Thread in Her Hands Cash in Her Pockets:
Women and Domestic Textile Production in 19th-Century New Brunswick
Judith RygielCarleton University+
1 HOME WEAVING TURNED women into drudges, complained a correspondent in New Brunswick’s Colonial Farmer in 1865. "Agricola", a Northumberland farmer, feared the social implications of home weaving. He felt that women’s roles in the household should not run to manufacturing since "if the women are to be drudges, they can have no opportunities of acquiring those little accomplishments and pleasant manners which go so far to make life pleasant, and the consequence is that she makes him a drudge too". Agricola was also concerned about spending money on equipment for the farm. The purchase of weaving tools would be a wasted investment, for it was "better for the farmer to spend his spare capital in labour saving machinery for the farm, than to invest it in spinning or weaving apparatus, which at best would be of the clumsiest".1 Agricola argued that cloth was "better done and cheaper by machinery than by hand labour". After all, William Park’s cotton mill had just opened in Saint John, and industrial production surely heralded the arrival of a new age in New Brunswick.2 Agricola’s commentaries set the tone as Maritime Canada was poised to embrace encroaching modernity with a new emphasis on commercial farming, improved farm machinery and new manufacturing opportunities. Although home weavers in New Brunswick produced 60 per cent of the woollen and cotton cloth made in the province in 1871, within 15 years new cloth factory manufacturers would gradually begin to displace the smaller enterprises based on home production.3
2 Home weaving was a concern in 19th-century New Brunswick, and a vigorous debate followed in the pages of the Colonial Farmer. From today’s perspective, a discussion of home manufacturing in New Brunswick is part of the new interest of both rural and women’s historians in recovering the often hidden nature of women’s contributions to the rural economy and their presence in the marketplace. Domestic manufacture occupies the intersection of economic, rural, women’s, social, family history and biography. Scholarship on the history of Canadian rural women’s work has been subsumed among other rural issues, while in America and Europe it has become more visible.4 A study of domestic manufacturing in 19th-century New Brunswick illustrates several themes, including the challenges of modernity, the rationality and persistence of domestic production and the gender shift within the households of cloth producers. The regional dimension of the gendered division of labour also reveals the particular character of home weaving that persisted well into the late 19th century in rural New Brunswick communities.5 Weavers produced more cloth than their households could consume. New Brunswick’s local employment patterns in resource industries such as lumbering, fishing and agriculture provided a unique market for farm women for the kinds of textile products made in rural households.6 Textile production, including handweaving and commercial knitting, were valuable adjuncts to the domestic economy of late 19th-century New Brunswick households.
3 The economic benefits of home weaving for the family were a decided advantage over the niceties Agricola expected from the fairer sex. Rationalization of available time, money, skills and the labour capacity of family members were all important considerations within rural households. In a study of rural Quebec, Elizabeth Turcotte found that women "avoided costs" by producing some of the family’s food and clothing. These savings, while invisible in standard economic calculations, were rational ways in which families saved money. Sales of surplus dairy products and cloth also added extra revenue to the family coffers.7 In Leeds County, Ontario rural families rationalized domestic manufacture to supplement low agricultural productivity. Rural families, especially those comprising many females, engaged in domestic production since these women had limited opportunities for income.8
4 Historians have differed in their assessment of the rationality of domestic cloth production in the 19th century. Joan Jensen noted that American women rationalized butter-making instead of cloth-making as a more profitable venture requiring less capital outlay on tools and equipment while providing more variety and a steadier income.9 Marjorie Cohen conceded that in Ontario home production of cloth was a less rational way to provide for the family’s needs as alternative and cheaper sources were readily available.10 Jane Errington also argued that, since weaving was so labour-intensive, "no housewife could hope to tackle the whole process on her own". She would need the services of several daughters or other capable women in the household to make it worthwhile.11 These arguments fail to explain the prolific weavers in Charlotte County, however, for most artisan weavers in 1871 had little help in textile manufacturing, either through the labour of their own children, their kin or outside assistance.
5 Responses to Agricola’s diatribe on homeweaving and its implied drudgery included comments about the rationality of producing homespun cloth. "Farmer’s Daughter" expressed her feelings in these words:[it] is no hard work for them [women] to make cloth to supply the family plentifully and not make it a drudgery of it either; for I do not think it drudgery, except we make it so, any more than making butter and cheese, or other housework. . . . I know many who prefer it before any kind of house or dairy work; and those who understand it can work with as much ease as they can at most other work.12 Both Farmer’s Daughter and another commentator, "Susy", wove cloth as part of their domestic or household chores. Susy was less enamoured with cloth production than Farmer’s Daughter. In her letter to the Colonial Farmer, she informed readers of the 132 yards of cloth she had just finished weaving for the 1865 season:I feel quite proud that we can do all the weaving ourselves . . . [but] I am real glad that we are going to have a long play spell now. Perhaps the Farmer’s Daughter will have the factory built before next fall, and then farewell to the old loom and its ceaseless clatter and bang.13
6 While Susy was proud of her weaving accomplishments, there were other New Brunswick women who produced far more yardage during their spinning and weaving season. Martha J. Towle was by far the most prolific reported weaver in Charlotte County in 1871. A 46-year-old mother, Martha lived with her farmer husband, Horatio, her 22-year-old daughter Agnes and her 87-year-old mother-in-law on a small holding of 70 acres in the rural parish of St. David. She was perhaps exceptional since her small weaving business reported 1,388 yards of twilled, plain and satinette cloth produced in 1871. This was more than adequate to supply the needs of her household and exceeded that of any other weaver in the county.14
7 By 1871, as indicated by census data, female weavers had come to dominate textile production in Charlotte County. In two previous censuses, some males did report weaving businesses in combination with farming operations.15 Discussions of this gender shift in domestic manufacturing appear only in the scholarship of a few ethnographers and historians. According to David-Thierry Ruddel, men were the principal weavers in Quebec families up to the turn of the 19th century. After 1830 weaving became the universal responsibility of female members of the family.16 Dorothy and Harold Burnham, on the other hand, claimed that weaving gradually became a woman’s occupation only after a serious economic recession in the second quarter of the 19th century. Kris Inwood and Janine Grant’s assessment found that women dominated domestic weaving by Confederation.17
8 Charlotte County census marshals enumerated more than one hundred weavers, mostly women, who had small weaving businesses in 1871.18 Another 1,000 Charlotte County households noted yardages on the agricultural schedules.19 Many of Martha Towle’s neighbours were also prolific weavers, producing from 100 to 900 yards of cloth per year.20 Charlotte County’s artisan weavers wove 220 yards a year on average, creating a surplus of more than 17,000 yards of homespun country cloth.21
9 Complete data existed for 103 female artisan weavers in Charlotte County who fitted part-time weaving into the seasonal demands of the agricultural cycle.22 Most artisan weavers in Charlotte County were married women, 43 years old on average, who spent an average of two and a half months a year producing cloth. Some, like Martha Towle with the assistance of her daughter, dedicated four months of the year to weaving. Martha Towle’s household in St. David provides an example of the complexity of calculating net income from weaving. She and her daughter reported combined monthly wages of $34.50 for 1,388 yards of woven cloth over a four-month period. The value added came to $472. We do not know whether they brought their cloth to the local fulling mill, or what proportion of their cloth was half cotton/half wool or all wool or if one of the women did all the spinning and the other all the weaving. Martha reported using 600 pounds of cotton and woollen yarns. Since the Towles had only a few sheep, they would have had to purchase or barter wool from their neighbours to meet their production.23
10 Weavers and other textile producers in New Brunswick participated in the local economy for different reasons. Farmer’s Daughter had suggested that cloth making was sometimes more pleasant than other household and farm chores and a way of alleviating some of the family’s expenses. Home manufactured cloth was sturdier than purchased cloth and thus a better investment. Acquiring textile skills also had another important economic advantage. Farmer’s Daughter noted that weaving domestic cloth provided an opportunity for home employment as farmers were often unhappy with the cloth produced by the few woollen mils in the rural districts. According to Farmer’s Daughter, many farmers "preferred hiring help to do it [weave cloth] by hand", especially if they did not have wives or daughters with these skills.24
11 As suggested by the correspondence of Farmer’s Daughter, textile producers sold their labour, skills and products within their communities. Examining diaries, travel guides and agricultural journals reveals that rural New Brunswick women traded their textile skills and products from the beginning of colonization until well into the late 19th century.25 Merchant account books, newspapers and lumber company records also provide evidence that homespun cloth, hooked rugs, handknit socks, mitts and winter underwear were in demand by workers involved in various resource extraction industries.
12 Government documents, especially the 1871 census, while identifying the volume of weaving activity and the individual weavers, can provide only a partial picture of the extent to which textile producers participated in the local economy. Some counties in New Brunswick, such as Westmorland, reported only two weavers on the nominative schedules and none on the industrial schedules. This under-reporting concealed the activity of more than 3,000 Westmorland County households producing in excess of 166,000 yards of homemade wool cloth and 25,000 yards of linen in 1871. In some rural Westmorland parishes, such as Botsford, more than 80 per cent of households reported homespun cloth in 1871 on the agricultural schedules. In this parish alone, handweavers in 518 households wove 35,805 yards of cloth, or an average of 69 yards per household.26 Although census marshalls did not identify individual weavers in Westmorland County, the sheer number of households reporting large volumes of home-produced cloth in itself reveals an important contribution to the rural economy.
13 Doing custom weaving for neighbours was one way in which New Brunswick women helped to support their families, especially during times of adversity. An early example of this type of labour exchange can be found in Mary Morris Bradley’s diary entry for 1793. Mary’s first husband, David Morris, was experiencing severe financial troubles in the lumber industry and was at the point of declaring bankruptcy. Bills were accumulating, and the family despaired of finding the means to meet their debts. Mary was a young, newly married woman, who used her textile skills to pry her household out of financial difficulty. In her diary, she commented:Just at this critical time, it occurred to me, I will commence the business of weaving. Accordingly I set up my loom, and I notified my neighbours, and soon I had plenty of work. I exerted myself to the utmost of my power. I took my pay in such trade as was suitable for our family’s use, which made the payment easy for my customers. I soon got into the way of helping ourselves greatly. I endeavoured to supply our little wants by my own exertions. We did not raise sufficient grain for our own use, but my weaving in the winter . . . procured for us as much breadstuff as we needed.27 Luckily for the Morris family, David gave up the lumbering business and Mary received a legacy of £10 from her father that paid off the accumulated debts. However, Mary’s skill as a weaver helped to keep the family solvent until their fortunes changed for the better.
14 The farm account books of Lieutenant Colonel Beverly Robinson provide further insight into the ways in which women in New Brunswick exchanged their labour as weavers for payment in cash or barter. The Robinson farm, located near Fredericton, was not self-sufficient and thus the family required the services of various tradespeople. Over a four-year period, Polly Mercereau received more than 250 pounds of wool to spin for the Robinson household. On 14 June 1803 she received 80 pounds of fleece to spin and delivered 69 yards of finished cloth on 10 September. Robinson recorded on that date, "Rcd 69 yards of cloth, 31 which [is] wool fulled. Paid Mrs Polly Mercereau in full of all acct by an order on Fraser".28 She would have needed help as the spinning alone would have taken almost three months of constant labour.29
15 Another New Brunswick weaver, Sybel Grey of Queens County, hired out her labour to local neighbours in the mid-19th century. She provided cloth for blankets and clothing, yarn for socks and mitts; all items of importance for rural residents "during the winter snows". A recent immigrant from England, Emily Beavan was one of Sybel’s new neighbours. Beavan mentioned her own lack of these critical textile skills in her memoirs, Life in the Backwoods of New Brunswick:The manufacture of the wool raised on the farm is the most important part of women’s work, and in this the natives particularly excel. As yet I knew not the mysteries of colouring brown with butternut bark, nor the proper proportion of sweet fern and indigo to produce green, so that our wool, on return from the carding mill had been left with this person-lady . . . who was a perfect adept in the art, to be spun and wove.30 Sybel’s skills in dyeing, spinning and weaving went further than merely providing simple textile services. She also knew the complexities of designing plaids, and she saved part of her wool payment to produce a much prized coverlet. This coverlet, commented Beavan, was "a sure mark of industry [and] the first ambition of a backwood matron".31 Thus, for rural households, such as the Greys, custom weaving would have made a difference in their income levels.
16 Women’s diaries from New Brunswick give further evidence of both the household’s engagement in and hiring patterns for textile production. For example, Eliza Cox Carter, on the Kingston Peninsula, hired a Mrs. Marstin for a two-month period in 1865. During her time with the Carters, Mrs. Marstin performed both spinning duties and other farm chores such as picking potatoes. Mrs. Marstin, along with the other female members of the Carter household, spun in the autumn of 1865 in preparation for Eliza’s weaving. By early December Mrs. Marstin had left the Carter household to work for another family, the Hardings.32 Janet McDonald, of Gagetown, also gave details in her diary, over a ten-year period, of both the cycle of textile production and the hired help for these and other tasks. For example, Janet had outside help come in to spin and perform household chores.33 Most of the textile activity, including washing fleece and spinning, happened in the spring between April and the middle of June.
17 A few weavers placed advertisements offering custom handweaving in New Brunswick newspapers in the 1850-1880 period. A Miss McDonald placed a four-week advertisement in the Newcastle Union Advocate in October 1873. She "respectfully notifie[d] the public that she has commenced business in Chatham and is now prepared to take orders for WEAVING IN ALL ITS BRANCHES". Miss McDonald carried out her business at the residence of Thomas Vanstone of Chatham.34 This advertisement suggests that women, especially unmarried ones such as Miss McDonald, may have aspired to have independent businesses.
18 Ellen Dunn of Blackville, Northumberland County, neither left a diary nor placed advertisements in newspapers to secure customers. In this case, the story of her weaving activities can be found in the 1861 and 1871 census materials. Here she was recorded as being a weaver and a widow with two daughters. In the 1861 census Ellen reported earning $207 from her weaving – not a small sum – to support her household. The 1871 Blackville census marshall, in marginal notes, commented that Dunn "manufactures cloth for a number of persons. Material all found [for] her". Ellen was a fairly prolific weaver producing 259 yards of cotton and wool homespun cloth, aided by her daughters, over a five-month period. Thus, Ellen’s weaving skills enabled her to support her small family within the lumbering community.35
19 Lumber mill owners, some of the most prominent customers of handwoven cloth, hired weavers’ textile skills and bought their products especially in the rural districts. For example, the Russell Lumbering Company of Chatham bought nearly 400 yards of handweaving from 17 weavers in 1864-65. Eleven of these transactions were for amounts of more than 20 yards. The Russells offered seven pence per yard (about 12 cents) and paid weavers mostly in cash for their product. This cash payment was unusual, as other transactions for homespun in various ledgers for this period showed mostly a combination of barter and small amounts of cash as payment.36
20 Three generations of the Doak family ran a saw mill, carding mill, grist mill and kiln in the small community of Doaktown, Northumberland County, from 1822 until early in the 20th century. In the late 19th century they frequently hired both married and single women to spin, weave, quilt and perform other textile-related tasks. Family account books show women such as Margaret Lyon spinning for the family each year from May or June into the fall. Ann Harvie Doak noted that Margaret "commenced spinning for the family on June 10, 1868, working for 11 weeks and 3 days" and earned 5s. (about one dollar) per week for her labour.37
21 Women who worked for the Doak family received both barter and cash for their textile services. The family also maintained a store where another spinner, Rebecca Underwood, spent part of her eleven-weeks pay in 1862 on gloves, stockings, shoes and imported cloth.38 Mrs. Thomas Doak, another local woman, supplied the Doak family with a variety of textile services over an eight-year period starting in the early 1880s.39 Her textile activities included knitting socks and mitts (25 cents a pair), hooking rugs (35 cents per day), preparing wool for carding and spinning (30 cents a day), mending clothes and rugs, as well as quilting (30 cents per day) and making comforters. Her neighbour, Mrs. James Moroney, provided extensive quantities of woven cloth and spun wool for the Doak family during the same eight-year period. Her weaving production varied from a high of 68 yards of blanketing a year to a low of ten yards by the end of 1889. In the same period she also spun between eight and 65 pounds of wool a year. The Doaks paid similar rates for spinning and weaving – ten cents a yard for cloth and 15 cents a pound for spinning.40 The Russell Lumber Company paid a slightly better rate, 12 cents a yard, for handweaving.41 Women who remained at home during the lumbering season thus found lucrative ways to pass the winter days, both weaving and knitting for a potential market.
22 Markets other than custom weaving existed for many textile producers. While the end use of cloth made by both artisan weavers and home weavers was not evident in either Charlotte County or Westmorland County census sources, Northumberland County was exceptional in the variety of ways enumerators hinted at the final consumers of artisan weavers’ production. Some weavers in the districts of Northesk and Newcastle wove different sorts of cloth, including twill and plain, for "country wear". Other weavers in the rural district of Chatham were more specific in how their cloth would be used. They produced cloth "for the farmer" and "for the country people".42
23 Historian Marjorie Cohen contends that, once commercially made products became readily available, domestic weavers gave up household production. Homespun cloth, according to Cohen, was a cheap product that did not have a ready market.43 While this description may be appropriate for cloth produced in Ontario, it does not apply to New Brunswick textiles. New Brunswick homespun was viewed as comparable in value to silks and coating material. For example, many customers purchased homespun cloth from the Doak store for 4s. to 5s. per yard (about 80 cents to $1.00 in 1866). The going rate for homespun cloth in the 1870s ranged between 60 to 75 cents a yard when used in exchange to settle accounts. Moreover, homespun, at even the lower rate of 60 cents a yard, was not a cheap fabric. The cheapest cloth available was unbleached cotton at 6 cents a yard. Wool flannel cloth retailed for 32 to 57 cents a yard, wool tweed for 20 cents, velvet for 30 cents, black silk and silk velvet for 65 to 80 cents, while the more expensive coating materials were also in the 60 to 80 cents a yard range.44
24 When assessing the manufacture and exchange of homespun cloth, historians should take into consideration other factors such as climate, rural occupations of consumers and the need for other commodities. Homespun was a more sturdy product for the types of occupational activities in the countryside. Many rural people used their homespun to settle their accounts at general stores as well as in exchange for much-needed commodities such as flour and molasses.45
25 The persistence and decline of domestic manufacturing is a common theme in international, but less so in Canadian, scholarship. Regional differences, spatial variances and economic considerations were critical factors in the rationalization of handweaving until the end of the 19th century in Canada. Sophie-Laurence Lamontagne stressed that demographic factors, climate and the integration of auxiliary mechanized operations all favoured weaving in Quebec until the end of the 19th century. As well, poor socio-economic conditions, low farm mechanization and insufficient capital to build mills also influenced Quebec’s position.46 Research done by Inwood and others on Ontario has added, as positive aspects of domestic manufacture, the flexibility of work, age-transmitted knowledge and appropriateness of domestic textile production to various stages of the life cycle. Also within the Ontario context, families with many females and the presence of immigrants with a knowledge of weaving are especially predominant factors.47 Low agricultural productivity combined with high transportation costs could influence the persistence of domestic manufacture in some areas of Canada, especially in counties less suitable for agriculture such as Northumberland.48
26 In New Brunswick the prevailing marketplace was an important consideration in the persistence of home-produced textiles. Why was there such a demand when other types of textile goods were readily available in general stores? Nancy Harris’s 1859 store ledger for Blissfield, Northumberland County showed that lumbermen were frequent purchasers of both cloth and men’s homespun trousers.49 The Colonial Farmer carried merchant advertisements in the 1860s and 1870s targeting farm families to supply homespun cloth, mitts and socks destined for men working in the lumber woods. Similar advertisements appeared occasionally in the Saint John papers in the 1860s and frequently in Fredericton and Newcastle newspapers as late as the 1880s. This suggests that homespun remained a popular commodity among certain segments of the population.50
27 Fredericton merchants Tennant and Davies, F.B. Edgecombe, A.A. Miller, P. McPeake and Owen Sharkey all advertised for home-produced textile products consistently in the New Brunswick Reporter and the Colonial Farmer from the 1860s until the early 1880s. For example, in the fall of 1879 Edgecombe stressed his "CAMP SUPPLIES", which included homespun jumpers, shirts and pants, socks, mitts and horse blankets, and he continued to place similar advertisements until 1882.51 Dever Bros. placed advertisements in November 1877 requesting 10,000 yards of homespun cloth as well as 500 dozen pairs of socks and mitts.52 Edgecombe encouraged customers to "bring in all the socks, mitts, drawers, yarn and homespun you have . . . and exchange them for dry goods at cash prices".53
28 Of the Fredericton merchants, A.A. Miller and Co. was by far the most aggressive. Miller’s advertisements, directed at "Lumbermen and River Drivers", announced the availability of homespun shirts, pants and drawers, camp blankets, grey, check and white homespun as well as socks and mitts. In early June 1880, in an advertisement in the New Brunswick Reporter, he asked his suppliers to "LOOK SHARP – Buy your cotton warps at A.A. Miller and make up Homespun Cloth, Socks, Mitts, etc. early in the season and you can be relieved of all such Domestic goods at the store . . . in exchange for dry goods. We want about 4000 yards of Cloth". Exactly three months later he announced that he wished to purchase "Homespun cloth of all kinds in large quantities, also 2000 pairs of socks and mitts, 1-2 tons of woollen yarn, oversocks, home knit drawers, shirts, pants &c. in exchange for dry goods". Miller placed a similar advertisement in the Maritime Farmer in June 1880 directed at the agricultural sector.54
29 Advertisements for country homespun appeared as well in the Newcastle and Chatham newspapers well into the 1880s. William Murray, for instance, placed an advertisement in the Union Advocate in 1873 wanting "Oats, Socks, Homespun, and Cash, particularly the latter, in exchange for first class [dry and fancy goods]".55 In September 1876 Sutherland and Creaghan announced the latest arrivals of merchandise in their store:We have received this week from the Country 1500 yards plain and double twilled HOMESPUN for lumbering suits. Also 150 dozen Homespun Socks and Mitts, Shirts and Jumpers. Parties going to the woods should call soon and secure bargains.56
30 These advertisements and others which appeared in New Brunswick newspapers between 1850 and 1880 speak more convincingly of the place of homespun in the rural New Brunswick economy than Agricola’s acerbic comments about women making cloth. Homespun cloth was in demand because it fulfilled a need for warm durable clothing. Men who worked outdoors, either in the lumber camps, on the log drives, on fishing boats or on the land depended on sturdy and warm fabrics for their clothing. Homespun, produced only by home weavers, was the denim of the 19th century.57 The demand for homespun cloth persisted in New Brunswick because of local needs unique to a resource-based economy. In Ontario, homespun production peaked by 1860 with a rapid decrease by 1881. However, in Quebec and New Brunswick the popularity of homespun declined more slowly.58
A Fredericton Merchant’s Advertisement
Display large image of Figure 1
31 For handweavers and spinners, the demand for homespun cloth and handspun yarn called upon their skills and knowledge to produce a desirable commodity which in turn fulfilled a market need. Women, even in small rural communities such as Doaktown and the farm and lumber districts of Charlotte and Northumberland Counties, could earn additional income through both their labour and their domestic textile production. If they considered weaving drudgery, as Agricola suggested, we may never know. What we do know is that homespun, commercial knitting and handweavers were a vital part of the rural New Brunswick landscape and economy in the 19th century. Earnings realized from looms, spinning wheels and knitting needles could make a difference in the comfort level of rural households. Weaving, regardless of the social discourse surrounding it in the 1860s, made women active participants in the well-being of their families and perhaps also contributed to the means to "acquire those pleasant manners" that Agricola alluded to in his letters to the press.
Notes
Production of Handwoven Cloth* in New Brunswick in yards
Census of New Brunswick, 1851, Vol. 4, p. 220; Census of New Brunswick, 1861, Vol. 4, p. 340; Census of Canada 1871, Vol. 3, p. 218.
Production Levels of Charlotte County Female Artisan Weavers in 1871*
