Spinning Highlights from the Collections of The Henry Ford

This wool wheel, made in the Canterbury, New Hampshire, Shaker community, incorporates an innovative spinning head patented by Amos Miner in 1810. The Miner’s head -- which increased spindle speed and decreased yarn production time -- was widely adopted.

For much of the nineteenth century, the American textile industry was at the forefront of processing and precision machine technology. Carding is a crucial step in the processing of raw cotton or wool; machines like this were used singly in tiny rural mills or in multiple in the largest textile factories. Mechanized carding machines made the process much faster than laboriously doing it by hand.

This 1821 advertisement for an innovative spinning wheel comes with a testimonial from Samuel Slater, David Wilkinson, and Benjamin Walcott, three prominent pioneers of the American textile industry. Brown's patent vertical spinner could spin six yarns simultaneously, but it was never widely adopted by home workers and never challenged the growth of the factory system.

After the hard outer coating of flax stems is removed, the fibers are drawn through a series of hackles -- boards with sharp metal spikes -- to align the long fibers and remove debris and short fibers. For convenience, this double hackle bench combines a coarse hackle at one end with a finer hackle at the other end.

This upright wheel, made by Silas Barnum in Fairfield County, Connecticut, is an example of a compact, popular style of wheel for spinning flax fiber into linen yarn. It also features an innovative improvement called a double flyer, which allows the spinner to produce two yarns simultaneously.

In the 1930s, Indian nationalist Mahatma Gandhi used a spinning wheel, or charkha, as a unifying call-to-action in the nonviolent struggle against British colonial rule. Britain had long used India as a market for its factory-made textiles--overwhelming local Indian production. Gandhi encouraged people to spin as a simple act of protest. The charkha proved a highly visible symbol in India's struggle for independence and economic self-sufficiency.