Weaving Shop

Henry Ford believed in "learning by doing." Students enrolled in the Edison Institute Schools located on the grounds of Ford's Greenfield Village had ample opportunities for practical, hands-on training. Students, if they desired, could learn to weave. Beginners used small tabletop looms. As they progressed students created woven materials using larger looms located in Greenfield Village's Plymouth Carding Mill and Weaving Shed.

As America was taking its first steps towards industrialization, the Hanks family of Mansfield, Connecticut, made early attempts to mechanize the production of silk thread. Rodney Hanks and his nephew Horatio Hanks built this mill in 1810. It was the first silk mill in America, producing some of the first silk with machines that were powered by a waterwheel.

The Greenfield Village Weaving Shop demonstrates the evolution of textile production from the colonial home and craft shop, through the Industrial Revolution to commercial factory. Housed in a converted 1840s Georgia cotton mill, the Weaving Shop contains a number of working looms, including one of the few operating mechanical Jacquard looms in North America.