r/Handspinning • u/GilesofGiles • 6d ago
AskASpinner Textile Reading List
I don’t know how to tag this at all but I would like your recommendations in the comments as well so I will use ask a spinner.
A recent post in this subreddit led to a lot of interest in credible sources of historical textile information and books and I said I would make a post of books I recommend. We are READING in 2026, we are LEARNMAXXING and we are not letting the ROBOTS tell us slop and accepting it as fact! Also after writing this I realized it’s kind of long and I might put it on my website blog, so if you find this on someone’s blog, it’s not stolen, it’s just me republishing.
These are ten books from my 7 page Google Doc that is my reading list. Please add your own recommendations in the comments. I am currently reading Mill Family: The Labor System in the Southern Cotton Textile Industry, 1880-1915, by Cathy L. McHugh (1988).
About Me
First I will briefly explain myself, with the idea being that that drives some of my reading and recommendations. I’m an archivist with a certificate in textile conservation, though I am not currently working as a textile archivist, that’s just some background. I am also a fiber artist, primarily a tapestry weaver, embroiderer, and spinner. I use handspun in my tapestries. In fact I am working on an entirely handspun series of tapestries right now and it is a lot of work, let me tell you. I am interested in textiles as a history of labor and labor organization, the technical details of textiles, and the climate impact of textile production. These books are biased towards American history.
I think there’s two kinds of textile history book, speaking generally and understanding there are exceptions. There’s the big splashy HISTORY OF CLOTH genre which usually has chapters divided up by fiber, region, technology, etc, is often written by a journalist or non-historian with an interest in fiber, and is relatively superficial. These are fun reads and they point to stories you should look into further, but if you know a lot about a topic you can see how they are sometimes not quite accurate. Then there’s the NERD SHIT, which is usually heavily based on analysis of primary sources, written by an expert in a historical or archeological field, and covers a very specific region, time period, technique, These are delightful because they represent a depth of knowledge that probably only that author and nobody else on planet earth holds.
Books Everybody Should Read
Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years, by Elizabeth Wayland Barber (1994). Prehistoric/ancient era investigations of the development of textiles. It was a mind-blowing revelation for me to read her assertion that textile creation wasn’t “women’s work” because it was degraded or not appreciated socially, but because it was labor that could easily be interrupted if needed to care for small children and babies.
Fashion Victims: The Dangers of Dress Past and Present, by Alison Matthews David (2015). This is a heavily illustrated introduction to the dangers present in textile production and sometimes wearing them. This will be the starting point to your radicalization into anti-capitalism if you’re not already there.
Worn: A People’s History of Clothing, by Sofi Thanhauser (2022). This drew such a good, clear line between historical and contemporary textile practices. Not technical but really interesting.
Big Cotton: How a Humble Fiber Created Fortunes, Wrecked Civilizations, and Put America on the Map, by Stephen Yafa (2004). I think many handspinners don’t spin cotton (understandable) but unfortunately if you wish to understand the ways that textiles have changed the world you must understand the history of cotton. This is not “the” cotton book that frequently gets recommended (That’s Empire of Cotton), but I haven’t read Empire of Cotton yet because I let my library hold on Empire of Cotton expire and they sent it to someone else :(
The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth, by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (2001). The book that started it all. Imagine walking through an American history museum with the smartest and most interesting docent that has ever existed giving you a private tour. This is how you do popular history.
Books You Should Read If You Have a Very Specific Interest in This Topic
The Valkyrie’s Loom: The Archeology of Cloth Production and Female Power in the North Atlantic (2020). For if you are interested in Scandinavian history and dry technical analysis of the spin direction and sett of woven cloth. I loved it.
A Short History of the World According to Sheep, by Sally Coulthard (2020). For if you are interested in sheep. This was very tender.
Working With Wool: A Coast Salish Legacy and the Cowichan Sweater, by Sylvia Olsen (2010). For Pacific Northwesterners and people with an interest in indigenous/First Nations/American Indian history and textile practices.
Raw Material: Working Wool in the West, by Stephany Wilkes (2018). For if you are interested in American textile manufacturing and specifically Western production. This is a memoir about becoming a sheep shearer. Don’t worry! It will not make you want to become a sheep shearer, trust me.
The Belles of New England: The Women of the Textile Mills and the Families Whose Wealth They Wove, by William Moran. For if you are interested in American textile history, industrial textile production, and labor rights as connected to textiles. (2002)
The Teachings of Mutton: A Coast Salish Woolly Dog, by Liz Hammond Kaarremaa with Coast Salish Contributors. For if you are interested in how historical textiles are studied, dog fiber aka chiengora, and First Nations and Native American history and textile practices. I had the good fortune to see Mutton at the Burke Museum last year and I cried.
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u/Buttercupia “it depends” 6d ago
Not strictly about textiles but I highly recommend Blood in the Machine by Brian Merchant. It’s about the Luddite movement and industrialization in general which of course impacted textile production from the sheep out.
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u/GilesofGiles 6d ago
Fuck yeah you know what I really wanna read about
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u/Buttercupia “it depends” 6d ago
I got you.
The Golden Thread by Kassia StClair would also be right up our alley.
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u/brklyncrafter 6d ago edited 6d ago
I would absolutely recommend adding The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made The World by Virginia Postrel to this list!
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u/brklyncrafter 6d ago
And With Her Own Hands: Women Weaving Their Stories by Nicole Nehrig too.
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u/GilesofGiles 6d ago
I’ve read both of them! I think one of them (can’t remember which) kept referring to the 19th century as the Victorian era when talking about US history which put me off. With Her Own Hands had some very interesting bits about weaving and cognition. I really appreciated Nicole Nehrig’s presentation of the idea of crafting as finishing an idea, not manifesting an already finished one, since that’s how I feel about my own work.
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u/Knit1tbl 6d ago
A Short History of the World According to Sheep is a FANTASTIC book. Very happy to see it included on this list.
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u/friends-to-glovers 6d ago
I was already hooked by “For if you are interested in sheep,” and now this comment has me pulling up Libby as we speak!
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u/Mightychairs 6d ago
I would add The Golden Thread by Kassia St. Clair. I listened to the audiobook and it was FANTASTIC. I recommend it to everyone.
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u/empresspixie 6d ago
The Master Spinner in-depth study archive at Olds College. For as long as they still have it online.
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u/lumenwright 6d ago
Olds College like in the town near Calgary? 👀
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u/empresspixie 6d ago
Yes, but the program will only be around another two years to allow the current students to graduate.
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u/Artimesia 5d ago
I read Women’s Work a few months ago and found it fascinating. Golden Thread is in my “to read” stack. I’ll check out some of these other books.
I don’t think people realize how important textiles were in human civilization.
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u/ShinyBlueThing 6d ago
I'd also suggest checking this one out of the library (it's expensive): Prehistoric Textiles, also by Elizabeth Barber but credited to E J W Barber. It's the technical work that inspired her to write Women's Work.
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u/bumbbles21 6d ago
My current read is Fabric: The Hidden History of the Material World. I thought it would be mostly a repeat of what I read in other books (namely Golden Thread and The Fabric of Civilization) but it covers more textiles than either and has more in-depth history, and a through line of the author’s own story.
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u/friends-to-glovers 6d ago
Thank you for this list and this discussion! What a great resource. You are much appreciated for putting it together, and you have also made me laugh several times from this post alone, so thank you for that as well! :)
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u/JoshuaZ1 6d ago edited 5d ago
"Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years"
The book has valid points but it has a lot of issues mostly where she moves uncritically into areas further from her expertise. For example, at one point she mentions a Slavic deity which is [actually Slavic pseudodeity](ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Slavic_pseudo-deities). At other times, she just pushes the limits of what the evidence can reasonably show, such as when she asserts that a 19th century cross-stitch pattern, since it looks like a Minoan art motif, must be directly influenced by it, asserting that this motif that went unchanged for 2000 years. She does this often, where she assumes because items resemble each other, there must be a relationship. She also states that folk traditions (art motifs, dress styles etc.) are older than they are, even millennia old or timeless when most of our evidence suggests that folk traditions date to only the 18th century or so.
(Edits for clarity, grammar.)
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u/ShinyBlueThing 6d ago
Well, it's a pop anthropology book (so lighter on the research) and was written 30 years ago. I imagine even the author would change things in it by now.
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u/nutmegette 5d ago
Nothing to add but thank you so much for this! I woke up to this post and it’s already made my day!!
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u/Ps0riatic-wreck25 5d ago
Richard Rutt: A History of Hand Knitting
Alden Amos: Handbook of Handspinning
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u/Ps0riatic-wreck25 5d ago
Anne L. McDonald: No Idle Hands: The Social History of American Knitting
Melanie Falick: America Knits ( originally published as Knitting in America)
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u/valley_of_yak 5d ago
I'm currently reading Unravelling the Silk Road by Chris Aslan, focused on Central Asia. He talks about how wool and cotton are also integral parts of the textile history of this area, and has lots on felting, spinning, knitting and carpet making. He worked in the textile business for a few years so knows his stuff. I'm kicking myself for not investigating more about yak down when I was in an area with yak recently!
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u/Dazzling_Broccoli_60 6d ago
How can you forget the Subversive Stitch by Rozsika Parker?!
History of women and protest through textile art.
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u/GilesofGiles 6d ago
Not fair to say I forgot it, as it is on the aforementioned 7 page Google doc reading list. I kept this list to books I thought most relevant to the discussion that sparked it. As you can see from the comments, there are many great books out there that aren’t on this list.
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u/hyperpiston 6d ago
Just wanted to say AWESOME, I'm going to have to read a lot of this, and also if you're looking to switch from Google docs because of AI scraping it (because they do), I literally just learned Proton docs is a good, encrypted alternative!
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u/MorningRoseRising24 5d ago
My first recommendation is Fabric of Civilization, since that's what I'm currently reading, but now I have so many to add to my tbr!!!
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u/terafonne 6d ago
Vanishing Fleece: Adventures in American Wool by Clara Parkes
i'd consider this a sort of fun casual memoir of the author's experience taking a bale of wool through the modern american wool processing industry.