Spooling?

[katewrites]

I would love some help! In the diary I transcribed, Lizzie says her sister Ada is "spooling a piece of cloth."

Would that mean she is tearing into strips and rolling them up to make rag rugs? (My great-grandmother used to do that.) Or maybe cutting fabric into even strips and rolling it up to make it easier to make quilt squares? Or something entirely different?

~kate

 

[DBF]

Calling @AshleyMel. Maybe she will be able to answer your question.

 

[katewrites]

It specifically says cloth in the diary, but I'm wondering if she's referring to yarn or something like that because in the next two or three entries, she talks about her sister learning how to weave.

 

[Sowbelly and Hardtack]

Spooling is defined differently in 1860 than it is in 2024. I believe your use of the term may refer to a cotton mill.

Young Girls at Spoolers at Lincoln Cotton Mill in Evansville, Indiana, October 1908 | State Historical Society of Iowa

Source-Dependent Questions Look closely at the photo and describe the work the young girls are doing. Compare this photo to the photo of Sadie, who worked at a cotton mill in a different state. What is similar about the photos? What is different? Lewis Hines, who worked for the National Child...

history.iowa.gov

"Spoolers ran machines that combined the thread from ten to 15 different bobbins. Operating a spooling frame was not a hard job, unless threads broke and they had to tie the strand back together. Working as an investigative photographer for the National Child Labor Committee, Lewis Hine documented working and living conditions of children in the United States between 1908 and 1924. The photos are useful for the study of labor, reform movements, children, working class families, education, public health, urban and rural housing conditions, industrial and agricultural sites and other aspects of urban and rural life in America in the early 20th Century."

The first cotton mills date back to the 1740s.

Cotton mill - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"The first cotton mills were established in the 1740s to house roller spinning machineryinvented by Lewis Paul and lJohn Wyatt. The machines were the first to spin cotton mechanically "without the intervention of human fingers".

 

[John Winn]

My wife - who used to weave - says spooling on a loom is when you wind the yarn onto a spool that, in turn, is attached to the loom and feeds out the yarn. However, that's for machine looms; individuals would have had hand looms that don't have spools. However, with cloth pieces I think it most likely she was making something like a quilt. I believe when you assemble the pieces to make the individual squares or rectangles that will be sewn together it's called a spool.

 

[Sowbelly and Hardtack]

I would love some help! In the diary I transcribed, Lizzie says her sister Ada is "spooling a piece of cloth."

Would that mean she is tearing into strips and rolling them up to make rag rugs? (My great-grandmother used to do that.) Or maybe cutting fabric into even strips and rolling it up to make it easier to make quilt squares? Or something entirely different?

~kate

View attachment 501772

Great portrait @katewrites.

 

[katewrites]

Spooling is defined differently in 1860 than it is in 2024. I believe your use of the term may refer to a cotton mill.

Young Girls at Spoolers at Lincoln Cotton Mill in Evansville, Indiana, October 1908 | State Historical Society of Iowa

Source-Dependent Questions Look closely at the photo and describe the work the young girls are doing. Compare this photo to the photo of Sadie, who worked at a cotton mill in a different state. What is similar about the photos? What is different? Lewis Hines, who worked for the National Child...

history.iowa.gov

"Spoolers ran machines that combined the thread from ten to 15 different bobbins. Operating a spooling frame was not a hard job, unless threads broke and they had to tie the strand back together. Working as an investigative photographer for the National Child Labor Committee, Lewis Hine documented working and living conditions of children in the United States between 1908 and 1924. The photos are useful for the study of labor, reform movements, children, working class families, education, public health, urban and rural housing conditions, industrial and agricultural sites and other aspects of urban and rural life in America in the early 20th Century."

The first cotton mills date back to the 1740s.

Cotton mill - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"The first cotton mills were established in the 1740s to house roller spinning machineryinvented by Lewis Paul and lJohn Wyatt. The machines were the first to spin cotton mechanically "without the intervention of human fingers".

I hadn't considered that and there was a cotton mill nearby at Lenoirs but Ada definitely would not have worked there. The Andersons were an affluent family and the girls would have been doing any sort of sewing or weaving at home as part of their education.

 

[katewrites]

My wife - who used to weave - says spooling on a loom is when you wind the yarn onto a spool that, in turn, is attached to the loom and feeds out the yarn. However, that's for machine looms; individuals would have had hand looms that don't have spools. However, with cloth pieces I think it most likely she was making something like a quilt. I believe when you assemble the pieces to make the individual squares or rectangles that will be sewn together it's called a spool.

I was leaning toward quilting until I read a little further and saw that Ada was weaving. I am confused as to why Lizzie would write "spooling a cloth" though. That doesn't sound like weaving at all but then again, I don't really know all that much about textiles in the 1860s.

 

[John Winn]

Here's a video of a quilt maker speaking of spools.

 

[katewrites]

Great portrait @katewrites.

Thanks! I do believe this is the diary writer Lizzie Anderson Huff. The skirmish at Huff's Ferry in Loudon was basically fought in her front/back yard. I found this photo at the Johnston/Huff house in Loudon. Even though there was no name on the back, it looks a lot like the one I have of her sister Rachel. And it makes sense it would be in the Huff house since Lizzie married a Huff brother.

 

[John Winn]

p.s. - the quilt pattern pieces are called spools because they look like wooden spools. That is, it's only pieces shaped like the ones in the video that are called spools.

I'm going with her making pieces for a quilt in "spool" shapes.