Spinning Wheel

Textiles were essential to life in early America. Whereas fabrics such as silk and cotton were imported and comparatively expensive, wool and linen were produced domestically. Great wheels such as this were used to turn wool into strong strands of thread. Wool, shorn from sheep, then washed and carded to align the loose fibers, was spun using various devices. Unlike smaller spinning wheels, which were turned by pumping a treadle with the foot, these so-called walking wheels were hand-rotated by a spinner who moved back and forth feeding strands of wool to the spindle. Once the wool thread had accumulated on the rotating spindle, it was removed, and the spinner measured out its length on a niddy-noddy or yard winder (both of which are on view in the gallery).