100: The Spinning Wheel

100

The Spinning Wheel

Mass production is a rather old idea but one that makes the world move. Yes, man and woman have been fashioning tools before the dawn of written history. Man and woman have been trying to figure out how to get things done by making small tools to move mountains or simply move from one place to another with relative ease.

One cannot simply overlook the fact that industrialization began in the home: The cottage industry. Women would came together and make wool into yarn or spin cotton into thread, which then could be fashioned into cloth, that the tailor bought to make clothes for customers. Of course the women made money back or traded for what they needed in the home. Thus, an economy is born. The economy began to shift from trading to monitory currency or gold and silver pieces. At the heart of the cottage is the spinning wheel. Without it the industrial age would have happened at much slower rate.

Invented in China circa 1270 the machine was simple. It was a wheel connected to a peddle, which then took the fibers of wool, silk, or cotton and spun it by twisting the fibers together to make the thread to make stuffs which then was taken and made into cloth. There is evidence that some of the first Chinese spinning wheels were actually water driven helping with the speed of production.  

Yes, the spinning wheel is one of the most genus inventions of man and womankind. Once it was introduced to Europe in 1280, the spinning wheel became part of the modern home. Every woman was expected to know how to spin. It wasn’t until the late 1800’s and early 1900’s that the spinning wheel became part of a novelty in the home.

It’s hard to find a spinner these days that operate in the home. Most spinners now are seen in colonial historical reconstruction sites. Do not be fooled by its absence. Though society does not see them in the open, it does not mean that they have completely disappeared. Spinning machines such as the ones made in china a few centuries ago, a version of the spinning wheel is around. Take the sheathing of a wire and look at the few strains of wire, which have been twisted together. The twisting process of wire is completely based on the spinning wheel. Thread is still being made. Cloth is also still being made almost the same way it had been for centuries. But the basic twisting of cotton and silk fibers into thread cannot be overlooked as genus.