Project blog
From the introduction of the spinning wheel to England during the later Middle Ages to its eclipse by powered spinning machines early in the nineteenth century, hand-spun yarn was vital to the success of the textile industries that dominated English manufacturing...
Yet hand spinning before the Industrial Revolution is typically dismissed as a low-productivity bottleneck that needed to be overcome in the forward march of economic and technological progress. It has rarely been studied in its own right. 'Spinning in the Era of the Spinning Wheel' aims to remedy this deficiency. It is a five-year research project, funded by the European Research Council and led by Professor John Styles at the University of Hertfordshire, UK. Its objective is a comprehensive history of hand spinning in England between 1400 and 1800.
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New Publication: The Holker Album: Textile Samples and Industrial Espionage in the 18th Century
11 February 2023
The Holker Album, edited by Ariane Fennetaux and John Styles and published by Éditions des Arts Décoratifs, is a facsimile edition of an album of British textile swatches assembled...
Everyday Fashion in Early-Modern Europe: Transformations in Textiles, 1500-175
14 September 2021
Click on the Download button below for John Styles’ paper, ‘Everyday Fashion in Early-Modern Europe:Transformations in Textiles, 1500-1750’, presented at the Refashioning the...
2 August 2021
Click on the Download button below for John Styles’ paper, ‘Re-fashioning Industrial Revolution: Fibres, fashion and technical innovation in British cotton textiles, 1630-1780’,...
“Our traitorous money makers”: the Yorkshire coiners and the law, 1760-83
22 May 2021
Open the link below for the final mss. version of ‘“Our traitorous money makers”: the Yorkshire coiners and the law, 1760-83’, subsequently published as chapter 5 in John Brewer...