Textiles in the Atlantic World
- LAST REVIEWED: 13 July 2023
- LAST MODIFIED: 30 October 2019
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0322
- LAST REVIEWED: 13 July 2023
- LAST MODIFIED: 30 October 2019
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0322
Introduction
Textile history is not just about the cloth itself; it is also about how that cloth was made, who used it and how, and what these factors can tell us as researchers about wider social, cultural, economic, and political practices of the past. Whether made of animal or plant fibers; woven, knitted, or felted; plain or dyed; embroidered or printed, textiles are used on some level by all societies and cultures. This use ranges from flat textiles such as blankets or bedding to utilitarian and fashionable garments that, respectively, protect or adorn the body, as well as giving observers a visual cue by which they can judge and categorize the wearer. Within the Atlantic world specifically, textiles can tell us about the ingenuity, social hierarchy, and cultural practices of indigenous populations before, during, and after colonial expansion. They can inform us about the development of the Atlantic economy in the early modern period, and the rise of industrial textile production over domestic manufacture from the late 18th century onward. Significantly, they can also tell us about the personal skills, tastes, and circumstances of the indigenous, free, and enslaved people who made, transported, used, and interpreted these goods in and around the Atlantic world. Exploring and understanding the history of textiles therefore involves the study of craft and design, technology and industrialization, goods and consumption, and people and society. Readers will find it helpful to also consult the Oxford Bibliographies articles on “Clothing,” “Material Culture in the Atlantic World,” “Cotton,” and “Silk.”
General Overviews
Textile history is inherently interdisciplinary, and approaches to it are as diverse as the textiles themselves. As such, there is no definitive overview of Atlantic textiles specifically, but there is a large body of work that can be drawn on, including introductory texts on the history of textiles, such as Schoeser 2003, which offers a rich, global perspective, and Harris 2010, which outlines the basic principles of textile manufacture from craft to industrial production. Gordon 2011 offers a more nuanced overview looking at the human need for textiles as protection from the elements and for symbolic and semiotic purposes. Economic history studies, such as Harte and Ponting 1973, have long used textiles as a means for discussing industrialization and trade in western Europe, providing key statistical information for the manufacture, movement, and value of textiles. Such approaches are still influential but are increasingly adopted alongside or with social and cultural analyses or object-based study, a key example of which is found in the list of contributors for Jenkins 2003. Much of the current field owes a debt to the object-focused works of museum curators, such as Montgomery 2007, Peck 2013, and Eaton 2014, where access to collections results in in-depth and informative studies on the physical properties, design, and movement of cloth. Textiles are also an obvious and useful choice for studies that incorporate the “material culture turn,” where everyday objects are studied to inform and help us interpret past societies and there is often considerable overlap with studies of clothing and dress; key examples are DuPlessis 2016 and Lemire 2018.
DuPlessis, Robert. The Material Atlantic: Clothing, Commerce, and Colonization in the Atlantic World, 1650–1800. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2016.
An important work that examines both cloth and clothing, including how they were traded, introduced, used, and interpreted. It draws on archival and visual material from the North and South Atlantic, offering comparisons and interpretations from different geographic, colonial, and economic circumstances to argue that there was both a standardization and diversification in textiles and dress in the Atlantic world.
Eaton, Linda. Printed Textiles: British and American Cottons and Linens, 1700–1850. New York: Monacelli Press, 2014.
Based on Florence Montgomery’s Printed Textiles: English and American Cottons and Linens, 1700–1850 (1970), Eaton’s work is the epitome of collection-based research and analysis. Eaton looks at production, trade, consumption, design, and technology. Sumptuously illustrated with examples from the printed textile collection at Winterthur Museum.
Gordon, Beverly. Textiles: The Whole Story, Uses, Meanings, Significance. London: Thames and Hudson, 2011.
A thoughtful study of the individual and cultural meanings of cloth in a global context. Gordon draws on a wide range of examples, comparisons, and situations from Greek mythology to cloth and the life cycle, and space suits are discussed alongside quilted garments of the 18th century.
Harris, Jennifer, ed. 5000 Years of Textiles. London: British Museum, 2010.
Divided into two parts. The first gives a survey of textile production techniques, from weaving to embroidery, dyeing and printing, and felt cloth. The second part is divided according to geographic regions with sections that explore textiles and their uses in chronological order. Includes a glossary and an extensive list of suggestions for further reading, making it a useful read for early stages of research. Published in association with the Whitworth Art Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Harte, N. B., and K. G. Ponting, eds. Textile History and Economic History: Essays in Honour of Miss Julia de Lacy Mann. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1973.
A series of essays that acknowledge the work of Mann as an economic and textile historian. The essays range chronologically from the 16th to the 19th century, and all have an English focus, but they are a prime example of how the study of textiles and economic history can be mutually beneficial.
Jenkins, David, ed. Cambridge History of Western Textiles. 2 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
These two volumes represent the diverse perspectives from which textile history can be studied, including contributions from dress historians, curators, archaeologists, business historians, and social historians. Each essay offers an overview of the current state of knowledge and introduces the historiography of that topic. Not necessarily a work to read from cover to cover, but an important starting point for production and consumption of textiles from the ancient world to the year 2000.
Lemire, Beverly. Global Trade and the Transformation of Consumer Cultures: The Material World Remade, c. 1500–1820. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2018.
An in-depth and thought-provoking examination of global commodities, including fur and fabric, and their impact on early modern society.
Montgomery, Florence, with Linda Eaton. Textiles in America, 1650–1870. Reprint ed. New York: Norton, 2007.
Based on extensive archival and object-based research, this is the definitive guide to textile taxonomy and terminology and is essential for anyone wishing to understand historic textiles in both North America and Europe. A dictionary of terms relating to both clothing and furnishing textiles is accompanied by contextual essays on furnishing fabrics and a comprehensive bibliography of printed primary material.
Peck, Amelia, ed. Interwoven Globe: The Worldwide Textile Trade, 1500–1800. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2013.
Collection of essays and a catalogue of objects based on an exhibition held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2013–2014. The essays cover a geographic and temporal range, providing useful starting points for those interested in the Atlantic textile trades and beyond. Includes lavish illustrations and a detailed catalogue of the objects in question.
Schoeser, Mary. World Textiles: A Concise History. London: Thames and Hudson, 2003.
Written by a leading textile historian, this relatively small volume explores the history of textiles in a clear and concise manner, making it an essential introductory read. Chapters are arranged thematically and chronologically, and a select bibliography for each chapter points to further reading.
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Article
- Abolition of Slavery
- Abolitionism and Africa
- Africa and the Atlantic World
- African American Religions
- African Religion and Culture
- African Retailers and Small Artisans in the Atlantic World
- Age of Atlantic Revolutions, The
- Alexander von Humboldt and Transatlantic Studies
- America, Pre-Contact
- American Revolution, The
- Anti-Catholicism and Anti-Popery
- Argentina
- Army, British
- Arsenals
- Art and Artists
- Asia and the Americas and the Iberian Empires
- Atlantic Biographies
- Atlantic Creoles
- Atlantic History and Hemispheric History
- Atlantic Migration
- Atlantic New Orleans: 18th and 19th Centuries
- Atlantic Trade and the British Economy
- Atlantic Trade and the European Economy
- Bacon's Rebellion
- Baltic Sea
- Baptists
- Barbados in the Atlantic World
- Barbary States
- Benguela
- Berbice in the Atlantic World
- Black Atlantic in the Age of Revolutions, The
- Bolívar, Simón
- Borderlands
- Bourbon Reforms in the Spanish Atlantic, The
- Brazil
- Brazil and Africa
- Brazilian Independence
- Britain and Empire, 1685-1730
- British Atlantic Architectures
- British Atlantic World
- Buenos Aires in the Atlantic World
- Cabato, Giovanni (John Cabot)
- Cannibalism
- Capitalism
- Captain John Smith
- Captivity
- Captivity in Africa
- Captivity in North America
- Caribbean, The
- Cartier, Jacques
- Castas
- Catholicism
- Cattle in the Atlantic World
- Central American Independence
- Central Europe and the Atlantic World
- Charleston
- Chartered Companies, British and Dutch
- Cherokee
- Childhood
- Chinese Indentured Servitude in the Atlantic World
- Chocolate
- Church and Slavery
- Cities and Urbanization in Portuguese America
- Citizenship in the Atlantic World
- Class and Social Structure
- Climate
- Clothing
- Coastal/Coastwide Trade
- Cod in the Atlantic World
- Coffee
- Colonial Governance in Spanish America
- Colonial Governance in the Atlantic World
- Colonialism and Postcolonialism
- Colonization, Ideologies of
- Colonization of English America
- Communications in the Atlantic World
- Comparative Indigenous History of the Americas
- Confraternities
- Constitutions
- Continental America
- Cook, Captain James
- Cortes of Cádiz
- Cosmopolitanism
- Cotton
- Credit and Debt
- Creek Indians in the Atlantic World, The
- Creolization
- Criminal Transportation in the Atlantic World
- Crowds in the Atlantic World
- Cuba
- Currency
- Death in the Atlantic World
- Demography of the Atlantic World
- Diaspora, Jewish
- Diaspora, The Acadian
- Disease in the Atlantic World
- Domestic Production and Consumption in the Atlantic World
- Domestic Slave Trades in the Americas
- Dreams and Dreaming
- Dutch Atlantic World
- Dutch Brazil
- Dutch Caribbean and Guianas, The
- Early Modern Amazonia
- Early Modern France
- Economy and Consumption in the Atlantic World
- Economy of British America, The
- Edwards, Jonathan
- Elites
- Emancipation
- Emotions
- Empire and State Formation
- Enlightenment, The
- Environment and the Natural World
- Ethnicity
- Europe and Africa
- Europe and the Atlantic World, Northern
- Europe and the Atlantic World, Western
- European Enslavement of Indigenous People in the Americas
- European, Javanese and African and Indentured Servitude in...
- Evangelicalism and Conversion
- Female Slave Owners
- Feminism
- First Contact and Early Colonization of Brazil
- Fiscality
- Fiscal-Military State
- Food
- Forts, Fortresses, and Fortifications
- Founding Myths of the Americas
- France and Empire
- France and its Empire in the Indian Ocean
- France and the British Isles from 1640 to 1789
- Free People of Color
- Free Ports in the Atlantic World
- French Army and the Atlantic World, The
- French Atlantic World
- French Emancipation
- French Revolution, The
- Gardens
- Gender in Iberian America
- Gender in North America
- Gender in the Atlantic World
- Gender in the Caribbean
- George Montagu Dunk, Second Earl of Halifax
- Georgia in the Atlantic World
- German Influences in America
- Germans in the Atlantic World
- Giovanni da Verrazzano, Explorer
- Glasgow
- Glorious Revolution
- Godparents and Godparenting
- Great Awakening
- Green Atlantic: the Irish in the Atlantic World
- Guianas, The
- Haitian Revolution, The
- Hanoverian Britain
- Havana in the Atlantic World
- Hinterlands of the Atlantic World
- Histories and Historiographies of the Atlantic World
- Honor
- Huguenots
- Hunger and Food Shortages
- Iberian Atlantic World, 1600-1800
- Iberian Empires, 1600-1800
- Iberian Inquisitions
- Idea of Atlantic History, The
- Impact of the French Revolution on the Caribbean, The
- Indentured Servitude
- Indentured Servitude in the Atlantic World, Indian
- India, The Atlantic Ocean and
- Indigenous Knowledge
- Indigo in the Atlantic World
- Insurance
- Internal Slave Migrations in the Americas
- Interracial Marriage in the Atlantic World
- Ireland and the Atlantic World
- Iroquois (Haudenosaunee)
- Islam and the Atlantic World
- Itinerant Traders, Peddlers, and Hawkers
- Jamaica in the Atlantic World
- Jefferson, Thomas
- Jesuits
- Jews and Blacks
- Labor Systems
- Land and Propert in the Atlantic World
- Language, State, and Empire
- Languages, Caribbean Creole
- Latin American Independence
- Law and Slavery
- Legal Culture
- Leisure in the British Atlantic World
- Letters and Letter Writing
- Lima
- Literature and Culture
- Literature of the British Caribbean
- Literature, Slavery and Colonization
- Liverpool in The Atlantic World 1500-1833
- Louverture, Toussaint
- Loyalism
- Lutherans
- Mahogany
- Manumission
- Maps in the Atlantic World
- Maritime Atlantic in the Age of Revolutions, The
- Maritime Literature
- Markets in the Atlantic World
- Maroons and Marronage
- Marriage and Family in the Atlantic World
- Maryland
- Material Culture in the Atlantic World
- Material Culture of Slavery in the British Atlantic
- Medicine in the Atlantic World
- Mennonites
- Mental Disorder in the Atlantic World
- Mercantilism
- Merchants in the Atlantic World
- Merchants' Networks
- Mestizos
- Mexico
- Migrations and Diasporas
- Minas Gerais
- Miners
- Mining, Gold, and Silver
- Missionaries
- Missionaries, Native American
- Money and Banking in the Atlantic Economy
- Monroe, James
- Moravians
- Morris, Gouverneur
- Music and Music Making
- Napoléon Bonaparte and the Atlantic World
- Nation and Empire in Northern Atlantic History
- Nation, Nationhood, and Nationalism
- Native American Histories in North America
- Native American Networks
- Native American Religions
- Native Americans and Africans
- Native Americans and the American Revolution
- Native Americans and the Atlantic World
- Native Americans in Cities
- Native Americans in Europe
- Native North American Women
- Native Peoples of Brazil
- Natural History
- Networks for Migrations and Mobility
- Networks of Science and Scientists
- New England in the Atlantic World
- New France and Louisiana
- New York City
- News
- Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World
- Nineteenth-Century France
- Nobility and Gentry in the Early Modern Atlantic World
- North Africa and the Atlantic World
- Northern New Spain
- Novel in the Age of Revolution, The
- Oceanic History
- Oceans
- Pacific, The
- Paine, Thomas
- Papacy and the Atlantic World
- Paris
- People of African Descent in Early Modern Europe
- Peru
- Pets and Domesticated Animals in the Atlantic World
- Philadelphia
- Philanthropy
- Phillis Wheatley
- Piracy
- Plantations in the Atlantic World
- Plants
- Poetry in the British Atlantic
- Political Participation in the Nineteenth Century Atlantic...
- Polygamy and Bigamy
- Port Cities, British
- Port Cities, British American
- Port Cities, French
- Port Cities, French American
- Port Cities, Iberian
- Ports, African
- Portugal and Brazile in the Age of Revolutions
- Portugal, Early Modern
- Portuguese Atlantic World
- Potosi
- Poverty in the Early Modern English Atlantic
- Pre-Columbian Transatlantic Voyages
- Pregnancy and Reproduction
- Print Culture in the British Atlantic
- Proprietary Colonies
- Protestantism
- Puritanism
- Quakers
- Quebec and the Atlantic World, 1760–1867
- Quilombos
- Race and Racism
- Race, The Idea of
- Reconstruction, Democracy, and United States Imperialism
- Red Atlantic
- Refugees, Saint-Domingue
- Religion
- Religion and Colonization
- Religion in the British Civil Wars
- Religious Border-Crossing
- Religious Networks
- Representations of Slavery
- Republicanism
- Rice in the Atlantic World
- Rio de Janeiro
- Rum
- Rumor
- Russia and North America
- Sailors
- Saint Domingue
- Saint-Louis, Senegal
- Salvador da Bahia
- Scandinavian Chartered Companies
- Science and Technology (in Literature of the Atlantic Worl...
- Science, History of
- Scotland and the Atlantic World
- Sea Creatures in the Atlantic World
- Second-Hand Trade
- Settlement and Region in British America, 1607-1763
- Seven Years' War, The
- Seville
- Sex and Sexuality in the Atlantic World
- Shakers
- Shakespeare and the Atlantic World
- Ships and Shipping
- Signares
- Silk
- Slave Codes
- Slave Names and Naming in the Anglophone Atlantic
- Slave Owners In The British Atlantic
- Slave Rebellions
- Slave Resistance in the Atlantic World
- Slave Trade and Natural Science, The
- Slave Trade, The Atlantic
- Slavery and Empire
- Slavery and Fear
- Slavery and Gender
- Slavery and the Family
- Slavery, Atlantic
- Slavery, Health, and Medicine
- Slavery in Africa
- Slavery in Brazil
- Slavery in British America
- Slavery in British and American Literature
- Slavery in Danish America
- Slavery in Dutch America and the West Indies
- Slavery in New England
- Slavery in North America, The Growth and Decline of
- Slavery in the Cape Colony, South Africa
- Slavery in the French Atlantic World
- Slavery, Native American
- Slavery, Public Memory and Heritage of
- Slavery, The Origins of
- Slavery, Urban
- Smuggling
- São Paulo
- Sociability in the British Atlantic
- Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts...
- Soldiers
- South Atlantic
- South Atlantic Creole Archipelagos
- South Carolina
- Sovereignty and the Law
- Spain, Early Modern
- Spanish America After Independence, 1825-1900
- Spanish American Port Cities
- Spanish Atlantic World
- Spanish Colonization to 1650
- Subjecthood in the Atlantic World
- Sugar in the Atlantic World
- Swedish Atlantic World, The
- Technology, Inventing, and Patenting
- Textiles in the Atlantic World
- Texts, Printing, and the Book
- The American West
- The Danish Atlantic World
- The French Lesser Antilles
- The Fur Trade
- The Spanish Caribbean
- Theater
- Time(scapes) in the Atlantic World
- Tobacco
- Toleration in the Atlantic World
- Transatlantic Political Economy
- Travel Writing (in the Atlantic World)
- Tudor and Stuart Britain in the Wider World, 1485-1685
- Universities
- USA and Empire in the 19th Century
- Venezuela and the Atlantic World
- Violence
- Visual Art and Representation
- War and Trade
- War of 1812
- War of the Spanish Succession
- Warfare
- Warfare in Spanish America
- Warfare in 17th-Century North America
- Warfare, Medicine, and Disease in the Atlantic World
- Weavers
- West Indian Economic Decline
- Whitefield, George
- Whiteness in the Atlantic World
- William Blackstone
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest (1611)
- William Wilberforce
- Wine
- Witchcraft in the Atlantic World
- Women and the Law
- Women Prophets