TAPE LOOM
Now she was not an over-worked farmer’s wife, but a city woman, the wife of a colonel. I do not believe they had one bit more time than we have. Manners and customs change, but this busy world was always busy, and it is true of all ages that “woman’s work is never done.” There are those who regret the disuse of these homely occupations, saying that the home has suffered with the modern broadening of “woman’s sphere.” They forget that a sphere must round itself out on all sides, leaving the centre at the same point: the rounding out of woman’s sphere leaves her centre still the home. And the home still centres in the woman; the country still centres in the home, and no mere change of womanly occupation can alter God’s fundamental law of human society. But for the comfort of those who would still see woman spinning as in the “good old times,” it is worthy of note that in Deer Isle, Maine, the spinning-match is still extant. True to patriotic tradition, the wool-spinners there have formed a “Martha Washington Benevolent Society,” which for fifty years, without a break, has held an annual spinning-match in August, twenty or more women assembling with their great wheels, and spinning with all the old-time dexterity. One of their number is one hundred and two years old, and during the past winter made, entirely without help, four large patch-work bed-quilts, double-bed size, and sold them at the sale which accompanies the match. The yarn which they spin through the year they knit into stockings and mittens for home use and for sale.
In New York City lives a family who are now developing these homely industries to their full artistic limits. One of the most interesting exhibits in the National Exposition of Children’s Work held in March, 1901, was a portière entirely hand-made by the young son and daughter of Douglas Volk, the artist, in their city home. The wool was spun and dyed by Marian Volk with vegetable dyes of her own making, and the boy wove it on a genuine loom, one hundred years old, brought from the heart of Maine. The room in which they spin and weave, with its home-made rugs, antique chairs, and brass candlesticks, its spinning-wheels, clock-reel, and loom, all in daily use, might be taken for the “living-room” of an old Maine farmhouse. The artistic possibilities of the old spinning and weaving were recognized a few years ago by Mrs. Volk while living at Lovell, her summer home in Maine, and she has successfully established there her new industry of home rug-making, every process of which is marked with the sincerity of hand-work—a noble handicraft indeed. Thus this time-honored occupation still thrives in the East, while in the remote and mountainous regions in the South, handweaving and spinning are still household arts—as also in many foreign countries.
But here must end the tale of the spinning-wheel in many ages and climes, though the tale is not half told. We have seen the centuries bear witness to the dignity of woman’s manual labor, of which the old dusty spinning-wheel is as glorious a symbol as are the tattered battle-flags a token of the soldier’s hard-fought field. Patriotism, self-devotion, sacrifice—all speak to us from the one and from the other. Woman’s labor has supported the home, has filled the breach in war-time, has clothed the world, and continues to do so to-day. For though the spinning-wheel is mute, the sewing-machine and the factory are not, and the “Song of the Shirt” goes on forever. The Daughters of Liberty spun for their country in the days of ’76, and they have lived again in every period of their country’s need—in the Sanitary Commission, in the women’s Red Cross Auxiliaries, in the “Dames” and “Daughters” of to-day. Let us thank God that we had such foremothers; thank Him that they and the forefathers gave us a country of which we may still be proud; thank Him that their spirit is still alive in our midst, for as the uprising of that spirit drove the tyrant from our shores in 1776, so it has ever since arisen, and still will rise to deliver our country from the perils of the hour—the peril from the greedy and corrupt politician, the perils of popular ignorance and luke-warm patriotism, and all other perils consequent upon the loss of our forefathers’ ideals. May this spirit never die, for the day of its disappearance is the day of our country’s doom. It is the duty and the privilege of our great Society to see that “old New England” never fails us, for it is her spirit that has burned high in the breast of American womanhood from Bunker Hill till now, and there stands its witness. Honor the old spinning-wheel and all it signifies, and to the spinster:
“Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her works praise her in the gates.”
FLAX WHEEL