Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-pfhbr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-11T00:03:16.931Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Survival of Handloom Weaving in Rural Canada Circa 1870

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Kris Inwood  and
Phyllis Wagg
Kris Inwood
Affiliation:
University of Guelph, Guelph, CanadaN1G 2W1.
Phyllis Wagg
Affiliation:
Dalhousie University, Halifax, CanadaB3H 3J5.
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Handloom weaving with a mixture of wool and cotton yarn was common in late nineteenth-century Canada. The hand technology survived using industrial inputs and part-time female labor whose opportunity cost was relatively low in rural areas. The demand for homespun was income-sensitive and reinforced by the cold Canadian climate. The patterns of weaving by men and women differed, but both produced for the market in addition to home consumption. Cloth constituted a significant share of farm production, especially in low-income areas.

Type
Papers Presented at the Fifty-Second Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 53 , Issue 2 , June 1993 , pp. 346 - 358
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1993

References

REFERENCES

Acadian Recorder (various years).Google Scholar
Acheson, T. W., “The Condition of New Brunswick Agriculture on the Eve of Confederation,” in Inwood, Kris, ed., Farm, Factory and Fortune: New Essays in the Economic History of the Maritimes (Fredericton, 1993), pp. 37–61.Google Scholar
Anonymous, Homespun to Factory Made (North Andover, 1977).Google Scholar
Barry, James, Account Book, Public Archives of Nova Scotia, MG 1, vol. 1222.Google Scholar
Bidwell, Percy, and Falconer, John, History of Agriculture in the Northern United States, 1620–1860 (New York, 1941).Google Scholar
Blewett, Mary, Men, Women and Work: Class, Gender and Protest in the New England Shoe industry, 1780–1910 (Chicago, 1988).Google Scholar
Borsa, Joan, and Inwood, Kris, Codebook and Interpretation Manual for the 1870–71 Canadian Industrial Database (Guelph, 1993).Google Scholar
Burnham, Dorothy, The Comfortable Arts (Ottawa, 1981).Google Scholar
Burnham, Dorothy, and Burnham, Harold, “Keep Me Warm One Night,” Early Handweaving in Eastern Canada (Toronto, 1972).Google Scholar
Bythell, Duncan, The Handloom Weavers (Cambridge, 1969).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, G. G., “Susan Dunlap: Her Diary,” Dalhousie Review (1966), pp. 215–22.Google Scholar
Campbell, R. H., and Dow, J. B. A., Source Book of Scottish and Economic History (Oxford, 1968).Google Scholar
Canada, Census (various years and volumes).Google Scholar
Canada, Department of Agriculture, Instructions to Enumerators, Sessional Paper No. 64 (Ottawa, 1871).Google Scholar
Canada West, Transactions of the Board of Agriculture of Canada West, 1860–63.Google Scholar
Cohen, Marjorie, Markets and Economic Development in Nineteenth-Century Ontario (Toronto, 1988).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cole, Arthur Harris, The American Wool Manufacture, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1926).Google Scholar
Coons, Martha, Linen-Making in New England, 1640–1860 (North Andover, 1980).Google Scholar
Crowley, Terry, “Unequal Inheritance: Rural Labour in Nineteenth-Century Ontario,” in Craven, Paul, ed., Labouring Lives (Toronto, forthcoming).Google Scholar
Cumming, Peter, The Story of Framboise (Framboise, Nova Scotia, 1984).Google Scholar
Dickie, James, Daybooks, Dalhousie University Archives, MS 4–63.Google Scholar
Doak Mill Records, Public Archives of New Brunswick, MS1 K1 and MS8 F1.Google Scholar
Dominion Board of Trade, Report, 1874.Google Scholar
Dublin, Thomas, Women at Work (New York, 1979).Google Scholar
Dublin, Thomas, “Women and Outwork in a Nineteenth-Century New England Town,” in Hahn, Steve and Prude, Jonathon, eds., The Countryside in the Age of Capitalist Transformation (Chapel Hill, NC, 1985), pp. 51–69.Google Scholar
Dunn, Charles, Highland Settler: A Portrait of the Scottish Gael in Cape Breton and Eastern Nova Scotia (Toronto, 1953).Google Scholar
Eastern Chronicle, 06 1870.Google Scholar
Eaton, Arthur, The History of King's County, Nova Scotia (Salem, 1910).Google Scholar
Field, Richard, “Lunenburg German Household Textiles,” Material History Bulletin, 24 (Fall 1986), pp. 16–23.Google Scholar
Gesner, Abraham, The Industrial Resources of Nova Scotia (Halifax, 1848).Google Scholar
Goldin, Claudia, and Sokoloff, Ken, “Women, Children and Industrialization in the Early Republic,” this Journal, 42 (12 1982), pp. 741–74.Google Scholar
Grant, Janine, and Inwood, Kris, “Gender and Organization in the Canadian Cloth Industry,” Canadian Papers in Business History, 1 (1989), pp. 17–32.Google Scholar
Grant, Janine, and Inwood, Kris, “Labouring at the Loom: A Case Study of Rural Manufacturing,” Canadian Papers in Rural History, 7 (1990), pp. 215–36.Google Scholar
Gullickson, Gay L., Spinners and Weavers of Auffay, (Cambridge, 1986).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Habakkuk, H. J., American and British Technology in the Nineteenth Century: The Search for Labour-Saving Inventions (New York, 1962).Google Scholar
Harris, Nancy Ann, Account Book, Public Archives of New Brunswick, MC 456, MS 1, 1858–1869.Google Scholar
Heaton, Herbert, The Yorkshire Woolen and Worsted Industries (Oxford, 1965).Google Scholar
Honeyman, Katrina, and Goodman, Jordan, “Women's Work, Gender Conflict and Labour Markets in Europe, 1500–1900,” Economic History Review, 44 (11 1991), pp. 608–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hood, Adriensne, “Organization and Extent of Textile Manufacture in Eighteenth Century Rural Pennsylvania” (Ph.D. diss., University of California at San Diego, 1988).Google Scholar
Hood, Adrienne, “Textile Consumption in Eighteenth-century Rural Pennsylvania: Domestic Production versus Imported Fabrics” (Unpublished paper, Toronto, 1990).Google Scholar
Hopewell, Woolen Mill Cashbook, Public Archives of Nova Scotia, Manuscript Group 3, vol. 232.Google Scholar
Inwood, Kris, and Irwin, Jim, “Canadian Regional Commodity Income Differences at Confederation,” in Inwood, Kris, ed., New Essays in the Economic History of the Maritimes (Fredericton, 1993), pp. 149–70.Google Scholar
Inwood, Kris, and Wagg, Phyllis, “Wealth and Prosperity in Nova Scotia Agriculture, 1850–1870” (Paper presented to the Canadian Historical Association, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, 1992).Google Scholar
Jensen, Joan, Loosening the Bonds (New Haven, 1988).Google Scholar
Jeremy, David J., Transatlantic Industrial Revolution: The Diffusion of Textile Technologies Between Britain and America, 1790–1830s (Cambridge, 1981).Google Scholar
Jones, Robert L., History of Agriculture in Ontario (Toronto, 1946).Google Scholar
Journal of Agriculture for Nova Scotia, 01 1866.Google Scholar
Journal of the Board of Arts and Manufacturers of Canada West, 01 14, 1861.Google Scholar
Lintner, Anastasia, “Household Behaviour and the Allocation of Time: The Case of Cloth Production on Ontario Farms in 1860” (M.A. thesis, University of Guelph, 1990).Google Scholar
Lyons, John, “Family Response to Economic Decline: Handloom Weavers in Early Nineteenth-Century Lancashire,” Research in Economic History, 12 (1989), pp. 45–92.Google Scholar
McCalla, Doug, “The Internal Economy of Upper Canada,” Agricultural History, 59 (07 1985), pp. 397–416.Google Scholar
McInnis, Marvin, “Women, Work and Childbearing,” Social History/Histoire sociale, 24 (11 1991), pp. 237–62.Google Scholar
MacKenzie, P. J., Highland Community on the Bras d'Or (Halifax, 1978).Google Scholar
Mohanty, Gayle Fowler, “Putting Up with Putting-Out,” Journal of the Early Republic, 9 (Summer 1989), pp. 191–216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murray, Norman, The Scottish Hand Loom Weavers, 1790–1850 (Edinburgh, 1978).Google Scholar
New Brunswick Courier, 10 1835.Google Scholar
Nova, Scotia, Census of Pictou County (Halifax, 1838).Google Scholar
Patterson, George, A History of the County of Pictou (Montreal, 1877).Google Scholar
Prentice, Alison et al. , Canadian Women: A History (Toronto, 1988).Google Scholar
Prude, Jonathon, The Coming of Industrial Order: Town and Factory Life in Rural Massachusetts, 1810–1860 (Cambridge, MA, 1983).Google Scholar
Reid, Richard, ed., The Upper Ottawa Valley to 1885 (Toronto, 1990).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rivard, Paul, The Home Manufacture of Cloth (Pawtucket, RI, 1974).Google Scholar
Rothenberg, Winifred, “The Market and Massachusetts Farmers, 1750–1855,” this Journal, 41 (06 1981), pp. 283–314.Google Scholar
Ruddel, D. Terry, “Textile Production in Colonial Quebec, 1609–1840,” Material History Bulletin, 31 (Spring 1990), pp. 39–50.Google Scholar
Ruddel, D. Terry, “Consumer Trends, Clothing, Textiles and Equipment in the Montreal Area,” Material History Bulletin, 32 (Fall 1990), pp. 45–64.Google Scholar
Scranton, Phillip, Proprietary Capitalism (Cambridge, 1983).Google Scholar
Smyth, Peter, Ledger, Public Archives of Nova Scotia, Manuscript Group 3, vol. 285.Google Scholar
Thomson, William, A Tradesman's Travels (Edinburgh, 1842).Google Scholar
Tryon, Rolla, Household Manufactures in the United States (Chicago, 1917).Google Scholar
Urquhart, M. C., “New Estimates of Gross National Product, Canada, 1870–1926,” in Engerman, Stanley and Gallman, Robert, eds., Long-Term Factors in American Economic Growth (Chicago, 1986), pp. 9–94.Google Scholar
Vickers, Daniel, “Competency and Competition: Economic Culture in Early America,” William and Mary Quarterly, 47 (1990), pp. 1–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ware, Carolyn, The Early New England Cotton Manufacture (Boston, 1931).Google Scholar
Wright, Chester, Wool-Growing and the Tariff (Cambridge, 1910).CrossRefGoogle Scholar