The+Age+of+Homespun

Thatcher Ulrich, Laurel. 2001.//The Age of Homespun : Objects and stories in the creation of an American Myth//. Vintage.

“Looking back we can see how an unobserved shift in the gender division of labor in the early 1700s created the female centered textile economy later generations remembers as “the age of homespun.” P.8 In a mix of LTU and quotes from Rev.Bushnell history is made and can be written about “the silent work of ordinary people in the past is like electricity, which, though unseen ‘goes through and masters the world, holding all atoms to their places, and quickening even the life of our bodies.’ Electricity becomes historic only in a storm, ‘though it does nothing more in its thunder, than simply to notify us, by so great a noise, of the breach of its connexions, and the disturbances of its silent work.’” (P.25) “The history of rural clothing making is a story about the wealth that ordinary people created. But it is also the story of cultural conflict, violence, and death.” P.38 “The history of textiles is fundamentally a story about international commerce in goods and ideas. It is therefore a story about exploitation as well as exchange, social disruption as well as entrepreneurship, violence as well as aesthetics.” P.434 In a central aspect this is a work of historiography, showing how the original development of the myth of the homespun represents a form of cultural/social history inside her social history of weaving and the myth of weaving. The move to look at the common practices of everyday people, and the practices and technologies which formed their life-world was both the subject of the myth making, and the method of her study of the myth and myth-makers as well as their target. Thus in the first section she discusses the spinning wheel and other material-cultural artifacts that serve as her lens while she also discusses the way those same artifacts were interpreted and framed by the Rev. Bushnell who coined the term the “age of homespun” which represents another history of weaving, and an event in her history of weaving. Beyond the double level this is two narratives. The first is the story of the change of weaving from old world masculine profession, to new world household work, to factory work that was done by women but challenged femininity, to a myth about the household work that labels it feminine. The second is a social history of the tools used in weaving and the fabrics made as a lens into the life of common people in New England for the last three hundred years, but especially since they became objects of worth to be stored as history since the establishment of the myth of the “age of homespun.” Documentary evidence and careful historical analysis to make the narrative of the book. Using several comparative stories, especially showing how past storytellers have told the stories she now retells based on more rigorous historical research. While centrally relying on the primary evidence of documents and artifacts of the eras in question, Ulrich also carefully links to the various histories that have been written, some as reference material, and situating some in the story itself when they had an impact. Feminist History History of technology (Domestic Technology) Social History/ Historiography History of Economic Systems Material culture The way technology was used, and shaped daily life in historical settings. Example of social shaping of technology and the way its role in the social milleu changed. The way that gender norms can be written and re-written into a technology as the myths and stories connected to it, and its position in practices of use change. There is an interesting discussion layered throughout about the way that fabric and weaving of it is distinct from basket and other weavings due to the way that fabric stood to the early Americans as a synecdoche for civilization in comparison to the “naked” savage wearing skins. Also progress being associated with the steam engines and factories, balancing with the threat that poses by drawing women into working life. The relation of technologies of production to social change in the organizations to use them, resistances to change and the development of imaginaries/myths of technologies. I think that it provides an interesting model of the power of discourse in its presentation of both how the situation at the time caused the rewriting of the history of homespun, and how the power of the reference to that historical period (made easier and stronger) by association to the phrase “age of homespun” was able to be mobilized in a later era.
 * 1) __ What three quotes capture the critical import of the text? __
 * “….the historiographic tension in my project. This is a book about cloth-making and about the production of history.”P.4 **
 * “My purpose is not to debunk the sentimental vision of the late nineteenth century, but to trace it origins, exploit its contributions, and perhaps in the process to explain its persistence.” P.7 **
 * “The tensions apparent in Bushnell’s thinking about women help explain the attractions of the age of homespun. In a world where economy and household were one, there was no need to choose between equality and domesticity. Locating the sources of American character in the preindustrial household allowed writers to elevate women’s work without challenging the nineteenth –century trope of separate spheres.” P.23-24 **
 * “The stories hidden in New England Collections shatter Bushnell’s vision of an innocent rural economy sustained by homespun, but they demonstrate the power of his central argument. To study the flow of common life is to discover the electricity of history.” P.40 **
 * 1) __ What is the main argument of the text? __
 * 1) __ Describe at least three ways that the main argument is supported. __
 * 1) __ Describe the main literatures that the text draws on and contributes to __.
 * 1) __ Describe at least three of the text’s themes or topics that are of general interest in STS. __
 * 1) __ Explain how this book could inform your research. __