Skip to content

A thread through time

Law & Policy

How did government decide whose side to take?

Tariffs, embargoes, the New Deal, the Civil Rights Act, OSHA, NAFTA: the textile story is also the story of how American law was made.

29 stories across 16 chapters

  1. Before 1600 · Before the Loom

    Tragedy

    The Long Walk and the Trading Post

    1863 to the 1930s: how conquest, confinement, and federal policy reshaped Diné weaving.

    Read the story →
    Diné (Navajo) captives under armed guard at Fort Sumner, New Mexico, during the internment at Bosque Redondo that followed the Long Walk.
    U.S. Army Signal Corps, "Navajo Indian captives under guard, Fort Sumner, New Mexico," c. 1864-1868. Palace of the Governors Photo Archives (NMHM/DCA 028534); U.S. National Archives (NAID 148727588). Public domain.

  2. 1600–1760 · The Colonial Hearth

    Impact

    Sheep, Statutes, and Survival

    How colonial law conscripted the household into a textile economy.

    Read the story →
    Spinning in the colonial American kitchen, where nearly all household cloth began.
    Engraving from Joel Dorman Steele and Esther Baker Steele, "A Brief History of the United States" (1885). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

  3. 1760–1789 · The Revolutionary Loom

    Labor

    The Daughters of Liberty

    Women as the economic engine of colonial resistance.

    Read the story →
    "A Society of Patriotic Ladies, at Edenton in North Carolina"-a London satirist's mocking view of the fifty-one women who pledged on October 25, 1774 to refuse British tea and "any Manufacture from England." The caricature is itself evidence of how seriously Britain took the colonial boycott of its cloth.
    Attributed to Philip Dawe, "A Society of Patriotic Ladies, at Edenton in North Carolina," mezzotint published by R. Sayer and J. Bennett, London, March 25, 1775. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Public domain.
  4. Material Culture

    The Spinning Bee as Political Theater

    A domestic chore staged as a public act.

    Read the story →
    "A Society of Patriotic Ladies, at Edenton in North Carolina"-a London satirist's mocking view of the fifty-one women who pledged on October 25, 1774 to refuse British tea and "any Manufacture from England." The caricature is itself evidence of how seriously Britain took the colonial boycott of its cloth.
    Attributed to Philip Dawe, "A Society of Patriotic Ladies, at Edenton in North Carolina," mezzotint published by R. Sayer and J. Bennett, London, March 25, 1775. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Public domain.
  5. Biography

    The Hartford Broadcloth

    George Washington's inauguration suit as policy statement.

    Read the story →
    George Washington takes the oath of office on the balcony of Federal Hall, April 30, 1789, wearing brown broadcloth woven at the Hartford Woolen Manufactory.
    Amos Doolittle, "Federal Hall, N.Y. 1789-First Capitol of the United States," hand-colored engraving, 1790. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division (ppmsca.15703). Public domain.

  6. 1793–1850 · The Cotton Kingdom

    Impact

    Lords of the Loom, Lords of the Lash

    The political alliance between Boston mill owners and Southern planters.

    Read the story →
    Abbott Lawrence, Boston textile magnate and namesake of Lawrence, Massachusetts-a leading "Cotton Whig" allied with Southern planters.
    Charles Fenderich, "Abbott Lawrence," lithograph, 1844. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution (NPG.66.88). CC0.
  7. Biography

    Eli Whitney's Patent Trap

    The inventor of the gin made little from it.

    Read the story →
    Eli Whitney's patent drawing for the cotton gin, granted March 14, 1794.
    Eli Whitney, patent drawing for the cotton gin, March 14, 1794. Records of the Patent and Trademark Office (Record Group 241), U.S. National Archives. Public domain.

  8. 1820–1845 · The Lowell Mill Girls

    Biography

    Sarah Bagley: A Labor Voice in Print

    A weaver who became the public voice of industrial reform.

    Read the story →
    A young woman winding shuttle bobbins in a New England weave room.
    After Winslow Homer, "The Bobbin Girl," wood engraving, c. 1871. National Park Service (NPGallery). Public domain.

  9. 1846–1860 · The Sewing Revolution

    Innovation

    The Sewing Machine Combination

    The first patent pool in U.S. history, born of years of lawsuits.

    Read the story →
    Elias Howe's 1846 patent model-the lockstitch patent at the center of the "Sewing Machine War."
    Elias Howe Jr., sewing machine patent model, 1846 (U.S. Patent 4,750). National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution. Public domain.

  10. 1861–1865 · Uniforms of Conflict

    Tragedy

    The Spread of 'Shoddy'

    War profiteering, recycled rags, and a word that entered everyday speech.

    Read the story →
    A Union volunteer uniform made at the Schuylkill Arsenal in Philadelphia, the Army's principal clothing depot during the Civil War.
    Uniform of the Keystone Zouaves, manufactured at the Schuylkill Arsenal, Philadelphia, 1863-1866. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access. CC0.
  11. Impact

    Uniforms and the Black Soldier

    When the right to wear blue was an argument for citizenship.

    Read the story →
    Company E, 4th U.S. Colored Infantry, in full Union uniform at Fort Lincoln, Washington, D.C.
    William Morris Smith, "District of Columbia. Company E, 4th U.S. Colored Infantry, at Fort Lincoln." Library of Congress, Civil War Glass Negatives (cwpb.04294). Public domain.

  12. 1870–1910 · The Garment District

    Material Culture

    Lewis Hine and the Camera as Indictment

    A sociologist with a flash camera redefined documentary photography.

    Read the story →
    Addie Card, a twelve-year-old spinner in North Pownal, Vermont-one of Lewis Hine's most widely reproduced photographs.
    Lewis Wickes Hine, "Addie Card, 12 years old. Spinner in cotton mill, North Pownal, Vermont," 1910. National Gallery of Art, Washington, Open Access (165230). CC0.

  13. 1880–1920 · The Gilded Age of Wool

    Impact

    The Dagenhart Boys and the Law

    How a Charlotte cotton mill family carried child labor to the Supreme Court, and why it took twenty-five years to end it.

    Read the story →
    Children on the night shift at Highland Park Mill No. 3 in Charlotte, North Carolina, at 10:30 at night. Hine noted that one boy had worked in the mill for nine years, half of it at night.
    Lewis Wickes Hine, "A few of the hands on the night shift in Highland Park Mill No. 3, Charlotte, N.C. 10:30 P.M. January 7/09," 1909. Library of Congress, National Child Labor Committee Collection (LC-DIG-nclc-01577). Public domain.

  14. 1911 · The Ashes of New York

    Tragedy

    The Acquittal of Blanck and Harris

    The 'Shirtwaist Kings' walked free.

    Read the story →
    Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, the "Shirtwaist Kings" who owned the Triangle Waist Company.
    Brown Brothers, "Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, owners of the Triangle Waist Company." Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, Cornell University (ILGWU Archives). Flickr, CC BY 2.0.
  15. Biography

    Frances Perkins: The Witness Who Built the New Deal

    A young reformer watched the fire and helped remake American government.

    Read the story →
    Frances Perkins, who witnessed the Triangle fire and became the first woman to serve in a U.S. cabinet.
    Bain News Service, "Frances Perkins." Library of Congress, George Grantham Bain Collection (LCCN 2014708218). Public domain.

  16. 1920–1930 · The Electric Loom

    Tragedy

    The Marion Massacre

    Six strikers killed at the Marion Manufacturing Company gate, less than three weeks after Ella May Wiggins.

    Read the story →
    The power house and Columbia Duck Mill on the Columbia Canal. Opened in 1894, Columbia Mills was the first textile mill in the world driven entirely by electric motors.
    A. C. Bosselman & Co. (publisher), "Electric Power House and Columbia Duck Mill, Columbia, S.C.," postcard, c. 1910. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

  17. 1934 · The Great Textile Strike

    Labor

    The Flying Squadrons

    Mobile labor organizing in the Piedmont South.

    Read the story →
    Arrested pickets marched into Georgia's military internment camp under armed guard (left), and a guardsman behind a steel barricade at Kannapolis, North Carolina (right).
    Unidentified press photographers, "Imprisoned for Striking Under N.R.A.; Cold Steel Against Unarmed Workers," Daily Worker (New York), September 22, 1934. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
  18. Tragedy

    The Honea Path Massacre

    Six dead at the Chiquola Mill gate in about three minutes; a seventh died later.

    Read the story →
    Armed strikebreakers at the Chiquola Mill in Honea Path on September 6, 1934, the day seven strikers were shot dead at the mill gate.
    Unidentified photographer, armed men at the Chiquola Mill, Honea Path, South Carolina, September 6, 1934. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
  19. Impact

    The Stretch-Out

    The speed-up that detonated the 1934 strike.

    Read the story →
    A Paterson silk weaver tending four looms at once-the work assignment that triggered the 1913 strike.
    Lewis Wickes Hine, "Paterson, New Jersey-Textiles. Weaver operating four-loom system," 1936-1937. Works Progress Administration National Research Project, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NAID 518541). Public domain.
  20. Tragedy

    Saylesville and Woonsocket

    The National Guard fires on strikers in two Rhode Island mill towns.

    Read the story →
    The historic marker for the Saylesville mill village in Lincoln, Rhode Island.
    Shadowe, "Saylesville Historic District," Lincoln, Rhode Island (2014). Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.

  21. 1960-1985 · The Long Integration

    Labor

    Opening the Mill Gates

    How Black workers used Title VII to integrate the South's largest industry.

    Read the story →
    A cotton mill at Darlington, South Carolina, about 1905. In 1956 the Darlington Manufacturing Company closed days after its workers voted for a union-the case behind the Supreme Court's 1965 Darlington decision.
    Illustrated Post Card Co., "Darlington, S.C. Cotton Mill," tinted halftone postcard, c. 1905. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
  22. Biography

    The Real Norma Rae

    Crystal Lee Sutton, a cardboard sign, and the seventeen-year fight to organize J.P. Stevens.

    Read the story →
    A cotton mill at Darlington, South Carolina, about 1905. In 1956 the Darlington Manufacturing Company closed days after its workers voted for a union-the case behind the Supreme Court's 1965 Darlington decision.
    Illustrated Post Card Co., "Darlington, S.C. Cotton Mill," tinted halftone postcard, c. 1905. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
  23. Labor

    Remember Darlington

    A mill closed to punish a union vote, and the Supreme Court case that followed.

    Read the story →
    A cotton mill at Darlington, South Carolina, about 1905. In 1956 the Darlington Manufacturing Company closed days after its workers voted for a union-the case behind the Supreme Court's 1965 Darlington decision.
    Illustrated Post Card Co., "Darlington, S.C. Cotton Mill," tinted halftone postcard, c. 1905. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
  24. Impact

    Brown Lung

    Byssinosis, the Carolina Brown Lung Association, and the fight for a cotton dust standard.

    Read the story →
    Fifteen-year-old Bertha Bonneau tending a jack speeder in the card room of the King Philip Mill. Card rooms, where cotton was opened and combed into roving, carried the heaviest loads of the dust that causes byssinosis.
    Lewis Wickes Hine, "King Philip Mill-Card Room. Doffer on Jack Speeder. Bertha Bonneau, 15 years," Fall River, Massachusetts, 1916. Library of Congress, National Child Labor Committee Collection (cph.3b33420). Public domain.

  25. 1980–2005 · The Great De-Industrialization

    Impact

    The End of the Quotas

    The night the quotas died.

    Read the story →
    A container ship at the Port of Los Angeles. After Multi-Fibre Arrangement quotas expired on January 1, 2005, apparel imports surged.
    Downtowngal, "Container ship NYK Themis at the Port of Los Angeles" (2021). Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

  26. 2010–2020 · The Reshoring Frontier

    Impact

    The PPE Pivot of 2020

    What was left of the U.S. textile base, in a crisis.

    Read the story →
    The N95 respirator production line Honeywell set up in Phoenix, Arizona, in spring 2020.
    Shealah Craighead, Official White House Photo, Honeywell International Inc. mask production line, Phoenix, Arizona, May 5, 2020. Public domain (U.S. government work).

  27. 2020–Present · The Circular Reckoning

    Impact

    The New York Fashion Act

    A major U.S. attempt to legislate apparel supply chains—still unpassed.

    Read the story →
    A worker pushes a cart of fabric bolts between delivery trucks in Manhattan's Garment District, April 1973.
    Dan McCoy, "A frequent sight in midtown Manhattan's famous Garment District (between Broadway and Eighth Avenue)," April 1973. U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NAID 549867). Public domain.
  28. Tragedy

    Rana Plaza

    The 2013 factory collapse in Bangladesh that exposed the hidden supply chains of American brands.

    Read the story →
    Rescue workers search the wreckage of Rana Plaza in Savar, Bangladesh, three days after the eight-story garment-factory building collapsed on April 24, 2013.
    Sharat Chowdhury, "2013 Savar building collapse," April 27, 2013. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.5.
  29. Labor

    From El Monte to SB 62

    Slavery in a Los Angeles suburb in 1995, and California's 2021 law making brands answer for their sweatshops.

    Read the story →
    A textile-recycling bin beside ordinary waste containers. Most discarded clothing worldwide is still landfilled or incinerated.
    Daniel Capilla, "Textile Recycling Container and Waste Containers," Málaga, Spain (2022). Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Other threads