Histories of the Scottish Atlantic
Transatlantic ThreadsScottish Linen and Society, c.1707-1780
£90.00
About this book
The first in-depth study to combine social, economic, cultural and material cultural perspectives on linen in eighteenth-century Scotland, showing definitively how the colonial context helped drive the industry
- Uses linen as the ‘thread’ and brings together economic, social and cultural primary material from marginal groups in two Atlantic societies, with particular focus on women in Scotland and enslaved people in North America.
- Highlights the value of using material culture and dress and textile history to further our understanding of Scottish history and Scottish society.
- Shows how Scots reacted to, and influenced, wider economic, social and political forces between the Union of 1707 and the rise of cotton at the end of the eighteenth century, and the impact these forces had on workers and consumers across Scotland and in colonial society.
- As part of the Histories of the Scottish Atlantic series, this work demonstrates how Scottish textiles and the people that made them contributed to the wider Atlantic economy, society and the perpetuation of the slavery system.
Transatlantic Threads shows how studying the making, use and meaning of a relatively low-cost, utilitarian cloth like linen, broadens our understanding of eighteenth-century Scotland and the wider Atlantic world. Different types of linen cloth were used across society everyday: from fine shirts worn by the rich, to coarse aprons worn by labourers; from expensive bed sheets, to canvas used for ships’ sails. Eighteenth-century linen production was a Scottish economic success story, with thousands of people working to produce millions of yards of yarn and woven cloth. It was also how Scots became inextricably linked with transatlantic trade and the slavery economy, as the desire to capture the colonial market was a key driver for developing coarse linen production.
Using a material commodity to explore everyday experiences of ordinary people, particularly women, non-elite and enslaved people, Transatlantic Threads examines the cultural and social significance of linen in Scottish and transatlantic society.
Reviews
Transatlantic Threads offers an innovative analysis of the role of linen in eighteenth-century Scottish society and the Atlantic economy. By focusing on coarse linen, Sally Tuckett imaginatively brings together dress, economic and social history, and the study of slavery in the eighteenth-century Atlantic world. She shows how linen was the fibre and fabric of choice for young and old, free and enslaved, linking Scotland to a wider British imperial remit.
Transatlantic Threads is an exemplary textile history, recovering the deepest structures of eighteenth-century economy, culture, and social life. The sustained attention to enslaved wearers and the place of Scottish linen in the Atlantic colonial system gives this book an unrivalled urgency while also showcasing Sally Tuckett’s scholarly skill and agility.
Sally Tuckett’s pathbreaking Transatlantic Threads reveals how a humble textile – linen – carved out a place for Scottish exports in the fast-growing British imperial economy of the eighteenth century. Adopting a novel approach that links people, places and things, Tuckett follows Scottish linen’s journey from flax to fabric, from the hands of Highland girls learning to spin to the backs of enslaved Africans clothed in coarse linen shirting as they toiled in the tobacco fields of Virginia.
Transatlantic Threads is truly an impressive and meticulously researched treatise on the making, meaning and flow of 18th Century Scottish Linen across the Atlantic. The text fills gaps in the scholarship on linen in the Atlantic diaspora and contributes significant insights into to the meaning of this important trade cloth in the transatlantic context. It highlights linen material as a connecting thread between people and places and informs our understanding of the people and societies who produced, disseminated, and consumed linen material. This path-breaking text is an essential read for scholars and students of Transatlantic studies, Material Culture studies and Textile history.
Table of contents
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Note on Language
List of Illustrations
Maps
Tables
Introduction: The Making, Movement and Meaning of Linen
1. Linen in Scottish Society
2. Cloth, Control and Commerce
3. The British Linen Company and the Transatlantic Trade
4. Linen and the Atlantic
5. Scottish Cloth and Enslaved People in the Chesapeake
6. Material Meanings
Conclusion: The Legacies of Scottish Linen
Appendix I: Stamped Linen, 1728-1780
Appendix II: Cargo of the Dove, 1742
Appendix III: Suppliers and Manufacturers for the Dove
Glossary
Bibliography
Index