaware free black tenant
farmers homes, Lu Ann De Cunzo interprets large numbers of buttons, other
clothing fasteners, straight pins, and sewing tools (one site, for example, pro-
duced more than a dozen thimbles, a needle, and two bodkins) as evidence that
women such as Rachel Stumpassisted, perhaps, by her daughterstook in
clothes to mend and launder as a strategy to supplement income from the farm.
This exibility and freedom of working at home allowed them to accommodate
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Fig. 7.1 Scene from an eighteenth-century tailors shop from F. A. de Garsaults Art du
tailleur (1769). Note the large table used for cutting out and the other large table upon
which tailors sit cross-legged, busily sewing. (Courtesy The Winterthur Library:
Printed Book and Periodical Collection)
 Stitching Together the Evidence 173

their housework, their familys needs, their economic circumstances, and their
own work practices and rhythms while avoiding to some extent the racial and
social stigma of domestic service with roots in slavery.5
In her study of sewing tools and textile remains from the late-seventeenth-
century Boston privy associated with Katherine Nanny Naylor, who was a well-
to-do and well-born woman, Kelly Britt speculates that Naylor may have sewn to
support herself after she divorced her abusive husband. Seldom, however, could
women earn enough money by doing needlework in the home to support them-
selves and their children; indeed, even professional seamstresses, for whom the
spectre of the sweated trades [was] never very far away, often found it dicult
to make ends meet, especially in urban contexts where competition for jobs in
the needle trades was intense and pay for such work was very low.6
As a result, although skill in needlework was often the only qualication for
earning a living that many Victorian girls possessed, it was nearly impossible to
ensure a steady income from such work. So many women in nineteenth-century
London and elsewhere were forced to supplement their earnings by turning to
prostitution, which was a necessity as it was virtually impossible for a woman to
support herself solely with her needle, that society came to connect dressmak-
ing with prostitution. The only other alternatives women had when dressmaking
paid too little to live on were petty crime or the workhouse. The problem was
deemed so severe in London that in 1849 Sidney Herbert established a Fund for
Female Emigration, aimed to clear the streets of prostitutes by sending needle-
women to Australia. Despite the stated intentions of Herberts scheme, in 1856,
of the 7,268 single women transported to Australia, only ninety-eight were seam-
stresses.7
The link between the needle trades and the sex trade reects womens income
strategies that juxtaposed seemingly domestic tasks of sewing and needlework
with sex work. This explains why urban historical archaeologists nd seemingly
contradictory evidence of needlework at sites that documents identify as former
brothels, as in New Yorks Five Points neighborhood. The Five Points was for
a time at the center of New Yorks clothing industry, and men dominated the
ready-made and secondhand markets. Both the sweating system, in which work,
in the form of cut pieces for garments, was parceled out by the piece to men
and women, and the factory system, in which people labored under one roof in
an inside shop, were prevalent in nineteenth-century New York; presumably
this was the case for other contemporary cities, though perhaps not on the same
scale. Both men and women labored in these systems, but women were paid
far less than men. Hence at Five Points the evidence for dressmaking and tailor-
ing is abundant and comes from a range of sites, not just from brothels. But it
174 Stitching Together the Evidence

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Fig. 7.2 A nineteenth-century tailors shop illustrated in Johann F. Schreibers

30 Werkstatten von Handwerken (late 1800s), showing tailors engaged in measuring
a gentleman for a pair of trousers, cutting out, and sewing. Tools of the trade are
illustrated in the margins; note capless thimble and large tailors shears.
(Courtesy The Winterthur Library: Printed Book and Periodical Collection)

is likely that needlewomen who lived in brothels pursued the needlework and
lace-making, for which there is ample evidence, to supplement their incomes,
not merely to idle away the time between clients or for personal gratication.8
Burman points out that up until recent times, for boys and men there was a
dierent clothing code or protocol: manhood was equated with consumption of
ready-made and tailor-made clothing, femininity with home sewing. These dif-
ferential protocols underscored the deep, old divide between male tailoring and
female dressmaking. . . . there has been little tradition for female tailors in shops
. . . a part of achieving adult masculinity has normally involved relinquishing di-
rect contact with the female maker of clothing (g. 7.2). Marla Miller found
that the success of women employed in the tailoring trade in eighteenth-century
Hartford, Connecticut, led one male tailor to reproach gentlemen through a
notice in the local newspaper for hiring women to cut their clothes. Women
 Stitching Together the Evidence 175

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Fig. 7.3 A plate from Garsaults Art du tailleur, illustrating an eighteenth-century

workshop in which both tailors and seamstresses are engaged in producing womens
bodices. (Courtesy The Winterthur Library: Printed Book and Periodical Collection)

tailors thrived in eighteenth-century Northampton, Massachusetts, and Millers

study of female tailors of mens clothing is aimed at unsettling and rethinking the
categories that have shaped scholarship on womens work and our understanding
of the shifting gender divisions of labor in the early modern Atlantic world. 9
The world of sewing has long extended well beyond the domestic sphere.
Home sewing was a universal phenomenon, a source of pride as well as at times
a tedious chore. Seamstresses were women who produced clothing profession-
ally, as did tailors, but tailors were men, and their cultural milieu was very dif-
ferent from the feminized domestic sphere (see gs. 7.1, 7.2). A depiction of
an eighteenth-century bodice shop shows both men and women engaged in the
production of womens bodices (g. 7.3). Normally the only other workshops
in which women might work in a professional capacity were those of mantua-
makers (dressmakers); the shop in most instances was clearly demarcated from
the home, underscoring the distinction between home sewing and professional
tailoring and dressmaking. But, as Miller points out, although it was perfectly
acceptable for women to engage in producing womens clothing, men guarded
closely the province of tailoring, which they saw as exclusively their own.10
Men of course sewed in contexts other than tailors shops, both by necessity
and for pleasure. Nowhere was this more the case than among sailors, who spent
long months or years at sea, away from their loved ones. On a voyage, sailors were
176 Stitching Together the Evidence

forced to perform all of the domestic tasks normally done by women, among
them cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, and sewing. Sailors had to be adept at
sewing and mending the heavy canvas sails of ships before the days of steam,
but they also produced and mended their own clothing, and many embroidered
their clothing with elaborate decorations or produced needlework pictures or
woolies as presents for family members. Other sorts of all-male enclaves, for in-
stance, Chinese mineworkers camps in the American West, were also contexts
in which men were forced to take on both heavy sewing tasks, such as mending
canvas, as well as everyday tasks with the needle.11
Archaeologists nd small thimbles intended for use by children often enough
to be aware that not just men and women were expected to sew. Sometimes ar-
chaeologists identify the diminutive objects as toy thimbles, but this is not accu-
rate. They might more properly be thought of as training thimbles, used as young
girls and, at times, boys were taught prociency in the basic skills of hemming,
darning, and so forth. For many, training took place at home, but young girls of
well-to-do families were sometimes sent to female academies where they were
taught sewing and needlework as part of a formal education. The best known of
the schoolgirl needle arts are samplers and embroidered pictures, the creation
of which taught more than reading, sewing, and art; they also reinforced gen-
der roles and prevalent ideas about morality, cultural values, and religion. This
was true as well for girls and boys who were trained in charity schools and free
kindergartens. In nineteenth-century London, for example, the Central School
was established in order to provide suitable work for the lower classes: As the
beauty of needle-work consists in its regularity and cleanliness, every child must
be taught to wash her hands before she begins, to make her stitches exactly the
same size, and to set them at a regular distance from each other. What is more,
the instruction manual for the school stipulated that no child can work neatly
without a thimble. 12
A publication of 1884 descried the conditions under which children were
forced to live in the poorer districts of San Francisco and Oakland, California,
praising the provision of kindergartens for the neglected little ones of such locali-
ties. The description of two Oakland free kindergartens, one down near the
wharves on the lower part of Broadway, the other in the northern portion of
the city on Market Street, indicates that both church-sponsored kindergartens
oered instruction in sewing to boys and girls: the little ones are learning the
need of cleanliness and carefulness of dress. Many of them now wear garments
sewed by themselves. Sewing was seen as an activity that would help mold the
characters of these youngsters, imparting useful skills while inculcating in them
middle-class values. There was also instruction in religion, for students were per-
 Stitching Together the Evidence 177

mitted to purchase garments after performing well at several weeks of sew-

ing instruction and memorizing Bible verses. The kindergartens contrast with
West Oaklands mid-nineteenth-century New Century Clubs sewing classes for
neighborhood girls, where sewing was an integral part of the industrial curricu-
lum for girls, giving them a marketable skill that could supplement the familys
income. Sewing instruction, then, served in some instances to reinforce gender
roles, in others as an extension of missionary zeal aimed at Americanizing immi-
grant children, linking patriotism with Christianity and middle-class values.13
Sewing and needlework, then, took on many meanings depending on when
and where it was done, by whom it was done, and why it was done. Even though
archaeologists might nd nearly identical sewing implements in a variety of site
typesdomestic, institutional, religious, industrialthat date to dierent times,
they do not mean the same thing in each instance, nor were they necessarily
used in quite the same way. It is critical, therefore, for archaeologists to delineate
the specic historical and cultural context of individual sites in which sewing
tools are found and to develop their case studies with care before oering inter-
pretations aimed at elucidating wider cultural contexts. I have sought to provide
a way for archaeologists to identify the material culture of needlework and sew-
ing accurately and fully and to provide examples of contextual analysis that per-
mit the archaeologist to interpret how women and men and children used such
objects in both practical and meaningful ways.
 Notes

1. i n t r o d u c t i o n
1. The context for interpreting the Spencer-Peirce-Little lace bobbin fragment is pre-
sented in Nelson 1995; see also Beaudry 1998:30, g. 9.
2. Nol Hume 1970; Deagan 1987, 2002; Karklins 2000; Brauner 2000; see also White
2005. The Left Coast Press has announced the inauguration of a series of guides to
material culture found at historical sites.
3. Metonymy is a process of substitute naming whereby, through close association or
contingency, one thing (or the name for it) is made to stand for another; see Beaudry
1988:47.
4. Luedtke 1996:1.
5. Parker 1984:11.
6. Parker 1984:2, 3, 5, 1114.
7. Barber 1994.
8. Nylander 1992; Swan 1977; MacDonald 1988. In the 1790s, for example, bobbin lace
was made for cash as part of an extensive putting-out industry based in Ipswich, Mas-
sachusetts. Vincent 1988:3, 17.
9. Benes 1986:67.
10. Douglas 1982; Douglas and Isherwood 1979. The active voice ethnographic ap-
proach has been applied by historian Rhys Isaac, who was strongly inuenced by
Douglass work; see Isaac 1980. For a concise and cogent presentation of interpretive
archaeology, see Gamble 2001:3439. Like many of my colleagues who practice in-
terpretive archaeology, I analyze material culture as it is employed in negotiation and
discourses of identity (see, e.g., Beaudry, Cook, and Mrozowski 1991; Beaudry 1996;
Loren 2001; Loren and Beaudry 2005; Praetzellis and Praetzellis 2001; Yamin 2001;
and White 2002, 2004, 2005).
11. Beaudry 1995:4; Wylie 1999.
12. Barber 1994; Swan 1977. For archaeological studies linking women and sewing equip-
ment, see Galle 2004; Jackson 1994; McEwan 1991.
13. See White 2005 for a guide to buttons and other artifacts of personal adornment.

179
180 Notes to Pages 1013

2. t h e l o w l y p i n
1. Linda Eaton, curator of textiles, Winterthur Museum, Garden, and Library, pers.
comm. 2001; her observation is borne out by the fact that guides to tailoring never
mention pins (see esp. Garsault 1769; see also Queen and Lapsley 1809; Wyatt 1822).
Longman and Loch 1911 devote several chapters to pin lore and beliefs about special
properties of pins. A pin was mentioned in one instance as the instrument employed as
a cure for being hag-ridden (the victim of a witchs nocturnal assaults); one women
recounted that she used a pin to scratch and draw blood from the woman she sus-
pected to be the witch (Davies 19961997:4647). I limit my discussion to practical
uses of pins and refer the reader to other sources for details about folklore and super-
stitions pertaining to pins (see note 2, below). Archaeological nds of pins in buried
bottles, for example, have been interpreted as witch bottles: in the City of London,
at Dukes Place, seventeenth-century made-ground yielded a Bellarmine contain-
ing corroded metal pins probably used by someone who believed themselves to be
bewitched to counter the spell (Cherry 1978:112; see also Becker 1980; King 1996).
2. Longman and Loch 1911:pl. 2. The Thebes nd dates to the twelfth to fourteenth
dynasty, or c. 20001560 bc. Whiting 1928:134135; Longman and Loch 1911:pls. 4,
5; there is no special feature to distinguish early hairpins from pins of other sorts; it
has been suggested that bronze pins were used for dress and sewing and that larger,
broader pins of jet, ivory, and bone were for the hair (Andere 1971:4243).
3. Barber 1991:61, 63.
4. Longman and Loch 1911:pls. 3, 6, 8, 9. For discussion of elaborate dress pins from
Anglo-Saxon sites in Britain, see Wilson 1964. Barber 1991:121.
5. Brooches and pins are common nds on civil sites because the civilian costume
[for men] of the later Roman period seems to have consisted of a dress or tunic caught
in at the waist by a narrow girdle, apparently tied, and cloak or mantle fastened at the
shoulder by a pin or brooch (Hawkes 1961:3233). Andere 1971:42. Dahl 1970:65;
this type of pin appears only in Scotland and the Viking lands in the West and dates
to the tenth century. For details on ring-headed pins recovered from medieval layers
in Dublin, Ireland, see Fanning 1994. Wallace 2000.
6. Earwood 1993:29, 120. Pins made of yew, for instance, were recovered, along with
wooden combs, from late-fteenth-century contexts at Narrow Quay in Bristol, En-
gland (Good 1987:108, 109); bone pins have been found in Viking-age sites such as
a house excavated at Drimore, South Uist, Scotland (Wilson and Hurst 1957:156);
they were exceedingly common at Anglo-Saxon sites throughout Britain (cf. Addy-
man 1964:64); and bone was widely used for making such small objects as knife-
handles, spindle-whorls, pins and hair-combs at Irish rathssmall, usually circular
earthworks enclosing farmsteadsof the twelfth century (Proudfoot 1961:116). An-
dere 1971:4344; Egan and Pritchard 1991:291303.
7. Egan and Pritchard 1991:222, 297, 298, g. 198. During the fteenth and sixteenth
centuries huge numbers of pins were imported into England from the Netherlands,
both in bulk consignments as well as in smaller quantities for individual customers
(Egan and Forsyth 1997:222). Egan and Pritchard note that it is highly likely that pins
 Notes to Pages 1317 181

were used similarly in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but no evidence has
been found to conrm this.
8. Egan and Pritchard 1991:299, 297; Margeson 1993:1011, g. 4, nos. 2530. Margeson
illustrates and discusses a number of bone pins, all of them save one rather simple and
crude. She posits that the cruder versions, each of which has a hole drilled through its
wide end, are homemade dress pins, used with a thong or cord through the pierced
head, and tied to the point once it had passed through the fabric (1993:9, 13, g. 4,
no. 24, g. 6). It is also possible that they were used as needles in coarse work such as
netting.
9. Cunnington and Cunnington 1966:52, who quote from Ben Jonsons Tale of a Tub
(1633): He had on a pair of pinnd up breeches like pudding bags (54). S. Rowlands,
Doctor Merry-Man (1616), quoted in Cunnington and Cunnington 1966:17.
10. This even though nineteenth-century folk custom on the Isle of Wight warned expec-
tant mothers to remove all pins from the layette pincushion, in keeping with the local
proverb More pins, more pain (Cunnington and Lucas 1972:40). Cunnington and
Lucas 1972:24.
11. A doctor writing in the Ladys Magazine in 1785, as quoted by Cunnington and Lucas
1972:24.
12. By the eighteenth century some gowns had rows of hooks and eyes to eect an edge-
to-edge front closure over the bodice (Cunnington and Cunnington 1957:122). Cun-
nington and Cunnington 1966:82, 101, 177, 17911.
13. Cunnington and Cunnington 1957:116118. John Gay, The Pin and the Needle (1728),
quoted in Cunnington and Cunnington 1957:118, 326.
14. Songs for Little Misses, from John Marchant, Puerilia; or, Amusements for the Young
(1751), quoted in Longman and Loch 1911:136.
15. Quoted in Longman and Loch 1911:131.
16. Proctor 1966:53. It is worth noting that womens fashions changed dramatically be-
ginning in the 1790s, until Victorian times requiring far less in the way of layering and
fasteners. See, e.g., Loughridge and Campbell 1985:12, 14.
17. Groves 1966:49; such pin-suites, as they are called, of gold, silver, and bronze are
often found in seventh-century Anglo-Saxon womens graves in parts of England such
as the Peaks District (Ozanne 19623:2729). Longman and Loch 1911:pl. 10; Mac-
Gregor 1985:171, g. 89; Ponsford and Jackson 1996:267; Egan 1990:206; Cherry
1972:104; Margeson 1993:177. Egan (2005:138, g. 131) reports that pinners bones
are relatively common nds from sixteenth-century deposits in London, particularly
at religious sites postdating the Dissolution.
18. MacGregor 1985:171; Groves 1966:4950. The medieval pins found in London had
both solid and wound-wire heads; the solid heads were hammered into spherical or
hemispherical shapes, with some being attened on the top and decorated with quad-
rants and dots (Egan and Pritchard 1991:299, 300, gs. 199, 203). Egan and Pritchard
1991:301, gs. 200202.
19. Proctor 1966:53; Tylecote 1972:183; Groves 1966:51; Andere 1971:45; Egan and
Pritchard found, however, that the decorated pins recovered from medieval sites in
London tended to be of English manufacture. They suggest there was a certain type of
182 Notes to Pages 1722

pin associated with England and question the frequent assertion that all pins were im-
ported into England during this time, noting that even a Parisian pinner in 1400 took
an order for ve hundred pins de la faon dAngleterre (Egan and Pritchard 1991:299,
302303). For the Diderot engravings, see Gillispie 1959:vol. 1, pls. 184186.
20. Sprague 1937:1. This early date is at odds with Phillipss statement that the brass pin
was not introduced into England until 1543 (Phillips 1818), but there is ample evi-
dence that iron or steel pins were in use between 1404 and 1455, and it seems highly
unlikely that Henry VIII would have issued regulations to control British pin-making
in 1543 if brass pins had appeared for the rst time in that year (see below). Illustrations
of stages in pin-making often show not just men but also women and children en-
gaged in various tasks; Rivingtons Book of Trades (London, 1827), for instance, shows
a young woman heading pins by operating a drill press. See also Tomlinson 1858.
21. Quoted in Proctor 1966:53.
22. Andere 1971:45, 46; Atkin 1987:3, 16; Tylecote 1972:185186.
23. Sprague 1937:1, quoting Greeley et al. 1873:1286. J. Leander Bishop notes that a Na-
thaniel Robbins, who billed himself as a wyer draer, had petitioned for aid to carry
on his trade at Lynn (Saugus Ironworks) in 1666 but, unlike Jenks, had been turned
down (Bishop 1966:478).
24. Rogers 1983:140, 141; Sprague 1937:12; Bishop 1866:504, 616.
25. Smith 1776 [1910]:45.
26. Tylecote 1972:184, 185, g. 82, illustration of annealing furnace at Gloucester Folk
Museum; 186, g. 83, illustration of a drop-stamp bench in the collections of the
Gloucester Folk Museum. Sprague 1937:2; Egan 2005:130131.
27. Tylecote 1972:184; Phillips 1818, cited in Tylecote 1972:184; Proctor 1966:54; Rogers
1983:140; Smith [1776] 1910:5.
28. Proctor 1966:55.
29. Proctor 1966:54.
30. Rogers 1983:141.
31. Sprague 1937:1. Tylecotes metallurgical study of dated pins proved that pins dated
as early as 1551 had spiral wound globular heads (1972:187). Tylecote 1972:190; see
also Deagan 2002:194; Proctor 1966:53; Whittemore 1966:14; Tylecote (1972:185
186) notes that giving pins a conical head shape was accomplished simply by using
a dierently-shaped cavity in the heading ram die. Tylecote 1972:90. For a recently
published archaeometallurgical study of copper alloy pins and needles from the site
of Tepe Yahya (c. 5500c. 1400 bc) in Iran, see Thornton et al. 2002.
32. Longman and Loch 1911 illustrate a round-headed pin found fastening a manuscript
dated 1570 (pl. 10); Tylecote analyzed pins that had been fastened to English docu-
ments and letters dated 1548, 1551, 1576, and 1669. He stated, There is no reason to
believe that these documents have been re-pinned since they were put away but of
course the pins may have come from an earlier period and been re-used. So the date
ascribed to them represents a terminus ante quem for their manufacture (Tylecote
1972:187). Deagan 2002:194.
33. The authors of the study of eighteenth-century Fort Stanwix in Rome, New York
(Hanson and Hsu 1975), conclude correctly that the long pins they recovered from
 Notes to Pages 2427 183

late-eighteenth-century strata at the fort had something to do with women, but they
incorrectly identify the pins as hat pins when they were probably either corkins or
blanket pins, wig pins, or perhaps lace pins. Womens headgear at this time could be
quite elaborate, but fashionable hats, although commonly worn, would be secured
either with ribbons or ties or with elaborate, decorative hat pins, not straight pins (Cun-
nington and Cunnington 1957:343368). Deagan 2002:194. Woodeld and Good-
all 1981:91. Woodeld and Goodall distinguish among the 1,575 pins recovered from
sixteenth-century contexts at the Free Grammar School at Whitefriars, Coventry, ac-
cording to wire thickness or gauge: very ne dressmaker pins, general-purpose pins
with a gauge of just under a millimeter, and thick pins of 1.5-mm gauge (Woodeld
and Goodall 1981:91, 92, g. 5, nos. 35aj). Rus were not typically worn by any be-
sides the better sorts and were, of course, one of the many elements of prominent
social display characteristic of mens clothing before the nineteenth century. Wood-
eld and Goodall posit that some sewing or instruction in sewing took place at the
school because both a thimble and a thimble ring were found along with the pins.
34. Egan and Forsyth 1997:223224.
35. Proctor 1966:51; Sprague 1937:3; The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictio-
nary, s.v. minnekin (hereafter cited as Compact OED).
36. Andere 1971:49.
37. Compact OED, s.v. middling.
38. Cox 1966:256, g. 197; Yamin 2000:132, g. 66.
39. Compact OED, s.v. corkin; many spelling variations are listed.
40. Sprague 1937:3; Andere 1971:48.
41. Addyman and Marjoram 1972:92, 91, g. 41, nos. 17, 18. One of the coated pins
was 2.52 inches long, the other 1.26 inches in length; the second (no. 18) is of ne
wire gauge and most likely was used in pinning veils or rus. Also found at St. Neots
were two sixteenth-century copper-alloy pins with decorative heads, one gilded and
one silvered, an early-sixteenth-century copper-alloy pin with a slant head, and more
than fty common straight pins with wound-wire heads. The latter were all from mid-
eighteenth-century contexts. For the Free Grammar School nds, see Woodeld and
Goodall 1981:91.
42. Taylor 1983:97, 248262; in earlier times all attendants at a funeral and all mem-
bers of a household (including servants), not just the immediately bereaved, were ex-
pected to conform to a greater or lesser degree to conventions governing mourning
attire.
43. Loughridge and Campbell 1985:2; Flanagan 1982:4647.
44. Loughridge and Campbell 1985:14 illustrate a box of U.S. Civil Warera black steel
mourning pins in conjunction with a veil for deep mourning.
45. Longman and Loch 1911:pl. 11.4; Joan Unwin, pers. comm. 2001.
46. Proctor 1966: 55; Joan Unwin, pers. comm. 2001.
47. Longman and Loch 1911:pl. 11.1; Campbell 1969:120; Whiting 1928:140.
48. Cox 1966:120, 113. For discussion of wig styles and hair ornaments, see White 2005:
111119.
49. Cox 1966:250251; Garsault 1769:22; Cox 1965:16; pl. 4 from The Wigmakers Art
184 Notes to Pages 2832

illustrates both needles for sewing the wig and tacks for holding the thread or ribbon
in place. Tattershall, discussing wigmaking in eighteenth-century Williamsburg, Vir-
ginia, refers to small nails, called wig points (1959:22).
50. Cunnington and Cunnington 1957:374, 377; Garsault 1769:28. He advocates instead
securing an extra ribbon to the mounting ribbon by driving in a small nail; the ribbon
runs under the chin of the block and is axed on the other side of the wig, holding
the wig securely in place while the wigmaker made his nishing touches.
51. Royal Pennsylvania Gazette, Mar. 13, 1778. I thank Carolyn White for bringing this
reference to my attention. Cunnington and Cunnington 1957:374, 377.
52. Berbecker and Son n.d.:5.
53. Sprague 1937:3. Huggins 1969:91; the description of this nd does not specify that
paper was found but states that the pins were found together in a manner that sug-
gested a paper of pins. This may be what the archaeologists saw because it was what
was expected; sadly, there is no illustration of these pins either in situ or out of the
ground in their paper, so it is dicult to say that here is evidence of sticking of
pins before the practice was documented as being common. And, of course, anyone
who had pins they wished to keep together could as easily stick them into a piece of
paper as they could place them in a pin poppet or needlecase. Proctor 1966:56.
54. Proctor 1966:56.
55. Almost every author on needlework tools oers some speculation on the origin of the
phrase pin money, for which there seems to be any number of potential explana-
tions. The main issue of concern is that at one time pin money represented a not in-
considerable sum of money, but once mass production made high-quality pins widely
available at exceedingly low cost, the phrase pin money came to refer to a paltry, in-
signicant sum (see, e.g., Andere 1971:50; Proctor 1966:56; Groves 1966:51). I have
been told of a wholly dierent folk explanation for the derivation of the phrase by Al
Luckenbach, archaeologist for Anne Arundel County, Maryland; he recounted that
a friend of his showed him examples of colonial currency that had been torn and re-
paired with colonial straight pins. The practice of pinning torn currency notes back
together, Luckenbachs friend believes, is the source of the phrase pin money.
56. Sources on pincushions, of varying use to the archaeologist, include: Colby 1975;
Taunton 1999; McConnel 1997; Rogers 1983; Proctor 1966; Groves 1966; Longman
and Loch 1911; Gillingham 1924; and Whittemore 1966. Taunton, McConnel, Rog-
ers, Proctor, and Groves are lavishly illustrated and can prove highly useful to anyone
searching for an item comparable to a specic archaeological nd.
57. Groves 1966:51.
58. Groves 1966:55; Shaer 1973:234235. Swan 1977:128, g. 67, shows a rectangular
pincushion with a ower design and words formed by tiny pins placed so that the
heads spell out Welcome / Little / Stranger / Here. The piece is dated 1795. Proctor
1966:56; for further illustrations of fancy-worked pin balls, see Swan 1977:191, g. 49.
59. Proctor 1966:58; Longman and Loch 1911:pl. 12.
60. Proctor 1966:60; Swan 1977:129 explains that needlework gifts consisted mainly of
accessory pieces, such as pincushions, hand towels, needlebooks, and so on. Proctor
1966:58.
 Notes to Pages 3235 185

61. Proctor 1966:58, 60.

62. Essex County, Massachusetts, Probate Court 1916:178180.
63. Cherry 1977:94. For example, a bone pincushion mount was recovered at Appleton
Roebuck, England (MacGregor 1985:186, g. 101, no. 28). Examples similar to the
Boston nd are illustrated in Rogers 1983:155, pl. 121 (two silver baskets, c. 1820) and
in Taunton 1997:93, pl. 98 (two silver ligree basket English pincushions, late eigh-
teenth or early nineteenth century; these are also illustrated in Taunton 1999:51).
McConnel 1999:170, 177, illustrates two silver chatelaines (no date given) each with
small bucket-shaped containers on one of their chains; these could be either pincush-
ions or thimble holders. Longman and Loch 1911:pl. 41.4 illustrate a small pin-basket
of carved bone, dating to 181618. Lewis 2001:39. See also Cook 1998; Heck and
Balicki 1998; Simons 2005:182183.
64. Deagan 2002:195, g. 10.4; White is not convinced that these objects are pin sheaths
(Carolyn White, pers. comm. 2004), and I have seen similar objects identied as knit-
ting needle covers or as tips for the spokes of parasols.
65. Cunnington and Lucas 1972:157; Hurry 2001:3839; Riordan 1997:35; Riordan
2000:2-22-3. I was intrigued to note some disagreement in the archaeological litera-
ture over the dating of shroud pins; at Christs Kirk on the Green, Leslie, Scotland, the
archaeologist suggested that although medieval pottery was recovered from grave-
yard soil, shroud pins associated with the graves suggest a seventeenth- or eighteenth-
century date for some of these burials (Ponsford 1994:123), but at St. Nicholas Parish
Church in Lanark, Clydesdale, Scotland, burials inside the church had shroud pins
possibly dating to the thirteenth century, or at least predating the seventeenth century:
the shroud pins are earlier than the seventeenth century as the practice of church
burial had ceased by then (Ponsford and Jackson 1995:119). Many of the burials re-
covered from along the outside walls, within the walls, in the oor, and even in the
masonry of All Saints Church, Irthlingborough, Northamptonshire, England, which
was in existence from the twelfth through the sixteenth century, had shroud pins (Wil-
son and Hurst 1966:188). We know from Tylecotes study of wound-head wire pins
that such pins could have been used for fastening shrouds from at least the sixteenth
century, if not earlier, and that it would be nearly impossible to tell earlier pins of this
sort from later ones without supporting contextual evidence. Cunnington and Lucas
1972:156; the Woollen Act of 1660 prohibited use of any material other than wool for
shrouds, as a measure to prop up the sagging British woolen industry (Cunnington
and Lucas 1972:157); it stayed in force until 1815. Although rich people could pay a
ne of ve pounds if they wished to bury their dead in funerary garments of linen or
other material, excavations of the vaults at Christ Church, Spitalelds (where inter-
ments dated c. 17001850), revealed that, at least among the middling sorts, most
abided by the law (Cox 1996:112). The law does not seem to have extended to En-
glands colonies, however.
66. Cox 1996:115; it was also increasingly common by the eighteenth century for even
ordinary people to be buried in their own clothes, although the Spitalelds study
revealed that a wide range of burial attire was acceptable (Cox 1996:115). Rior-
dan notes that the connement of the legs and feet resulting from this sort of treat-
186 Notes to Pages 3538

ment should be recognizable archaeologically when a skeleton has its lower legs close
together and the feet, rather than collapsing, are preserved in anatomical position
(2000:2-15, see also 5-12). Riordan 2000:2-15. Riordan notes that there is a wealth of
archaeological evidence for the pinning of shrouds and burial clothing and that no
special pin sizes were set aside for such purposes; rather, any given burial might have
a range of pin sizes. Deagan attributes the variability in pin sizes found in a single
late-sixteenth-century or early-seventeenth-century burial in St. Augustine, Florida,
as evidence that the deceased was buried in clothing fastened with an array of dier-
ently sized pins (Deagan 2002:195, g. 10.3), suggesting that the burial customs in
the Spanish colonies diered from those of the English. Indeed, Riordan remarks on
the high degree of dierence between the burial customs evidenced at seventeenth-
century St. Marys City, Maryland, from those of the Spanish missions during the
same period, noting that these dierences reect ethnic rather than religious charac-
teristics and while the Marylanders may have been Catholic, they were also English
(2000:6-2). Yet another use of brass pins in a mortuary context was discovered during
recording of a burial vault in North Dalton Church, North Humberside. Here one
con lid was decorated with a double band of staggered brass pins around the edges
and in the center of the lid pins had been laid out to form the outline of a shield, in
which pins spelled out the inscription R:B/Aeta 59/1748 (Mytum 1988:185). One
suspects that these pins were like very small tacks rather than common straight pins,
which could not readily be hammered into a resistant surface.
67. King and Ubelaker 1996; King 1996:3843.
68. Indeed, pins are often the only or at least most common artifacts found in historical-
period graves; this was the case at the eighteenth-century African Burying Ground
in Manhattan, although here the archaeologists also found evidence that some Afri-
can customs were maintained in the culture that enslaved people of African descent
constructed for themselves (Cantwell and Wall 2001:289, g. 16.6). The Spitalelds
study serves as something of a cautionary tale, however, against the uniform assump-
tion that grave goods signify non-Christian or ethnically exotic burials: That is a
fallacy and is clearly demonstrated at Christ Church where grave goods included
jewellery, pennies, and combs as well as a copper coin (to pay for the nal passage?),
a small wooden barrel [a cotton barrel?] containing two adult molars (not those of the
deceased), a holdfast, and a medicine bottle (Cox 1996:116117, quotation on 116). At
the seventeenth-century cemetery at St. Marys City only three graves had artifacts
other than pins in them; these included a small loop of copper alloy wire (possibly an
earring), fteen black glass beads from a palm rosary, and a perforated disk of lead or
pewter (Riordan 2000:5-155-17, g. 5.2). King 1996:3840, 4243.
69. Cons did not survive but their use was indicated by the presence on and around the
burial of iron nails and soil stained dark from rotted wood.
70. Riordan 2000:2-16; Litten 1992:76; Gittings 1984:112.
71. Riordans survey of the available data reveals that, in general, the majority of pins
found in colonial Chesapeake graves concentrate around the head area (Riordan
2000:5-13), and, indeed other seventeenth-century Chesapeake burials have pro-
 Notes to Pages 3841 187

duced good evidence for the use of face cloths and chin straps, for instance, the bury-
ing ground at the Clifts Plantation in Westmoreland County, Virginia (Neiman 1980:
132), and some of the interments around the perimeter of the c. 1667 Brick Chapel at
St. Marys City, Maryland, where the placement of the pins during the early period
suggested use of face cloths, a practice seemingly superseded in later burials by the
use of caps and chin straps (Riordan 2000:514, g. 5.1).
72. A group of burials thought to be shipwreck victims were buried in their clothes; in
that instance the archaeologists suggested that the reason the clothes were left in place
(along with a purse full of coins carried by one of the men) was that the bodies were
in an advanced state of decomposition at the time they were discovered (McCullagh
and McCormick 1991:87). Perhaps this is a feasible explanation in the Patuxent Point
case as well.
73. Riordans careful analysis of the frequency of pins in burials from the St. Marys City
cemetery revealed that pins were more common in infant burials than in those of
adults, adults averaging 3.5 pins per grave, infants 8.8 (2000:5-13). My discussion ear-
lier of the high numbers of pins used to swaddle infants, especially around the head
area, accords with these ndings.
74. Ubelaker, Jones, and Turowski 1996a:90. The man also had an anomaly on his seventh
cervical vertebra (Ubelaker, Jones, and Turowski 1996b:151) as well as Schmorls nodes
(Ubelaker, Jones, and Turowski 1996a:60). The anomaly seems to be a congenital de-
fect, while the nodes indicate abnormal body use, probably heavy lifting; neither con-
dition seems to have been caused by a life of tailoring: tailors tended to sit cross-legged
on a table and make use of their knees as blocking surfaces for shaping the shoulders,
etc., of garments. It is possible that this habitual posture would have produced some
sort of skeletal anomaly, but that does not seem to have happened here.
75. Jillian Galle interprets the large number of pins (n=347) found at a cabin associated
with an enslaved African-American seamstress at the Hermitage in Tennessee as an
indication that the residents of the Triplex Middle were engaged in the production
of the elaborate dress required by the Jacksonsi.e., high-style clothing embellished
with pleats, tucks, etc. (Galle 2004:51). Thus it is worth considering whether large
concentrations of common straight pins at a single locus might reect their use in
complex specialty work.
76. Deagan 2002:193 recommends screen mesh of less than an inch or smaller to ensure
recovery of small items like pins. Dierential recovery rates are highly problematic for
an archaeologist attempting to conduct any sort of detailed interpretation of the sub-
assemblage of pins from a site. Many Chesapeake archaeologists have been handed
down a legacy of stripping o plow zone deposits and eschewing the use of screens
altogether, and I suspect that the low rate of straight pin recovery at many sites (see
table 2.4) results from these practices. Egan and Forsyth 1997:224.
77. See Stone 1982 for a detailed study of the St. Johns site. Hurry 1980:13.
78. What table 2.4 does not reveal about the sample of pins from Jordans Journey is that
a high proportion of them are very thinthat is, made from exceedingly ne-gauge
wire. This observation (based on my own inspection of the pins) leads me to conclude
188 Notes to Pages 4249

that the majority of pins from site PG307 at Jordans Journey were used as dress pins
for fastening ne fabrics like those used for womens veils or mens rus.
79. Moore 2000; Moore and Reed 2000:68, 71.

3. t h e n e e d l e
1. Deagan 2002:195; Nol Hume 1969:255; Hurry 1980:2. I note that few archaeolo-
gists report nds of needles made of steel. Most seem to be made of copper alloy,
not all of them post-1500, perhaps because copper alloy preserves better than iron
(or steel). Murray and Murray recovered ve copper-alloy needles from thirteenth-
to fteenth-century Rattray in Aberdeenshire, Scotland (1993:192, g. 42, nos. 214
218), and Fox and Barton illustrate an iron needle from a fourteenth-century context
at Oyster Street in Portsmouth, England, as well as two of copper alloy from early-
and mid-eighteenth-century levels (1986:234, g. 150, nos. 6, 8, and 10); Outlaw illus-
trates a broken needle of iron found at seventeenth-century Governors Land near
Jamestown, Virginia (1990:148, g. A3.17, no. 202). Only two identiable needles were
recovered from the St. Johns site at St. Marys City, Maryland, one of iron in an un-
dated context and one of copper alloy from Phase I (16381665), both broken at the
base of the eye, as was the example from Governors Land (Hurry 1980:2).
2. Harpers Bazar 1874:137, referring to Lola Montezs dedication in her Book of Beauty.
3. Barber 1991:51; Wilson and Hurst 19623:308; Wilson and Hurst 1968:181; Thorn-
ton et al. 2002:1453; Crowfoot 1954:413; Forbes 1964:175; C. Milward n.d.:iii; Bar-
ber 1991:39.
4. Andere 1971:57, 58.
5. Groves 1966:17. For example, a seventeenth-century probate inventory from Essex
County, Massachusetts, lists pack needles among the goods of Edward Wharton, a fur
trader (Essex County, Massachusetts, Probate Court 1920:206207).
6. Carus-Wilson 19621963:199200.
7. Groves 1966:18.
8. Jones 1973:355; Elizabeth Barber (1991:176177) notes that skillful and elegant em-
broidery with some sort of needle appears in northern Europe on both incongruously
coarse and faulty cloth and netting by the beginning of the Scandinavian Bronze Age
(c. 1800 bc).
9. Forbes 1956:75.
10. Groves 1966:1921.
11. Jones 1973:354.
12. Proctor 1966:12; Groves 1966:2123; Proctor 1966:1213; Jones 1973:355. Henry Mil-
ward and Sons (n.d.:10) informed their customers that we cannot illustrate the tem-
per of a needle, but it is of paramount importance since it is in this quality that the
strength of the needle really lies.
13. Proctor 1966:12.
14. Groves 1966:2123; Jones 1973:355.
15. Jones 1973:355356.
16. Jones 1973:359360.
 Notes to Pages 5060 189

17. Jones 1973:358.

18. Bishop 1866:616.
19. Jones 1973:360361, 365; Rollins 1981; Proctor 1966:12; Rogers 1983:59; Ganey and
Robertson 1986.
20. For example, Good 1987:106107 reports on both iron and copper-alloy needles from
Narrow Quay, Bristol; Egan 1988:195 presents information on excavations at Mer-
chants Road, Galway, Ireland, where a bronze needle was found.
21. Rogers 1983:58; Groves 1966:25. The discussion of needle types is drawn largely from
Milward and Sons n.d.:26.
22. Chenille is a yarn with protruding bers like a caterpillars tufts, used for embroideries
and fringes and woven into luxurious carpets as well as for knitted or crocheted acces-
sories (Wilcox 1969:70). Milward and Sons n.d.:1.
23. Morrall 1865:44. Morrall produced two types of needles that fell between sharps and
betweens: short sharps, for coarser work . . . for Tailors, but is often used for house-
hold work; and ground downs, also for tailors, shorter than short sharps but longer
than betweens.
24. Groves 1966:2526; Proctor 1966:23.
25. Rogers 1983:59.
26. Whitechapel is a London district where high-quality needles were manufactured be-
ginning in the mid-eighteenth century (Morrall 1865:13). Rogers 1983:59.
27. Gimp is a term typically applied to a heavy thread or cord used for outlining or trim
(Gove 1965:958).
28. Essex County, Massachusetts, Probate Court 1920:206. Since the quantity of sewing
needles is not given in Whartons inventory, it is a bit tricky to calculate their unit cost,
but it would make sense that the larger pack needles were more expensive than the
sewing needles. It also seems logical to assume that because the items listed in Whar-
tons inventory are goods intended for sale, the values assigned are more likely to be
wholesale rather than retail prices. I infer that Wharton was involved in the fur trade
because goods listed as among his possessions in New England are Furrs, including
forty-nine raccoon skins, thirty-eight fox skins, two wolf skins, a cub bearskin, thirty-
one otter skins, four woodchuck skins, twenty-one martins and sables, seven mush-
quash [muskrat?], and about fty pounds of beaver pelts (207).
The site of Grand Portage, also known as the Great Carrying Place, lies at the east-
ern end of Lake Superior; it was a central node in trade networks long before the
British traders set up an establishment here in around 1768 (Woolworth 1982:111). In
1970 and 1971 Alan Woolworth conducted extensive excavations of the Great Hall
and the kitchen behind it, recovering thousands of artifacts related both to domestic
life at the depot and the trade conducted from there (Woolworth 1982:115); Gilman
1982:32.
29. See Gilman 1982:102 for an illustration of a mid-nineteenth-century matting needle
from a historic-period Native American site in the Great Lakes region; Jenkins 1965:
151.
30. MacDonald 1988; Crowfoot, Pritchard, and Staniland 2001:7275; Staniland 1997:
245248; stergrd 2004.
190 Notes to Pages 6066

31. stergrd 2004:111; Crowfoot, Pritchard, and Staniland 2001:75; Walton 1989:341
345; the sock is illustrated in the online exhibit Secrets beneath Your Feet on the
Web site of the York Archaeological Trust (York Archaeological Trust 2005).
32. Whiting 1971:9394; Ryan 1979:385386. I took the measurements for English stan-
dard gauge from an English knitting needle gauge in my collection.
33. Barber 191:122; Andere 1971:114. I note that collectors express little interest in knitting
needles, which on their own are not considered collectibles. Rather, knitting acces-
sories gure prominently in the collectors literature.
34. For a detailed online discussion of this issue, see Living History: Preserving the Past.
35. Sydney: Iacono 1999:62. West Oakland: Praetzellis and Praetzellis 2004:158162,
table 5.5. Mary Praetzellis kindly provided me with a copy of the database of sew-
ing items from the West Oakland sites, which lists diameters for some of the knitting
needles.
36. Andere 1971:118119; Yamin 2000:132134, g. 66; Galle 2004:4852, g. 2.5.
37. Lambert 1849:9; Barber 1991:121, n. 24; Andere 1971:121.
38. Ryan 1979:3132.
39. Niellon and Moussette 1985:g. 87, no. 12, 517, 418 (caption).
40. Galle 2004:50, g. 2.5. The San FranciscoOakland Bay Bridge West Approach Proj-
ect was conducted in 2001 and 2003 by the Anthropological Studies Center at Sonoma
State University for the California Department of Transportation; analysis is in
progress. Further information at http://www.sonoma.edu/asc/sfarchaeology/default
.shtml. I examined the sewing-related nds in January 2005.
41. Barber 1991:17, 40.
42. They were also made in horn, ivory, and tortoiseshell; Andere 1971:117.
43. In my search through the archaeological literature I have not seen any mention of
bone or wood netting implements from waterlogged or cessy sites where organic pres-
ervation is good, although I have seen illustratedand identied as netting needles
many eyed bone needles as well as double-pointed bone pins that I would be
tempted to identify as netting meshes or gauges were it not for the absence of netting
needles in the same contexts (see, e.g., Addyman 1964:61, g. 16, nos. 21, 22). Long
1975:30, 29 (ill.), g. 10d; Oswald 19623:130, 131, g. 51.31; Mills 2000:97, gs. 78a,
78b.
44. Dryden describes a woman wearing a large hat over a close-tting white cap (quoted in
Cunnington and Cunnington 1966:180). Proctor 1966:23; Websters Third New Inter-
national Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged 1965, s.v. bodkin, lists the
following primary denitions: 1 a, dagger, poiniard, stiletto; b, a small slender
instrument with a sharp point for making holes in cloth and leather and for picking
out bastings; c, an ornamental hairpin shaped like a stiletto; 2 a blunt needle with a
large eye for drawing tape or ribbon through a casing, beading, or hem. Next to de-
nition 1b is an illustration of an instrument identical to an awl. Groves 1966:25. A
further use of the term bodkin comes from the printers art: the compositors equip-
ment in printing, before mechanization, included a bodkin, tweezers, and composing
sticks for assembling lines of type (Singer et al. 1957:394). The compositors bodkin
was used to position type on the composing stick.
 Notes to Pages 6670 191

45. Sullivan 2004:7475. The French distinguish between two types of bodkin: poinon,
a punch, stiletto, or small dagger, and a passe-lacet, a bodkin for fastening clothing
with drawstrings, ribbons, cords, or laces (Andere 1971:6162).
46. Jenkins 1965:51, 233.
47. Dulley 1967:228, g. 65, no. 11. A number of medieval implements with earscoops at
one end (oorlepeltjes) from the Van Beuningende Vriese Collection in Rotterdam
have either very distinctive, small eyes for threading, looking very much like netting
needles, or none at all (Ter Molen 2000:22, g. 10), or are included in small toilet
kits that include a tongue scraper, toothpick, and so forth (see also Ruempol and von
Dongen 1991:144 for an illustration of a sixteenth-century copper-alloy example with
tongue scraper [tongsschrapper] and pp. 218, 219 for seventeenth-century bone ear
scoops with toothpicks [oorlepel en tandenstoker]). Some ear scoops, it seems, served
as toilet items or elements of cosmetic sets and not in any way as sewing aids; sev-
eral examples of combined ear scoops and toothpicks of metal, in at least six dierent
forms, were recovered from medieval sites in London (Egan and Pritchard 1991:379).
48. Groves 1966:25; Proctor 1966:23; Rogers 1983:62.
49. Jamestown bodkins: Beverly Straube, pers. comm. 1996; a bodkin from Jamestown is
illustrated at http://www.apva.org/ngex/c10bodk.html; Jordans Journey: Mouer and
McLearen 1991, 1992; Norwich: Margeson 1993:89, items 2123, pls. 2, 3. More than
one silver bodkin was found in a midden deposit at the site of a well-to-do household
at the seventeenth-century Colony of Avalon (http://www.heritage.nf.ca/avalon/arch/
mansion.html), one of these has an ear scoop at one end and is inscribed with the ini-
tials SK. No doubt this belonged to Lady Sara Kirke, who as a widow maintained
control of the protable shing plantation at Ferryland (Pope 2004:273274, pl. 12;
300303). A small silver bodkin, only two and a half inches long, was recovered in 2005
from a plow-zone context at the St. Johns site at St. Marys City, Maryland (Speci-
men no. ST1-23-456C/GM; Silas Hurry, pers. comm. 2005).
50. Judith Leyster (16091660) was probably a pupil of Frans Hals; she worked in Haar-
lem and Amsterdam. Joyful Company, also known as Carousing Couple, is owned by
the Louvre, Paris (see Web Gallery of Art: http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/l/
leyster/index.html). Sullivan 2004:74; Holme 1688; Horn 1972:109, g. 4; Sullivan
(2004:72) reproduces a painting by a follower of Ludoph de Jonge of a woman sewing
by candlelight (16501655) with a bodkin tucked under her cap serving temporarily
as a hair needle.
51. The bodkin is distinctively Dutch; its tip bears decoration resembling overlapping sh
scales, and it has a teardrop-shaped eye. Janowitz 2001, 2004, 2005; Ballard 1965; see
also Cantwell and Wall 2001:173175, 278279, 281. The Roelofs bodkin was found in
1964 at the Quarry Site in Munsville, New York. Other excavated seventeenth-century
Dutch bodkins include one found by Paul Huey at Dutch Fort Orange, plain but with
a hooked end, and a highly decorated example recovered by Joe Diamond at the Per-
sen House Site in Kingston, New York (Paul Huey to Meta Janowitz, 8 Sept. 2004).
52. Hornum et al. 2001:4951, 556, 567, g. 197. Archaeologists from Christopher Good-
win Associates mistakenly identied the bodkin as a sewing needle made of copper
alloy. I have not examined the SS bodkin myself, but when I saw color photographs
192 Notes to Pages 7074

of it I thought it might be made of silver. Howard Wellman, conservator for the Mary-
land Archaeological Conservation Laboratory (MAC Lab), kindly undertook a mi-
nute inspection of the object, which had been conserved by Goodwin Associates, on
my behalf. (The object has been treated and coated, rendering metallographic analy-
sis infeasible.) Wellman decided that it is probably made of copper alloy with silver or
tin plating, and he agreed with me that there may be some sort of registry mark on the
object but that wear, time, and previous conservation has made this mark illegible.
He explained to Sara Rivers Coeld, curator of Federal Collections at the MAC Lab,
that even sterling is a silver alloy containing between 10 and 12 percent copper; cop-
per would deteriorate more quickly in the ground than silver, so a silver bodkin might
be covered with a corrosion product that makes it look like a copper-alloy one until it
has been properly treated by a conservator (Sara Rivers Coeld, pers. comm. 2004).
53. Mill Pond Site: Balicki 1998; Seasholes 1998, 2003:75. Bodkin: Lewis 2001:33. I am
conducting further research on the inscribed bodkins from Maryland and Boston
as part of a project Ive titled Bodkin Biographies.
54. Essex County, Massachusetts, Probate Court 1916:70.
55. Andere 1971:19.
56. Egan and Pritchard 1991:384. Per Websters Third New International Dictionary of
the English Language Unabridged 1965, a chatelaine is an ornamental chain, pin,
or clasp usu. worn at a womans waist to which trinkets, keys, a purse, or other articles
are attached. The custom of suspending needlecases from the waist is traceable in
England to sixth-century Kent, where the grave of an Anglo-Saxon woman contained
a cylindrical copper-alloy needlecase in which two bronze needles and a small piece
of linen cloth were preserved; this can be taken as evidence that women were at
times buried wearing their chatelaines with needlecases and other items, such as toi-
let sets, suspended from them (Brown 1974:152153; see also Chadwick 1958:31, 35
36). Cases intended for suspension from a chatelaine or waist girdle always had some
sort of loop for attaching a chain or cord (Proctor 1966:54). For further discussion of
chatelaines, see White 2005:129130.
57. Rordin 1971:73, 79, g. 21b; Brown 1974:152.
58. Egan and Pritchard 1991:384. The similarity of the London example to earlier ones
from the Continent led to the speculation that perhaps it was older than the ll-
ing date for the pit. A lathe-turned bone needlecase and a rough-out were found in
thirteenth-century context at Hitzacker, Elbe, Germany (MacGregor 1985:59).
59. A fourteenth-century needlecase found on the Thames waterfront at Billingsgate had
fragments of linen cord preserved in its side slots; examples in the collections of the
Museum of London that retain their caps make it clear that both the case and the caps
had side slots so that the cord could be strung through both in order to hold the cap
and container together, permitting the cap to slide up and down without being sepa-
rated from its container (Egan and Pritchard 1991: 386). Essex County, Massachu-
setts, Quarterly Courts 1917:300301.
60. Compare Cumbaa 1986; Klippel and Schroedl 1999; Hinks 1995; White 2002. In Brit-
ain more attention has been given to the working of cattle horn cores (for a summary,
see Robertson 1989) than to manufacture of objects from long bone (but see Armi-
 Notes to Pages 7477 193

tage 1982; MacGregor 1985). Klippel and Schroedl 1999; Kelso 1982; MacMahon
and Deagan 1996:19; Klippel and Schroedl 1999:228229. Quantities of button backs
and blanks as well as debris at the site of New York Citys rst almshouse (c. 1730)
suggest that button making may have been one of the tasks required of Almshouse
residents (Cantwell and Wall 2001:276, g. 15.9).
61. See, e.g., Armitage 1982:98, 102104; Robertson 1989; West 1995:31. Armitage 1982:
104; Armitage does not, however, mention use of these bones for fashioning tubular
needlecases. The eighth-century site of Saxon Hamwih, in Southampton, England,
produced abundant evidence of bone working as a cottage industry: bone objects,
including combs, pins and knife-handles, were found in every state of manufacture
and there was much waste material (Wilson and Hurst 1970:157). Another site of the
Anglo-Saxon period in Southampton produced similar evidence of a limited bone in-
dustry producing awls and combs (Webster and Cherry 1975:222).
62. MacGregor 1985:4454, 59; MacGregor illustrates a fteenth-century rosary bead
maker using a bow-driven lathe or drill (1985:g. 35). Some of the later lathes incor-
porated steel leaf springs instead of simple poles.
63. See MacGregor 1985:203205 for discussion and illustration of bone hinges; these
are mostly from Roman sites. One example from Verulanium that he illustrates has
screw threads at either end, in this regard closely resembling some of the needlecases
from the Chesapeake, but the tube also has holes drilled in it to receive wooden pegs
or inserts (MacGregor 1985:204, g. 110a). Holdsworth 1976:45; the middle Saxon
occupation levels in the Six Dials area of Southampton produced a large amount of
bone- and antler-working debris across the whole site (Youngs and Clark 1982:184).
Holdsworth 1976:45, 47.
64. Lauwerier and van Heeringen 1995:71, 7480, 8188.
65. Radley 1971:5152, 5556; Rordin 1971:75.
66. Neillion and Moussette 1985:g. 86, no. 5, 516; the caption (418) reads etuis aiguilles
(?) en os (151QU-IIIH2-793 et 151QU-6S2-795), indicating perhaps some doubt that
these pieces are from a needlecase, but I do not question the accuracy of this identi-
cation. Moorhouse 1971:59, g. 25, nos. 182184, 61; Goldstein 2002:18.
67. Gadd and Dyson 1981:75; West 1995:33. A remarkable use of animal bone turned
up at a postmedieval site in Bermondsey, England. At the 8 Tyers Gate property, a
timber oor had been replaced in the eighteenth century by a knuckle bone oor
made by shoving broken shafts of sheep metapodials into the ground, leaving the dis-
tal ends above grade to serve as the surface of the oor. It appears that the practice
of constructing knuckle bone oors was not uncommon in southern and southeast
England in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries (see Divers, Killock,
and Armitage 2002:7173), but I am unaware of any knuckle bone oors at early colo-
nial sites in North America.
68. MacGregor 1985:193; he further mentions a fragmentary cotton barrel (thread box)
of late-eighteenth- or nineteenth-century date from excavations in Plymouth, En-
gland, which he illustrates along with a bone needlecase from Birka, Sweden, and
a bone pincushion mount from Appleton Roebuck, England (MacGregor 1985:193,
186, g. 101, nos. 27, 23, 28).
194 Notes to Pages 7790

69. Andere 1971:65, 66.

70. Pogue 1981:71, g. 23; David B. Landon, pers. comm. 2001.
71. Thompson, Grew, and Schoeld 1984:120, 127, g. 63, nos. 113, 114.
72. See, e.g., Swan 1995:213; Groves 1966:23, 24; Proctor 1966:64, 68, 71.
73. Andere 1971:117118.
74. Murray and Murray 1993:109, 192, 193, g. 42, nos. 214218.
75. Fox and Barton 1986:31, 230, 234, 235, g. 150, nos. 6, 8, 10.
76. Lapointe 1998:41.
77. Essex County, Massachusetts, Quarterly Courts 1914:239242.
78. Essex County, Massachusetts, Quarterly Courts 1917:70.
79. Ulrich 1982:6263.
80. Ulrich 1982:64. I do not assume from the fact that the bodkin was inscribed with
Hunts name or initials that Hunt was fully literate; she may merely have been able
to sign or recognize her own name. Nevertheless, monograms, small armations of
literacy asserting ownership at a time when literacy was rare, as Peter Pope notes, pro-
claimed I am literate, and, therefore, in the context of the time and place, I have
power (Pope 2004:272273).
81. St. George 1998; Ulrich 2001:418.

4. t h e u b i q u i t o u s a n d o c c a s i o n a l l y
ordinary thimble
1. Essex County, Massachusetts, Quarterly Courts 1913: 280 (emphasis added), case of
Grace Stout, 279283.
2. Lutestring refers to a plain glossy silk also known as lustring.
3. She received money for work or for work . . . and for a pair of gloves, and for knit-
ting stockings. Essex County, Massachusetts, Quarterly Courts 1913:280.
4. Rogers 1983:80. Shipwreck sites are the main exceptionthimbles from wrecks are
usually identied as being from a specic vessel such as the Margarita or the Bert-
rand though details on the context of the nd within the wrecks are not given (cf.
Zalkin 1988:39, 82). See, e.g., Holmes 1976, 1985; Von Hoelle 1986:2324; Holmes
1985:1718.
5. Nol Hume 1969:255257; Hill 1995.
6. Shaer 1973:236; Von Hoelle 1986:25, referring to Cuming 1879 (Von Hoelle repro-
duces Cumings paper on pp. 305309). As noted above, Edwin Holmes, who has
also published extensively on thimbles, nds much of the archaeological evidence ad-
duced by Von Hoelle dubious, or, at the very least, not conclusive (Holmes 1976:1).
Although Von Hoelle fails to cite sources, his line of reasoning as to the origins of
thimbles seems reasonable from this archaeologists vantage point, and I have sought
out original sources insofar as possible. I nevertheless realize that interpretations are
open to revision as new evidence accumulates. See Von Hoelle 1986:305.
7. See, e.g., Janet Spectors What This Awl Means (1993), esp. 3039.
8. Von Hoelle 1986:17; Greif 1984:9.
 Notes to Pages 9096 195

9. Barber 1991:xxi; Bahn 2001; Kehoe 1990, 1991; Soer, Adovasio, and Hyland 2000a,
2000b; Barber 1991:39.
10. Barber 1991:15; Von Hoelle 1986:19. No term denoting a thimble is known from an-
cient times despite survival of variants of terms denoting needles (Von Hoelle 1986:21;
Barber 1991:263n); Von Hoelle 1986:19; the El Lisht nd is published in Hayes 1953:
411412.
11. Von Hoelle 1986:19. Since here I am interested in the development of thimbles I
have deliberately omitted discussion of the complexity of the crafts of weaving, em-
broidery, etc., during these eras; for a more detailed perspective please consult Barber
1991, especially pp. 283382.
12. Von Hoelle 1986:21.
13. Von Hoelle 1986:23.
14. Holmes 1985:19; Davidson 1952:178; Von Hoelle 1986:25. The Naqada thimbles are
in the Petrie Collection at University College Museum at the University of Man-
chester.
15. Von Hoelle 1986:27.
16. Zalkin 1988:34. It should be noted that Zalkins rather arbitrary pronouncement is
contradicted by the fact that she illustrates examples of the Iles patented ventilated
thimble on pp. 108109 of her book. But her point is that most holes that one sees on
old thimbles were caused by needles and hard use.
17. Von Hoelle 1986:29.
18. Von Hoelle 1986:29.
19. Von Hoelle 1986:33; Holmes 1985:24, 25.
20. Von Hoelle 1986:33.
21. Note that most contemporary collectors have called the latten examples brass thim-
bles; in this book I use the nonspecic term copper alloy to characterize the compo-
sition of copper-based metal thimbles found in archaeological contexts; Von Hoelle
1986:33.
22. Von Hoelle 1986:35; dap: to produce cup-shaped forms (in sheet metal) by use of spe-
cial dies and punches (Websters Third New International Dictionary of the English
Language Unabridged 1965).
23. Holmes 1985:25; Von Hoelle 1986:3536.
24. Holmes 1986:3.
25. Von Hoelle 1986:37.
26. Von Hoelle 1986:41.
27. Von Hoelle 1986:82; for a detailed account of the Vingerhoeds, see Greif 1984:4247.
28. Holmes 1985:37; Holmes notes that the earliest variant of the English word for thim-
ble, themel, appears in a source dating to the year 1412 and refers specically to a
[th]emel of lea[th]er. Holmes 1987:4; Holmes 1985:39; Von Hoelle 1986:87.
29. Holmes 1986:2.
30. Pinchbeck is an alloy of ve parts copper and one part zinc, invented by Christopher
Pinchbeck (16701732); the gold-colored metal was often substituted for gold (Von
Hoelle 1986:147); Von Hoelle 1986:87, 135.
196 Notes to Pages 96108

31. Holmes 1985:53; Von Hoelle 1986:87.

32. Holmes 1987:4; Von Hoelle 1986:47; Holmes 1985:55.
33. Holmes 1985:55.
34. King and Miller 1987.
35. Grief 1984:47 illustrates a seventeenth-century Dutch thimble of unspecied metal
(probably silver) bearing the motif of running dogs on its narrow band. Hill 1995:87
88, g. 4; Hurry 1980.
36. Holmes discusses the advertisements found in colonial newspapers at some length
(1985:5657); for a complete treatment of the Richardsons of Philadelphia, see Fales
1974.
37. Von Hoelle 1986:4748.
38. Holmes 1985:41.
39. Holmes 1985:50; Von Hoelle 1986:120.
40. Von Hoelle 1986:255.
41. Holmes 1985:21, quotation on 22; Andere 1971:101102; Groves 1966; Holmes 1976:
122134; Proctor 1966. The link between sewing, especially embroidery, femininity,
and gender can be seen to work not just for women but also to be the source of the
creation of a stereotype of eeminacy for tailors, men who sewed for a living.
42. Sources to consult on silver thimbles and marks on silver thimbles include Holmes
1976:4447, 5779; Rogers 1989; Zalkin 1988:248251 illustrates marks for base
metal and other thimbles. Hill 1995:85.
43. This was the phrase a craftsman used to describe his work when he demonstrated
thimble spinning at the Abbeydale Museum in Sheeld, England, when I visited
there in 1995.
44. Holmes 1985:22.
45. Holmes 1985:21, 22.
46. Holmes 1985:40; Holmes 1987:9; Hill 1995:8788.
47. Anon. 2000:8, 10; Holmes 1985:51, 190191.
48. Silver keeps cleaner than copper alloy, which readily gets dirty, or iron, which rusts; sil-
ver is also kinder to the nger (Holmes 1985:106). A pennyweight is equal to twenty-
four grains; fty-ve pennyweights are roughly equivalent to 85.525 grams, 0.300711
avoirdupois ounces, or 0.274095 troy ounces. Holmes 1985:106110.
49. Proctor 1966:71; Holmes 1985:39.
50. Zalkin 1988:19; Proctor 1966:71; see also Deagan 2002:205206.
51. Rogers 1983:85; Proctor 1966:15.
52. Beaudry 1998:30, g. 8; Yamin 2000:132, g. 66; Iacono 1999:6162, 93, g. 5.12.
53. Holmes 1985:59.
54. Holmes 1985:61. A number of advertising thimbles were found at the Cumberland/
Gloucester Streets site at the Rocks in Sydney, further evidence of the pervasive na-
ture of mass-produced consumer goods intended to promote contemporary social
constructs (Iacono 1999:62; Lydon 1993:132133).
55. Zalkin 1988:20.
56. Holmes 1985:62.
57. Holmes 1985:61.
 Notes to Pages 109116 197

58. Holmes 1985:54; Hill 1995:8687, 89; see also Deagan 2002:201205.
59. Zalkin 1988:248251; I have not gone into detail on these here because archaeolo-
gists nd relatively few marked thimbles. Holmes 1985:4546 provides an illustration
and a chart of hallmarked silver thimbles; Rogers 1989 provides discussion through-
out of marks on American silver thimbles.
60. Holmes 1985:207. Also called galuchat, shagreen was a material tanned from sh skin
and usually dyed green (Holmes 1985:207). Clearly shagreen is unlikely to survive in
archaeological sites, though there are several interesting specimens with Essex County
family provenances in the collections of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mas-
sachusetts. Derived from the hardened albumen of the seed of a South American
tree (Phytelephas macrocarpa), which is called the corozo or ivory nut, vegetable
ivory, because it is light cream to brown in color, resembles bone, horn, or real ivory
but is rather oily to the touch and has a vegetable appearance when left unpolished.
Small items made of vegetable ivory were very much in vogue between c. 18401880
(Holmes 1985:129). Coquilla is the hardened albumen of a Brazilian palm tree known
as the Piassaba (Attalea nifera); it is very hard and dark in color (Holmes 1985:129).
Holmes 1985:207215. See also Andere 1971:101102.
61. Fiske Center 2003; Herbster 2005; Garman and Herbster 1996; Sulzman 2003; Cog-
ley 1999; Bragdon 1988.
62. Thomas 1991:18.
63. Parker 1984.
64. Thomas 1991:84.

5. s h e a r s a n d s c i s s o r s
1. Grew 1987:viii. Most archaeologists tendency not to dierentiate among types of scis-
sors became apparent to me when I was conducting research on excavated material,
as curators of archaeological collections cheerfully brought out all manner of scissors
when I requested access to sewing implements. Thus it occurred to me that in the
present chapter it would be useful for me to discuss scissors of all types rather than
limit coverage to sewing scissors.
2. Cowgill, Neergaard, and Griths 1987:106, 114. The J. Wiss and Sons Company of
Newark, New Jersey, commemorative history (published in 1948 for the companys
one-hundredth anniversary) includes a Prefatory Note explaining that the deriva-
tions of the terms shears and scissors are quite dierent. Shears originated from the
Teutonic root sker, which changed from skeresa and then to skaerizo before entering
Old English as the word scear. The word scissors derives from the Latin word cisoria,
meaning a cutting instrument, and the spelling results from a confusion between this
term and the Latin word scissor, from the verb scindere, to cut. The term took on
variant forms in Old and Modern French as well as in late Middle English. Bow is
the term I have chosen to use for the nger holes of scissors. See, e.g., Himsworth
1953:154; Nol Hume 1970:267; quotation from Neergaard 1987:56.
3. Himsworth 1953:151; Elizabeth Barber notes that the Akkadian language has terms for
both plucking and shearing, indicating that both methods of eece collection, pluck-
198 Notes to Pages 117120

ing and cutting, were already known in the Bronze Age (Barber 1991:29); Neergaard
1987:58; Wiss and Sons 1948:n.p.
4. Forbes 1956:100; Neergaard 1987:58; Barber 1991:21, 2829. I have seen shears of
traditional appearance in use in the Scottish Outer Hebrides, for example, where
crofters continue to shear their sheep manually because they believe that electronic
shears can harm the animals. It is not a matter of being backwards about technology;
mobile phones, when they became available, were quickly put into use to enlist neigh-
bors in the identication of sheep that had strayed too far away for their markings to be
recognized through binocularssparing the crofter the occasional unnecessary walk
of many miles in pursuit of the wrong sheep. Finds of shears at Irish rath sites from
around the twelfth century provide satisfactory archaeological evidence for the rear-
ing of sheep for their wool in Ireland by this time (Proudfoot 1961:110).
5. Grew 1987:ix, table 1.
6. Wiss and Sons 1948:n.p.
7. One archaeological source uses the phrase cranked handles to describe a pair of
iron scissors with one bow larger than the other, without oering an explanation for
this possibly vernacular term (Hayeld 1988:54, 55, g. 17, no. 48). These scissors are
about 5.96.3 inches long and were found in a courtyard farm in the East Riding of
Yorkshire, England, that was abandoned in the late seventeenth century.
8. See, e.g., Himsworth 1953:152; Carus-Wilson 1957:104 .
9. A pair of shears and a bone weaving-tool were found in a seventh-century womans
grave at Finglesham, Kent (Wilson 1960:135); another pair of iron shears was included
in the grave goods interred with an Anglo-Saxon woman at Sarre cemetery, Thanet,
Kent, along with an iron weaving sword, jewelry, and amulets (Chadwick 1958:31).
Iron weaving swords are exceedingly rare and probably were not fully functional weav-
ing beaters (beaters or battens were usually made of wood) but instead served as sym-
bols of the rank and social status of the owners (Chadwick 1958:35). A pair of iron
shears and a glass bowl had been carefully placed at the feet of a Saxon woman in-
terred in a cemetery at Thurrock, in Mucking, England; she had gone to her grave
wearing several brooches, a string of ninety-one beads, and a silver nger-ring (Wil-
son and Hurst 1968:157). Similar iron shears were found in a hut (grubenhauser) in
the nearby Saxon village (Wilson and Hurst 1967:264). Himsworth 1953:152.
10. Himsworth 1953:151; Neergaard 1987:60, quotation on 61.
11. Andere 1971:105; Smithurst 1987:3.
12. Smithhurst 1987:3, 5; Hey 1972:8, 1314; see also Symonds 2002; Himsworth 1953:
4749, 57, 59; see also Crossley et al. 1989. The increasing number of settlers in the
New World were already providing a protable market by the late seventeenth cen-
tury, and the Atterclie group had Thomas Fell [a sales agent] resident in Jamaica
from 1699 onwards (Hey 1972:51). By 1810 up to half of the cutlery being produced
in Sheeld was exported, the vast majority of it to the United States (Hey 1972:52).
13. Himsworth 1953:189.
14. Himsworth 1953:189, 190. A rather bizarre, undated, and unpaginated trade publica-
tion, The Clauss Primer: Mother Goose Up-to-Date, in the Rare Book Collection of
the Henry Francis Dupont Winterthur Museum, seems geared to childrenhowever
 Notes to Pages 120124 199

inappropriatelybecause it presents the glories of Clauss knives, shears, and razors

in a cartoon format complete with short jingles, some paraphrasing Mother Goose
rhymes (no prices or model numbers are provided). The rhyming (and the reason-
ing!) are at times a bit jarring, as in Needles and pins, / Needles and pins, / When a
man marries / his trouble begins / Needles and pins / and a pair of / Clauss shears /
All of his trouble/at once disappears.
15. Wiss and Sons 1948:n.p. Indeed, J. Wiss and Sons claims to have taken out the rst
national advertisement for scissors and shears, which appeared in the Ladies Home
Journal in 1906.
16. Wiss and Sons 1948:n.p.; Cowgill 1987:11.
17. Himsworth 1953:92; by the late eighteenth century, however, many smiths rented
space in large tenement workshops or factories that began to appear in Sheeld
(Smithhurst 1987:13).
18. Unwin 2002:106112.
19. Smithurst 1987:56; Unwin 2002; see Cowgill 1987:10, g. 5, for an illustration of
methods of combining iron and steel in edged tools. Most scissorsmiths marked their
products; the list of London marks does not survive, but those of the Sheeld scissor-
smiths have been archived on a computer database at the Hawley Collection, Ar-
chaeological Research School, University of Sheeld.
20. Unwin 2002.
21. Cowgill 1987:11.
22. Unwin 2002; Cowgill 1987:11.
23. Himsworth 1953:92, 154; Wiss and Sons 1948:n.p.
24. If not criminal, then violent: some scissors made in Sheeld in the nineteenth cen-
tury for what was then known as the Persian market were designed quite deliberately
to do double duty as daggers (Himsworth 1953:152, 153 [ill.]).
25. Lapointe 1998:33.
26. Moore 2000; Reed and Moore 2000:66, 65, g. 46, no. 183. They also recovered sev-
eral fragments from two types of scissors of a similar size dating roughly between
1550 and 1750 (Reed and Moore 2000:66, 65, g. 46, nos. 179181); these closely re-
sembled the domestic scissors found at Ardingly fulling mill (Bedwin 1976:61, g.
92, nos. 810; see note 32, below).
27. Neergaard 1987:58.
28. Neergaard 1987:58, 59; Ponsford and Jackson 1995:149. A handsome pair of iron
shears with silver inlay, about eight inches long, was found in layers dating c. 1200
1230 at the site of Weoley Castle, Birmingham (Oswald 19623:129, 131, g. 51.4),
while another interesting pair of iron shears with an inlaid bronze strip was recovered
from a well lled during the sixteenth century in Trondheim, Norway (Long 1975:28,
g. 10v 29).
29. Neergaard 1987:5859; quotation from Bedwin 1976:46; Carus-Wilson 1957:106.
The larger shears took two hands to operate, however (Carus-Wilson 1957:106).
30. Carus-Wilson 1957:107. Archaeologist Owen Bedwin speculates that fragments of
three nearly identical pairs of scissors (Bedwin 1976:60, 61, g. 9a, nos. 810) found
in strata associated with the abandonment of the eighteenth-century fulling mill at
200 Notes to Pages 124138

Ardingly in The Weald of southern England may have been used in fulling: if teaz-
ling was carried out on this site, it could perhaps explain the number of scissor frag-
ments found (Bedwin 1976:50). This seems to imply that by the eighteenth century
scissors, rather than shears, might have been used for trimming nap after cloth was
felted and teazled, but great shears were still in use at mills such as Haggarts Mill
in Aberfeldy in the 1930s, and as we have seen, it is precisely at the fulling mills that
we should expect to nd large shears (Carus-Wilson 1957:106). Bedwin notes that the
people who ran the forge that preceded the fulling mill on the same site may have col-
lected all sorts of iron scrap to melt down for re-use and that some of the scrap iron
may have gotten mixed into the later strata. The relatively small scissors from Ardingly
seem more likely to have been designed either for general domestic use or for cutting
cloth than for trimming wool that had been fulled and teazled.
31. Drewett 1976:26, 27, g. 13, no. 9; Outlaw 1990:127, g. A3.7, no. 80.
32. Bolingbroke: Drewett 1976:26, 27, g. 13, no. 8; Aldgate: Thompson, Grew, and Scho-
eld 1984:98, 99, g. 50, no. 29; the bows of the scissors found at Aldgate had been
made separately from a thin strip and forged onto the shanks, which were decorated
with a small baluster. Porstmouth: Fox and Barton 1986:231, 232, g. 145 nos. 7, 12.
Number 12 has a small baluster knop at the junction of the shank and the blade,
whereas no. 7 has a plain shank.
33. Anon. 1829:13; Andere 1971:110112; the folding knives were also used to trim writing
quills and hence have become known as penknives.
34. Andere 1971:103.
35. Andere 1971:110.
36. Himsworth 1953:157, g. 59, top right.
37. Wiss and Sons 1948:n.p.; Andere 1971: 104.
38. Arminjon and Blondel 1984:242, 243, gs. 1203, 1204.
39. Arminjon and Blondel 1984:242, 243, gs. 12051207.
40. Hornum et al. 2001:543, 545, g. 187. One blade fragment from the site is so large
that it may well be from a pair of shears, but all that remains is the tip of the blade so
it is dicult to extrapolate from the tip to the entire object.
41. Hurry 1980:34. A well at the Rocks in Sydney produced a complete pair of tailors
scissors that, along with other sewing materials, led the investigators to infer the pres-
ence of a tailor and/or seamstress (Iacono 2001:62). The scissors are not illustrated
so it is impossible to know the criteria upon which the identication was made, but
there are historical references to both men and women doing sewing, darning, and
patching, as well as to male tailors, in the Rocks (Karskens 2001:110).

6. f i n d i n g s
1. Womans Institute 1936:Findings 1. This book restarts pagination with each chapter
so I have included chapter titles to avoid confusion.
2. Barber 1991:3. For further information on textiles and textile production, see such
general works as Wilson 1979. Publications on New England textiles include Parslow
1949, Bogdono 1975, Benes 1999, 2001, and many others. A good starting place for
 Notes to Pages 138151 201

understanding industrialization of the American textile industry is Wilson 1979:251

285 (see also Sheridan 1987), although beyond this there is a vast literature on the
topic with sources too numerous to list here.
3. Baines 1977:40; Ryder 1968; Lemon 1968; Barber 1991:5168, 299310, and app. A;
Pritchard 1984:63. See MacGregor 1985:185187 for a discussion of spindles and
whorls made of bone and antler.
4. Baines 1977:4258, 69, 82; Wilson 1979:241; Lemon 1968:89.
5. See, e.g., Higham 1989.
6. Baines 1977:3133; Lemon 1963; Gudjnsson 1979:207208.
7. Baines 1977:69.
8. Baines 1977:16.
9. Broudy 1979:2325.
10. Pritchard 1984:66; see also Holdsworth 1976:47; MacGregor 188189, gs. 101, 102.
11. Pritchard 1984:6466.
12. Broudy 1979:102, 130; Wilson 1979:241; Homan 1964:258261; Pritchard 1984:66.
The exact dates for the introduction of these new loom types is a matter of consider-
able debate and conjecture.
13. Palmer and Neaverson (2003), e.g., discuss nineteenth-century purpose-built weavers
housing in Wiltshire and Gloucester, England. See also Palmer and Neaverson 2005.
Goodchild 1982:251252, 257, 260261. Goodchild illustrates handloom weavers cot-
tages built for Thomas Taylor and Sons in Barnsley in the early nineteenth century
(gs. 3, 4).
14. Ashurst 1979:230231, 234.
15. Ashurst 1979:234, 235, g. 5, no. 2; Brears and Magson 1979:236237.
16. Kuhn 1995:77; Brears and Magson 1979:236.
17. Ashurst 1979:234, 235, g. 5, no. 3.
18. Brears and Magson 1979:237.
19. Essex County, Massachusetts, Probate Court 1920:306. Kersey, named after the vil-
lage in Suolk, England, where it was rst woven in medieval times, refers to a coarse
ribbed woolen cloth for hose and work clothes or to a heavy wool or wool and cot-
ton fabric made in plain or twill weave with a smooth surface and used in uniforms
and coats (Websters Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Un-
abridged 1965, s.v. kersey). Manselds inventory does not list cotton yarn or thread,
so his kersey was probably of the coarse woolen sort. The pare of temples refers to
devices used in looms for keeping the web stretched transversely (ibid., s.v. temple).
20. Baines 1977:15.
21. Larkin 1988:26; see also Ulrich 2001. Abbott Farm: Clements 1999:64, 4647, 117
120. A document from 1811 made it clear that the chaise house adjoined the loom
room (Clements 1999:117).
22. The section epigraph contains lines from a lace tell chanted by children in an En-
glish lace school to help relieve monotony and to establish a rhythm and count the
stitches as they made the lace, quoted in Spenceley 1976:167. For a history of lace
(the product), see Levey 1983; see also Morris 1926. Richard Candee has traced the
transfer in the early nineteenth century of both the machine knitting industry and
202 Notes to Pages 152159

the machine-made lace industry from Nottinghamshire, in England, to New England

(Candee 1998, 1999, 2000).
23. Spenceley 1976:155.
24. Kennett 1974:111; Guignet 1979:96, 98, 111; Horn 1972:100. Pillow lacemaking was
established in Bedfordshire by the late sixteenth century (Kennett 1974:111), although
the founding of the industry by Flemish migrs, especially in Devon, is not supported
with any direct evidence (Yallop 1983:199). Yallop posits that Honiton lace was of the
sort usually designated Point dAngleterre, going on to say that the origins of Honiton
lace are ercely debated and that the issue probably can never be resolved without
bre identication techniques developed for forensic science (Yallop 1983:201).
25. Yallop 1983:209.
26. Joseph Dana to George Cabot, 24 Jan. 1791, Manuscripts Department, Papers of Alex-
ander Hamilton, Library of Congress, Washington, DC. This document is discussed
in detail by Marta Cotterell Rael in her work on the lace-makers of Ipswich (Cot-
terell 1999; see also Cotterell 1997, Rael 2003). Tryon 1917:133.
27. Horn 1972:100, 101102; Guignet 1979:96; for a detailed study of the Nottingham
Lace Market and the operations of the lace warehouses in Nottingham, see Oldeld
1984. Puerto Rico: Santiago de Curet and Kingsley 1994:9495.
28. Horn 1972:104.
29. Horn 1972:104; Rael 2003:4347.
30. Huetson 1973:84; Cotterell 1999:85, 8889.
31. Horn 1972:105, quoting a Northamptonshire surgeon; see also Spenceley 1976:161.
32. Huetson 1973:93.
33. Huetson 1973:93, 95; Vanderpoel 1924:3.
34. Cotterell 1999:88-89.
35. Horn 1972:101, g. 1.
36. Quoted in Horn 1972:106.
37. Even in the home context, neighboring lace-makers tended to gather to socialize
while working (Horn 1972:107). Lamps: Huetson 1973:86, 4849, 87 (ill., bottom);
engravers and watchmakers also sometimes employed such lamps. Dicky pots: Horn
1972:106.
38. Horn 1972:107, 108. Horn cites comments oered in testimony to the Parliament-
appointed Childrens Employment Commission about why parents forced their chil-
dren to begin work at such an early age with lace-buyers like Thomas Gilbert of High
Wycombe, who in 1862 bought lace from three thousand makers in South Bucking-
hamshire and the Thame area of Oxfordshire. Horns g. 4 presents a well-to-do, re-
ned Dutchwoman wearing jeweled earrings, a jacket trimmed in fur, and what ap-
pears to be a silver bodkin in her hair while she daintily works at her lace-makinga
world apart from the situation of the lace-makers she discusses in her article!
39. Buck 1966; Kennett 1974:111; see also Ballard 19921993:43; Kennett 1974:112.
40. Galle 2004:49, 52, g. 2.5. Galle reports that fourteen beads were found at Triplex
Middle but classies all of these as items of personal adornment (Galle 2004:56, table
2.3).
41. Bobbins: Hopewell 1984. New York: Griggs 2000, 2001:296, g. 86; Yamin 2005:11.
 Notes to Pages 159167 203

Sydney: Iacono 1999:6263, 93, gs. 5.12, 5.13; Karskens 1999:111, g. 2.4. Karskens
mentions that at one home site the archaeologists found many older style lace-
making pins with heads located in the center of the pins shafts (1999:110111;
g. 2.4 illustrates one of these pins), but I have not come across information link-
ing such pins specically to lace-making. Spencer-Peirce-Little: Beaudry 1998:30;
Nelson 1995:16.
42. Independent scholar Rachel Maines found that advertising in nineteenth- and early-
twentieth-century womens needlework magazines for aids that every woman appre-
ciates regularly oered women access to socially camouaged technology, juxta-
posing ads for vibrators with those for sewing accessories and home appliances (Maines
1998).
43. Andere 1991:127; Yamin 2005:11.
44. Rogers 1983:127129, 159; Britt 1998:3738; Praetzellis and Praetzellis 2004:159160,
table 5.5. South of Market: Sonoma State University, Anthropological Studies Center,
2006, Archaeology of a San Francisco Neighborhood, http://www.sonoma.edu/asc/
sfarchaeology/default.shtml. A surviving set of nineteenth-century hand-carved bone
sewing implements corresponding to the fragmentary examples from San Francisco
contains a sewing clamp with screw threaded domed nial screw . . . thread holder
with a lid with a hold in the centre . . . thimble holder . . . [and] needle case with
threaded crowned lid (Fiona Kenny Antiques, http://www.trocadero.com/stores/
merday/items/260761/item260761.html).
45. Rogers 1983:174.
46. Rogers 1983:175188.
47. Rogers 1983:182188, quotation on 183.
48. Rogers 1983:186; Striker and Sprague 1993:6, g. 2b; Roderick Sprague, pers. comm.
2002. An unusual nd at this site was the copper-alloy portion of a sailors palm, used
in sewing heavy canvas; though found far from the sea in the Warren mining district of
Idaho, it bears the distinctly nautical motif of an anchor (Striker and Sprague 1993:6,
g. 2c).
49. Swan 1995:225.
50. Sullivan 2004:76; Taunton 1997:8788, pls. 9092; Rogers 1983:207. My description
of low-end stilettos is based on inspection of items I have acquired for my personal
collection from second-hand stores.
51. Galle 2004:5051, 52, g. 2.5; Griggs 2000:295, 296, g. 8.6; Yamin 2005:11. Despite
plans to do so, I was unable to inspect the sewing tools from Five Points before they
were destroyed in the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers on 11 Sept. 2001.
52. Simon 1984; Brears 19811982; Blakey 1994.
53. Lambert 1851:93; Rogers 1983:218219, pl. 186.
54. Rogers 1983:201; Sullivan 2004:178; Galle 2004:49, 51, g. 2.4; Yamin 2000:135;
Griggs 2000:296, g. 86.
55. Sullivan 2004:184.
56. Womans Institute 1936:Findings 13.
57. A Lady [1838] 1986:4; Womans Institute 1936:Mending 23; Rogers 1983:223225.
58. Rogers 1983:225; Praetzellis and Praetzellis 2004:159160, table 5.5, quotation on 158.
204 Notes to Pages 167174

A handle from a glass darning egg was found in a privy deposit at New Yorks Five
Points that also contained an abundance of material scraps from garment production
and repair as well as many other sewing tools (Griggs 2000:294). South of Market: see
Sonoma State University, Anthropological Studies Center, Archaeology of a San Fran-
cisco Neighborhood, http://www.sonoma.edu/asc/sfarchaeology/default.shtml. Ferry
Farm: see George Washingtons Fredericksburg Foundation, Dig Diary, http://www
.kenmore.org/foundation/dig diary/dig diary 08 15.html; the text alongside the il-
lustration of the nest egg states that glass eggs were rst manufactured in 1883 by
the Canton Glass Company of Canton, Ohio, but does not cite a source for this in-
formation.
59. Womans Institute 1936:Findings 9.
60. McCullagh and McCormick 1991:73, 85; Falconer 1991:86. The age estimate is based
on the dates on the seventeen coins that were found with one of the skeletons (Holmes
1991:8183).

7. s t i t c h i n g t o g e t h e r t h e e v i d e n c e
1. Most books written by and for collectors focus on tted needlework boxes (e.g., Rogers
1983:1943). Workbaskets shown in artistic depictions of women and of the Virgin
Mary: Schipper-Van Lottum 1979. Church monuments: Maule 1999:69, ill. on 71;
Wilson 2003:69. It should be noted, however, that to some the workbasket held nega-
tive connotations. Karl Marx associated home sewing in the domestic context with
the poverty and insecurity of his own home life: the rags and tatters of his wifes sew-
ing basket lying alongside his manuscripts and books, amongst an ill assorted jumble
which included their childrens toys and broken crockery (McLellan 1981:35 quoted
in Burman 1999:11).
2. Corbin 2000:2930, 44, table 4.3, 51.
3. Campbell 1999:129130, quotation on 137; Arnold 1999:223224, quotation on 224.
4. Burman 1999:2.
5. Casella 2001:112115; De Cunzo 2004:251254. In my research at the Philips Library
of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, I read a number of journals
written by young women who worked as seamstresses in New England in the nine-
teenth century; they were expected to take up residence in the home of a client while
working on clothing for the family. More than one commented on how much more
pleasant it was to be able to do work at home. One is given to wonder if, in the years
following Emancipation, residency was also expected of African-American women or
if they had no choice but to work at home because, unlike young white women, they
were not accepted into the households for which they worked.
6. Britt 1998:62. Britt also notes that the quality of the nds from the Naylor privy are
in keeping with what we would expect of a member of polite society in seventeenth-
century Boston (1998:61), and I am inclined to agree with this interpretation. Quo-
tation from Burman 1999:10.
7. Walkley 1981:2, 81, 109, 125.
8. Griggs 2000, 2001; Yamin 2000.
 Notes to Pages 175177 205

9. Burman 1999:13; Miller 2003:743744. Burman (1999:13) sees the re-costuming of

boys from the baby clothes produced by mothers or female relatives to tailor- or ready-
made clothing as a masculine rite of passage.
10. Miller 2003.
11. Tolini 2001; Richter 2000:xivxv, 8081, 8485; Striker and Sprague 1993.
12. Richter 2000:xii; see also Swan 1977:4491. Central School: Anon. 1829:4, 5. The
schools instruction manual includes as examples of the expected outcome of each
lesson pages onto which are axed tiny specimens of sample work produced by stu-
dents, including a minuscule knitted stocking. See also British and Foreign Society
1816, 1821; Female Model School 1833.
13. Anon. 1884:55, 5758; Praetzellis and Praetzellis 2004:158.
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 Index
Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations
Abbeydale Museum, 196n43
Abbott Farm, Bedford, Mass., 150151
Academy of Armory, 68
acculturation, 114
active voice ethnographic approach,
179n10
acutrudia. See needle-pushers, nds of
African-American archaeology, 38, 62, 158,
187n75
African burial ground, New York City,
186n68
Aignish, Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides,
Scotland: burials at, 167168
Alaca Hyk, Turkey, 11
Algonkian, 112
All Saints Church, Irthlingborough, En-
gland, 185n65
almshouses, 74, 193n60
American Revolution, 19, 50, 99
American Silver Thimbles, 97
American West, 169, 170, 176
amphibolite, 90
Anatolia, 90
Andere, Mary, 128
Anne Arundel County, Md., 184n55
Anthropological Studies Center, Sonoma
State University, 190n40, 203n44,
204n58
Antioch, 46, 92
Antwerp, 152
Aphrodite, Temple of, 11
Appleton Roebuck, England, 185n63,
193n68
Aquidneck Island, R.I., 97
Ardingly Fulling Mill, Weald, England,
199n26, 200n30
Armitage, Philip, 74, 193n61
Art de lpinglier, 17, 18, 23, 30
Artifacts of the Spanish Colonies of Florida
and the Caribbean, 88
Ashurst, Denis, 146
Avalon, Colony of. See Ferryland
awls, 45, 75, 90, 163, 190n44
Balinderry, Ireland, 12
Barber, Elizabeth, 137, 138, 188n8, 197n3
Barnsley, England, 145
Basing House, Hampshire, England, 76
Becket, Thomas , 13
Bedfordshire, England, 152, 158, 202n23
Bedford St. Paul workhouse, England,
158
227
228
Bedwin, Owen, 199n30
Bergen, Norway, 46
Bertrand, wreck of, 169170, 194n4
Bible, 112, 113
Big Dig. See Central Artery/Third
Harbor Tunnel Project, Boston, Mass.
Bilston-Batterseas (thimbles), 96
Bingen, Saint Hildegard von, 93
Birka, Sweden, 71, 76
Birmingham, England, 17, 20, 96, 99
Bishop, J. Leander, 182n23
bodkins 46, 6670, 69, 70, 79, 8185, 89,
90, 163, 190n44, 191n45, 191nn4952,
194n80, 202n38
Bolingbroke Castle, Lincolnshire, En-
gland, 124, 125
bone working, 7379, 192n60
camel bone, 92
knuckle bone oors, 193n67
Book of Rates, Customs House Library,
London, 95
Book of Trades, 182n20
Boston, England, 46
Boston, Mass., 33, 34, 98, 160, 173, 185n63
Mill Pond site, 70
See also Naylor, Katherine Nanny
Breachacha Castle, Coll, Argyll, Scotland,
46
Bridgnorth, England, 49
Brimstone Hill Fortress slave quarters,
St. Kitts, West Indies, 74
Bristol, England, 17
Narrow Quay, 180n6, 189n20
British Archaeological Association, 89
British North West Company, 59
British Standard Wire Gauge, 51
Britt, Kelly, 173, 204n6
brothels. See prostitution
Buckinghamshire, England, 152, 202n38
Buckinghamshire-style lace, 158
Burman, Barbara, 171, 174
busks, 155
Byron, Lord, 15
Index
Calvert family of Maryland, 35
Charles, 69
Candee, Richard, 201n22
Canton Glass Company, Canton, Ohio,
204n58
Carnarvon, Lord (George Herbert), 11
Carus-Wilson, Eleanora, 118
Casella, Eleanor Conlin, 171
Castle Raubritterburg Tannenger, Darm-
stadt, Germany, 93
Central Artery/Third Harbor Tunnel
Project, Boston, Mass., 33
Central School, London, 176
Charles Gift, St. Marys County, Md., 69,
70, 133135, 134
chatelaines, 133, 192n56
Chtellerault, France, 119
Chelsea, England, 96
chenille, 189n22
Chester, Leonard, 19
Chichester, England, 49, 145
children, sewing by, 176177
Childrens Employment Commission,
202n38
China, 46, 47, 64, 91, 138
Han dynasty silk weaving, 146
Chinese Mining Camp Site, Warren,
Idaho, 162, 203n48
Chiusi, Tuscany, 11
Christ Church, Spitalelds, London,
185n65, 185n66, 186n68
Christianity, 112
ideology of, 113, 177
Christopher Goodwin Associates, 191
192n52
Christs Kirk, Leslie, Scotland, 185n65
cire perd, 92
Civil War, U.S., 120, 183n44
clamps, sewing, 160162
Clauss Primer: Mother Goose Up to Date,
198n14
Clauss Shear Company, Toledo, Ohio, 120
Clements, Joyce, 149
 Index 229

Clifts Plantation, Westmoreland County, dicky pots, 157

Va., 187n71 Diderot, Denis, 17, 27, 182n19
Coeld, Sara Rivers, 192n52 See also Encyclopedia
Colchester, England, 49 documents, use of in archaeology, 7, 73, 82
colonialism, ideology of, 113, 114 table 3.4, 139, 140142 table 6.1, 151, 173
Colonial Revival, 149 domesticity, 133
Colonial Williamsburg, Va., 97 Don Juan (poem), 15
Columbus, Christopher, 22, 109 Dorcas (trademark)
Compton site, Calvert County, Md., 41 needles, 20, 21
table 2.4 thimbles, 104, 105
consumption (tuberculosis), 156 Dorchester, England, 49
context, 7 dressmaking. See seamstresses
archaeological, 100 Drimore, South Uist, Scotland, 180n6
cultural, 5, 85 drizzler, 164
domestic, 3943 Dryden, John, 66, 190n44
ethnographic, 4 Dublin, Ireland, 180n5
historical, 5 High Street excavations, 71, 76
interpretive, 9 Duggleby Howe, Yorkshire, England, 12
military, 42 Dura-Europus, Syria, 61
Convento de San Francisco, Dominican Dutch Reformed Church, 68
Republic, 109 Dutch West India Company, 68
Corbin, Annalies, 169, 170 dyspepsia, 156
Crdoba, Spain, 47
Corinth, Greece, 92 East Riding of Yorkshire, England, 198n7
crannogs, 12 Edge, Thomas, 17
Crusaders, 93 Edward III of England, 13
Ctesiphon, Iraq, 92 Egan, Geo, 181n17
Cumberland, R.I., 19 and Frances Pritchard, 16, 181n19
Cuming, H. Syer, 89 Egypt, 11, 12, 90
Cutlers Company of Sheeld, England, el-Assasif, Thebes, 11, 180n1
117 el-Lisht, 91
Cypress Freeway Replacement Project, Naqada, 92, 195n14
West Oakland, Calif., 6162, 160, 167, Eliot, John, 112
190n35 Eltonhead, William, 69
Emancipation, 204n5
Damascus, Syria, 46 embroidery
darners, 166167, 204n58 and femininity, 4, 71
Deagan, Kathleen, 2, 22, 34, 44, 88, 89, needles for, 5354
186n66, 187n76 scissors for, 135, 136
De Cunzo, Lu Ann, 171 Empire Knife Company, West Winstead,
Derby, Conn., 19 Conn., 120
Derby, England, 96 En Bas Saline, Haiti, 9798
Diamond, Joe, 191n51 Encyclopedia (Diderots), 17
230
Ephesus, 92
Eskilstuna, Sweden, 119
Essex County, Mass., 147, 149, 153, 188n5,
197n60
Farrar, Allethenia Fisk, 132133, 132, 133
femininity, ideology of, 45, 113, 133, 169,
174175
Ferryland, Newfoundland, 191n49
Fingelsham, Kent, England, 198n9
Fiske Memorial Center for Archaeological
Research, 112
Flanders, 47, 152
ax. See linen production
forensic analysis, 202n23
Forge Mill, Redditch, England, 5051
Fort Mose, Fla., 74
Fort Orange, N.Y., 191n51
Fort Stanwix, Rome, N.Y., 182n33
Fox, Russell, and K. G. Barton, 188n1
France, 16, 21, 90, 92, 94, 106, 116, 118,
119, 146
Free Grammar School, Whitefriars,
Coventry, England, 22, 26, 183n33,
183n41
Friedrick Dick catalog, 129, 130, 131
Fund for Female Emigration, 173
Gagiana, possible wreck of, 94
Galle, Jillian, 64, 164, 187n75, 202n40
Garsault, Monsieur de, 28
gender, 2, 111, 131
gender roles. See gender
Genoa, Italy, 109
George Washingtons Ferry Farm, Freder-
icksburg, Va., 167
Germany, 80, 93, 96, 106, 109, 119
Gilbert, Thomas, 202n38
gimp, 189n27
Gloucester, England, 17, 20, 201n13
Folk Museum, 17, 182n26
Gnalic, Yugoslavia, 94
Goldsmith Stern and Company of New
York, 108
Index
Goodchild, John, 201n13
Good Wives, 84
Governors Land, Va., 124, 188n1
Grand Portage, Minn., 59, 189n28
Great Carrying Place. See Grand Portage
Great Marlow, England, 96
Griggs, Heather, 164
Guide to Artifacts of Colonial America, 88
Gwent, Wales
Old Market Street and Maryport Street
site, Usk, 33
Haggarts Mill, Aberfeldy, 200n30
Hallamshire district, West Riding of York-
shire, 119
Hall Place, St. Neots, Huntingdonshire,
England, 26, 46
Hals, Frans, 191n50
Halstead, Benjamin, 99
Hand-book of Needlework, 165
Handbook of Thimbles and Sewing Imple-
ments, 106, 110
Harris, Timothy, 20
Hartford, Conn., 174
Hawley Collection, Archaeological Re-
search School, University of Sheeld,
199n19
Heinisch, Rochus, 120
hem weights, 167168, 167
Henry VIII of England, 17, 182n20
Henry Milward and Sons, 51, 188n12
Herbert, Sidney, 173
Herculaneum, 89
Hermitage Plantation, Tenn. See Triplex
Middle Slave Cabin
High Wycombe, England, 153, 202n38
Hill, Erika, 88, 89, 97, 100, 109
Himsworth, J. B., 116
Hinsley, Apollos (Dr.), 19
Historical Archaeology (journal), 2
Historical Society of New Hampshire, 6
History of Thimbles, 100
Hitzacher, Elbe, Germany, 192n58
H. Muhr Sons, Philadelphia, 108
 Index 231

Holland. See Netherlands Jarlshof, Shetland, Scotland, 77

Holme, Randle, 68 Jeerson Patterson Park and Museum, 35
Holmes, Edwin, 88, 95, 96, 99, 100, 101, Jenkins, Geraint, 66
107, 108, 109, 110, 194n6 Jenks, Joseph, 17, 19, 182n23
Honiton, England, 152 Joan of England, Princess, wedding of, 13
Honiton-style lace, 152, 159, 202n23 John Hicks site, Md., 41
Horner, Charles, 104, 105 Jonge, Ludoph de, 191n50
Houndhill, Yorkshire, England, 145147, Jordans Journey, Hopewell, Va., 41, 67,
149, 151 187n78
Household Manufactures in the United Jorvik. See York, England
States, 153 Joyful Company (painting), 67
Howe Manufacturing Company, 19 Julius Berbecker and Son of New York, 56,
Huey, Paul, 191n51 57, 58 table 3.2
Hunt, Seth, 20 J. Wiss and Sons, Newark, N.J., 117, 197n2,
Huntington, Mass., 99 199n15
Huntsman, Benjamin, 121
Hurry, Silas, 40, 41, 135 kersey, 201n19
H. Walker London (trademark), 165 Ketcham and McDougall of Brooklyn,
N.Y., 107
Iceland, 46 Kierstede, Hans, 68
identity kindergartens, 176177
discourses about, 85, 179n10 King, Julia A., 35
feminine, construction of, 57, 131 Kings Lynn site, Norfolk, England, 16
gender, 25, 6, 85, 133 Kings Reach site, Md., 41 table 2.4
negotiation of, 88, 179n10 Kirby, Beard, and Company, 20
personal, 9, 85, 111, 133 knitting, 5962
social, 9, 111 accessories, 164166
Iles, Charles, 104, 195n16 needles, nds of
Illustrated Dictionary of Hair Dressing and Roman, 61
Wig Making, 27 Victorian, 61, 62, 190n35
Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Viking, 61
Wealth of Nations, 19 Kuhn, Dieter, 146
institutional sites, 74, 111
interpretive archaeology, 7, 179n10 lace-making, 151159
Ipswich, Mass., 81, 82, 84, 85, 86, 87, 153, in Belgium, 152
155, 156, 179n8, 202n26 in Devonshire, England, 152
Isaac, Rhys, 179n10 in English Midlands, 152
Isle of Wight, 181n10 in France, 152
Islington, England, 96 in Italy, 152
Italy, 119, 146 in Netherlands, 152
pins, 27, 155
Jacobite Rising, 27 scissors, 126
Jamestown, Va., 67 types of, 27, 126
Janowitz, Meta, 68 La Florida, Spanish colonial sites in, 22
232 Index

La Isabela, Hispaniola, 22 Mary Rose, wreck of, 95

LAnse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, 121 Massachusetts, Commonwealth of, 112
La Tne, France, 116 Massachusetts Bay Colony, 112, 153
latten, 93 Mattapony site, Calvert County, Md., 41
Lea, William, 50 table 2.4
Left Coast Press, 179n2 Meissen porcelain, 96
Lewis, Wright and Bayliss, 29 Merchants Road site, Galway, Ireland,
Leyster, Judith, 67, 191n50 189n20
linen production, 90, 139, 145, 146, 149 Meriden, Conn., 161
literacy, 85, 194n80 Meriden Cutlery Company, Meriden,
Lofting, John, 96 Conn., 119120
London, England, 12, 16, 20, 49, 50, 71, metonymy, 179n10
95, 105, 117, 119, 120, 123, 124, 138, Michigan, Upper Peninsula of, 77
143, 144, 145, 153, 173, 176, 180n1, Miller, Henry, 97
181n17, 181n18, 191n47, 192n58 Miller, Marla, 174, 175
Aldgate, 78, 125, 200n32 Miller Brothers of Southington, Conn., 120
Battle Bridge Lane site, 16 missionaries, 112114, 177
Billingsgate, 192n59 Missouri River, 169
Bridewell Palace, 76 Montgomery Ward catalog, 108
Orange Street site, 16 Monticello, Va., slave quarters at, 74
Royal Navy Victualling Yard, 76 Moore, Peter, and Graham Reed, 42
Southwark, 95 Morrall, Abel, 44, 165
Whitechapel, 189n26 Moulins, France, 119, 128
Long Crendon, England, 49 Moulsham Street site, Chelmsford, Essex,
Longman, E. D., and S. Loch, 27, 31 England, 16
Longmeadow, Mass., 99 Mrozowski, Stephen A., 112
Louvre Museum, 191n50 Much Wenlock, England, 49
Low Countries, 47 Murray, H. K., and J. C. Murray, 188n1
Luchenbach, Al, 184n55 Museum of London, 12, 40, 115, 192n59
Luedtke, Barbara, 4 My Crochet Sampler, 63
lutestring, 194n2
Lynn, England, 46 Nalchik, northeast Caucasus, 12
nlebinding, 60
MacGregor, Arthur, 74, 75, 76, 77 Namur, Belgium, 119
Magunco Hill, Ashland, Mass., 112 Narragansett Indians, 97
Maines, Rachel, 203n42 narrative, 7
makers marks, 94, 135 National Needle Museum, Redditch,
manhood, link with tailor-made clothing, England, 51
174, 205n9 Native Americans, 112, 189n29
Margarita, wreck of, 194n4 See also individual tribes
Margeson, Sue, 181n8 Naylor, Katherine Nanny, 34, 34, 78, 78,
Marx, Karl, 204n1 160, 173, 204n6
Maryland Archaeological Conservation needlecases, 31, 71, 73, 73, 7679, 78, 156,
Laboratory, 192n52 193n61, 193n66, 193n68
 Index 233

medieval, 71, 192n58, 192n59 Newey Goodman Limited, 21

postmedieval, 76, 7779 New Netherlands, 68
Saxon, 76, 192n56 Newport, R.I., 45
Viking, 71, 77 New York, 25, 62, 98, 99, 193n60
needle-makers, wills of, 49 Broad Financial Center site, 68
needle packaging, 7079, 72, 73, 78 Five Points neighborhood, 25, 62, 106,
needle-pushers, nds of 158, 159, 160, 164, 166, 173, 203n51,
in Africa, 90 204n58
Bronze Age, 91 World Trade Center Towers, 203n51
Byzantine, 91 Ninigret (Princess), 97
in China, 90 Nipmuc Indians, 112114
Classical, 91 Nol Hume, Ivor, 2, 88, 89
Iron Age, 91 Norfolk, England, 67
Neolithic, 90 Northampton, Mass., 175
Ottoman, 91 Northamptonshire, England, 152
Roman, 91 North Carolina, Provincial Congress of,
in Russia, 90 19, 50
needle-rings. See thimble rings North Dalton Church, North Humber-
needles, nds of side, England, 186n66
medieval, 46, 80 Norway, 46, 60, 65, 106
Mesolithic, 90 Norwich, England, 13, 16, 67, 68
Neolithic, 45, 90 Notley Hall, St. Marys County, Md., 77
postmedieval, 8081 Nottingham Lace Market, 202n27
Roman, 46 Nottinghamshire, England, 202n22
Saxon, 46 Nueva Cadz, Venezuela, 109
Upper Paleolithic, 45 Nuremberg, Germany, 47, 75, 93, 94, 95,
needle-threaders, 5253 109, 119
Neergaard, Margrethe de, 118, 119
nest eggs, 167 Oakland, Calif., 176
Netherlands, 80, 95, 96, 106, 109, 152, Oneida Indians, 68
180n7 Outer Hebrides, Scotland, 198n4
Amsterdam, 95, 191n50 Outlaw, Alain, 188n1
Haarlem, 191n50 Overseas Chinese, archaeology of, 162, 176
Hindelopen, Friesland, 67 Oxfordshire, England, 152, 153, 158
Oost-Souburg, Zeeland, 75
Schoonhoven, 95 Palestine, 90
Utrecht, 95 Palmer, Marilyn, and Peter Neaverson,
Vianen, 95 201n13
New Amsterdam, 68 Paphos, Cyprus. See Aphrodite, Temple of
Newark, N.J., 99, 120 Paris, France 17, 119
Newburyport, Mass., 45 Parker, Rozsika, 4, 5
New Century Club, West Oakland, Calif., Patuxent Point, Calvert County, Md., 35, 36
177 burying ground, 3539, 187n72
Newey Company, 21 Patuxent River, 35
234 Index

Patuxent River Naval Air Station, St. Pins and Pincushions, 26

Marys County, Md., 69, 133 pin-suites, 181n17
Payter, John, 17 Plymouth, England, 193n68
Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass., Plymouth, Mass., 112
197n60, 204n5 Josiah Winslow home site, 76
Peirce, Jane, 6 pneumoconiosis, 48
embroidered picture by, 6 Pointers disease. See pneumoconiosis
Persen House site, Kingston, N.Y., 191n51 Pointers rot. See pneumoconiosis
Perth Museum and Art Gallery, Perth, poor relief, 158
Scotland, 124 Pope, Peter, 194n80
Petrie, Sir Flinders, 11, 92 Portsmouth, England, 95
Petrie Collection at University College Oyster Street, 80, 125, 188n1
Museum, University of Manchester, Portsmouth, N.H.
195n14 Jackson House, 76
Pevensey, Sussex, England, 66 Powers, Asahel Lynde, 132
Philadelphia, 98, 99 Praetzellis, Mary, 190n35
pinchbeck, 195n30 Praying Indians, 112
pincushions, 14, 25, 2934, 32, 34, 160, Prehistoric Textiles, 137
161, 181n10, 184n56, 184n58, 184n60, prestation, 113
185n63, 193n68 probate inventories, 33, 121, 139, 147, 153,
pin money, 184n55 154 table 6.3, 188n5
pinner (garment), 14 prostitution
pinners bones, 16 archaeology of, 164, 166, 173174
pin packaging, 25, 29 link with needlework, 158, 173, 174
pin poppet. See needlecases Providence, R.I., 99
pins Puerto Rico, 153
archaeometallurgical study of, 182n31
nds of Quarry Site, Munsville, N.Y., 191n51
Anglo-Saxon, 13, 180n6 Qubec City
for babies clothing, 14, 15 Champlains Habitation, 64, 76
bone, 180n6, 181n8 Estbe House, 123
Bronze Age, 11 Place-Royale, 80
Celtic, 11, 12 quilt patterns, 162163, 163
Elizabethan, 12
Kurgan, in burials, 11 racism, 173, 204n5
medieval, 1213, 180n5, 181n18 Rael, Marta Cotterell, 156, 202n26
mourning, 15, 2526 Rameses III, girdle of, 12
Neolithic, 11, 12 Ramscheid, Germany, 119
Norse, 12 raths, Irish, 180n6, 198n4
Paleolithic, 11 Rattray, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, 80,
Roman, 11, 12 188n1
shroud, 35, 36, 37, 185n65 Ramur, Ren-Antoine Ferchault de, 17
Viking, 13, 180n6 recovery techniques, archaeological, 40,
wooden, 12, 180n6 43, 187n76
 Index 235

Redditch, England, 50 Iron Age, 116, 117

Renews, Newfoundland, 65 medieval, 117
Rhode Island Historical Society, 97 in Roman Egypt, 116
Richardson family of Philadelphia (silver- sheepshearing, 116117, 123, 124, 198n4
smiths), 98, 196n36 Sheeld, England, 119, 120, 121, 125, 128,
Richard III of England, 17 132, 198n12, 199n17, 199n19, 199n24
Richmond, Va., 26 Silchester, England, 61
Riordan, Timothy, 185186n66, 186n71, silk trade, 91, 146
187n73 Simons Brothers Company of Philadel-
Roelofs, Sara, 68 phia, 107
Rogers, Gay Ann, 88, 97, 165 Smith, Adam, 19, 20
Ross Female Factory, Tasmania, 171 Smithsonian Institution, 92
Royal Worcester porcelain, 96 Society for Historical Archaeology, 2
Solingen, Germany, 119
sailors, sewing by, 175176 Southampton, England, 13, 193n61
sailors palm, 91, 203n48 Hamwih Saxon settlement, 75, 193n61
Salamis, Cyprus, 11 Six Dials area, 193n63
Salem, Mass., 45 Southington Cutlery Company, 120
sampling bias, 43 souvenirs, 111, 164
San Francisco, Calif., 176 Spain, 80, 109, 119
South of Market neighborhood, 64, 160, Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm, Newbury,
167, 190n40, 203n44 Mass., 1, 6, 7, 106, 135, 136, 159, 159
Santa Elena, S.C., 44 spinning, 138143, 147
Sarre cemetery, Thanet, Kent, England, spools (thread). See thread winders
198n9 Springeld, Mass., 99
Saugus, Mass., 17 Staordshire, England, 96
Schmorls nodes, 187n74 St. Augustine, Fla., 44, 186n66
scissorsmiths, probate inventories of, 121 steamboat passengers, 169170
seamstresses, 10, 39, 63, 8990, 158, 168, Stern Brothers and Company of New York,
169, 170, 171, 173, 175, 187n75, 200n41, 108
204n5 St. George, Robert Blair, 85
Sears and Roebuck catalog, 108, 166 stilettos, 163164, 190n44, 203n50
Seville, Spain, 109, 119 St. Johns site, 4041, 97, 135136, 187n77,
Sewall, Jane, 69 188n1, 191n49
Sewall, Nicholas (Major), 69 Van Sweringen site, 97
Sewall, Susannah, 69 St. Marys City, Md.
sewing, gendered nature of, 4, 169, 174 cemetery, 186n66, 186n68, 186n71,
176, 196n41 187n73
sewing birds, 3, 161162. See also clamps, St. Nicholas Parish Church, Lanark,
sewing Scotland, 185n65
shagreen, 111, 197n60 stocksh, 46
shears, nds of Stockstadt, Germany, Limes fort at, 76
in France, 116 Stow, John, 47
in Iran, 116 Strough, England, 29
236 Index

Studley, England, 49, 50 Tibet, 64

Stump family farm, Glasgow, Del., 171172 Tilbury Fort, Tilbury, Essex, England, 42,
Stuyvesant, Peter, 68 123
Survey of London and Westminster, 47 Tjrnuvk, Faroe Islands, 12
Sweet Track, Somerset, England, 12 Toledo, Spain, 119
Sydney, Australia Traditional Country Craftsmen, 66
Armsden House, 61 Treasury of the United States, 153
Cumberland/Gloucester Street sites, 61, Triplex Middle Slave Cabin, Hermitage
158, 196n54 Plantation, Tenn., 6263, 64, 158, 164,
Rocks neighborhood, 61, 106, 159, 166, 187n75, 202n40
200n41 Trondheim, Norway, 65, 199n28
Syria, 89 Tryon, Rolla Milton, 153
Tylecote, R. F., 21, 182n31, 182n32, 185n65
tailors, 10, 39, 73, 120, 126, 168, 171, 172, Tyres Gate property (#8), Bermondsey,
173, 174, 174, 175, 180n1, 187n74, England, 193n67
189n23, 196n41, 200n41
Taino Indians, 98 Ubelaker, Douglas, 36, 39
Tattershall, Edward, 183n49 Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher, 84, 85
Tayler, Daniel Foote (D. F.), 20, 21 Union Army (U.S. Civil War), 120
Tepe Yahya, Iran, 46 Untermeyer Robbins Company of New
Thame, Oxfordshire, England, 153, York, 108
202n38 Unwin, Joan, 121
Thiers, France, 119 U.S. Army, 170
thimble cases, 110111 Useful Arts (booklet), 20
Thimble Collectors Encyclopedia, 89
thimble rings, 9192, 93, 95, 96, 97, 102 Valenciennes, France, 152
103 table 4.1, 183n33 Van Beuningende Vriese Collection,
thimbles Rotterdam, 191n47
Australian, 99 Vermont, 132
chronology of, 102103 table 4.1 verulanium, 193n63
and femininity, 100 vingerhoeds, 95, 195n30
nds of Von Hoelle, John, 89, 92, 93, 194n6
Indian, 99
Islamic, 92 Waite Thresher and Company, Provi-
Viking, 92 dence, R.I., 108
interpretive potential of, 89, 111114 Waltham Abbey, England, 29
styles of Waterman, Charles, patented sewing bird,
Abbasid-Levantine, 9293 161, 162
Hispano-Moresque, 92 waterpower, 49, 119, 147
Turko-Slavic, 92 weaving, 143151
Thomas, Nicholas, 113 Bronze Age, 144
thread winders, 160 Iron Age, 144
thumbscrews, 161162 medieval, 143, 145
Thurrock, Mucking, England, 198n9 Neolithic, 143
 Index
postmedieval, 145
Roman, 144
Saxon, 143, 144, 145
tablet, 12
Upper Paleolithic, 90
Viking, 144
See also linen production
Webster Company, North Attleboro,
Mass., 108
Wellman, Howard, 192n52
Wentworth, Maria, tomb of, Toddington,
Bedfordshire, England, 169
Weoley Castle, Birmingham, England, 65,
199n28
West Cumberland, England, 164
West Midlands of England, 49, 50
West Oakland, Calif. See Cypress Freeway
Replacement Project, West Oakland,
Calif.
Wetherseld, Conn., 19
White, Carolyn, 184n51, 185n64
Wigmakers Art, 183n49
Wilkinson, Jeremiah, 19
William and Mary, rulers of England, 96
William Rogers Manufacturing Company,
Hartford, Conn., 120
Williamsburg, Va. See Colonial Williams-
burg
Wiltshire, England, 201n13
Winchester, England, 145
237
Winterthur Museum, 71, 125, 162
Wiss, Frederick, 120
Wiss, Jacob, 120
witch bottles, 180n1
witches (and pins), 10, 180n1
Womans Institute of Scranton, Pa., 137
womens activities, archaeology of, 1, 2
Woodeld, Charmian, and Ian Goodall,
183n33
Woollen Act of 1660, 185n65
Woolworth, Alan, 189n28
Worcester, England, 96
Worcestershire-Warwickshire border area,
England, 49
workbaskets, 111, 137, 169, 204n1
workhouses, 158, 173
world system, 113
Worshipful Guild of Needlemakers, 49
Wright, Lemuel W., 20, 21
Wylie, Alison, 7
Yamin, Rebecca, 158, 164
York Archaeological Trust, 190n31
York, England
Anglo-Danish, 75
Viking (Jorvik), 60, 61
Zalkin, Estelle, 92, 106, 110, 195n16
zen huan. See thimble-rings