Harriet Whitney High School - First Lady Yearbook (Toledo, OH)

Page 45 text:

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Page 47 text:

HISTORY OF FABRICS-CLOTHING SHOP No one can tell when man first learned to spin or weave, for the oldest histories give glimpses of men spinning, weaving, and knit- ting. Flax has been cultivated in Asia Minor for more than four thou- sand years. People who lived in the stone age knew how to make fabrics. Linen cloth was the fashionable fabric of Bibical times. Fine linen was a mark of honor accorded only to the high and mighty. Sheeps' wool and goats' hair have been used for clothing and tents almost as long as linen. About four hundred years after the birth of Christ Roman soldiers started a wool-weaving factory at the British town of Winchester. From this factory the native inhabitants learned the value of wool, and began to spin and weave it for themselves. During the reign of Henry II guilds were formed. and London was given control of exporting English woolen cloth. From these beginnings that city came to be the world's greatest market both for raw wool and woolen cloth. Cotton was grown and made into cloth in India full six hundred years before Christ. It did not reach western Europe until about 900 A.D. when it was brought westward from Arabia by the conquering Moors. At the beginning of the seventeenth century because of the religious trouble in the Netherland and Flanders, Flemish cotton manufacturers, spinners, and weavers had to flee for their lives. They started to manufacture cotton in Lancashire, England, which be- came the greatest cotton spinning and weaving locality in the world. Silk culture had its beginnings in China, how long ago nobody knows. There is a legend' that silk culture wasf introduced by'a Chinese queen, Si-Lung-Chi, from some country to the southwest and that she herself raised the worms, reeled the threads, and taught the people. Silk culture was introduced into Korea anb Persia even though the Chinese government attempted to keep the secret. From India and Persia Europe first learned of silk. Not until the tenth century did it become known generally over the Western World. ' At first much of it came into use for church embroidery and woolen robes. The production of raw silk was begun in Italy before the middle of the twelfth century. Silk worms were raised in Spain before or during the eight century. Business was encouraged by the Pope and later by the Kings of France. Tours and Lyons had become prominent silk producing centers by the seventeenth century. , , 't H- Q, New fabrics, such as rayon, nylon, etc., now threaten the hitherto undisputed reign of linen, wool, cotton, and silk. 45