Weaving was known in all the great civilisations, but no clear line of causality has been established. Early looms required two people to create the shed and one person to pass through the filling. Early looms wove a fixed length of cloth, but later ones allowed warp to be wound out as the fell progressed. Weaving became simpler when the warp was
sized.
Africa Around the 4th century BCE , the cultivation of cotton and the knowledge of its spinning and weaving in
Meroë reached a high level. Export of textiles was one of the main sources of wealth for
Kush.
Aksumite King
Ezana boasted in his inscription that he destroyed large cotton plantations in Meroë during his conquest of the region.
Latin America , Mexico The
Indigenous people of the Americas wove textiles of
cotton throughout tropical and subtropical America and in the South American
Andes of wool from
camelids, primarily domesticated
llamas and
alpacas. Cotton and the camelids were both domesticated by about 4,000 BCE. American weavers are "credited with independently inventing nearly every non-mechanized technique known today." In the
Inca Empire of the Andes, both men and women produced textiles. Women mostly did their weaving using
backstrap looms to make small pieces of cloth and vertical frame and single-
heddle looms for larger pieces. Men used upright looms. The Inca elite valued
cumbi, which was a fine tapestry-woven textile produced on upright looms. The elite often offered as gifts of reciprocity to lords (other elite) in the Empire. In regions under direct control of the Inca, special artisans produced
cumbi for the elite. Women who created
cumbi in these regions were called
acllas or
mamaconas and men were called
cumbicamayos. Some of the techniques and designs are still in use in the 21st century. Whereas European cloth-making generally created ornamentation through "suprastructural" means—by adding embroidery, ribbons, brocade, dyeing, and other elements onto the finished woven textile—pre-Columbian Andean weavers created elaborate cloth by focusing on "structural" designs involving manipulation of the warp and weft of the fabric itself. Andeans used "tapestry techniques; double-, triple- and quadruple-cloth techniques; gauze weaves; warp-patterned weaves; discontinuous warp or scaffold weaves; and plain weaves" among many other techniques, in addition to the suprastructural techniques listed above.
East Asia woodblock print by
Yōshū Chikanobu, 1890. The weaving of
silk from silkworm cocoons has been known in
China since about 3500 BCE. Silk that was intricately woven and dyed, showing a well developed craft, has been found in a Chinese tomb dating back to 2700 BCE. Silk weaving in China was an intricate process that was very involved. Men and women, usually from the same family, had their own roles in the weaving process. The actual work of weaving was done by both men and women. Women were often weavers since it was a way they could contribute to the household income while staying at home. Women would usually weave simpler designs within the household while men would be in charge of the weaving of more intricate and complex pieces of clothing. The process of
sericulture and weaving emphasized the idea that men and women should work together instead of women being subordinate to men. Weaving became an integral part of Chinese women's social identity. Several rituals and myths were associated with the promotion of silk weaving, especially as a symbol of female power. Weaving contributed to the balance between men and women's economic contributions and had many economic benefits. These weavers were usually men who operated more complicated looms, such as the wooden draw-loom. This created a competitive market of silk weavers. The quality and ease of the weaving process depended on the silk that was produced by the silk worms. The easiest silk to work with came from breeds of silk worms that spun their
cocoons so that it could be unwound in one long strand.
Pedals were added to operate
heddles. By the Middle Ages such devices also appeared in
Persia, Sudan, Egypt and possibly the Arabian Peninsula, where "the operator sat with his feet in a pit below a fairly low-slung loom". In 700 CE, horizontal looms and vertical looms could be found in many parts of Asia, Africa and Europe. In Africa, the rich dressed in cotton while the poorer wore wool. By the 12th century it had come to Europe either from the
Byzantium or
Moorish Spain where the mechanism was raised higher above the ground on a more substantial frame. Equipment for unravelling silk cocoons. Khotan.jpg|Equipment for unraveling silk cocoons,
Khotan Women weaving silk. Kashgar.jpg|Women weaving silk,
Kashgar Viet Nam – The Colors of Traditional Brocade and Silk 3.jpg|A traditional Vietnamese brocade and silk products weaver using a handloom
Southeast Asia In the
Philippines, numerous pre-colonial weaving traditions exist among different
ethnic groups. They used various plant fibers, mainly
abacá or
banana, but also including
tree cotton,
buri palm (locally known as ) and other palms, various grasses (like and ), and
barkcloth. The oldest evidence of weaving traditions are
Neolithic stone tools used for preparing barkcloth found in archeological sites in
Sagung Cave of southern
Palawan and
Arku Cave of
Peñablanca, Cagayan. The latter has been dated to around 1255–605 BCE. Other countries in Southeast Asia have their own extensive history of weaving traditions. Weaving was introduced to Southeast Asia at the same time rice agriculture was introduced from China. As it was introduced alongside rice farming, weaving became popular in communities where rice was being farmed compared to communities that rely on hunting, gathering, and animal farming. These countries in Southeast Asia have more weaving traditions but these techniques are the popular ones. To create threads of cotton for weaving, spindle whorls were commonly used in Southeast Asia. It is made from either clay, stone or wood and has a variety of appearances regarding its shape and size. Spindle whorls were said to emerge in Southeast Asia along with expansion of rice agriculture from Yangtse, China. Additionally, its increasing appearance in certain regions of Southeast Asia back then may be also a sign of the enlargement of cotton thread and textile production. Due to its low cost and portability because of its small size, it was favored among rural weaving communities in countries of Southeast Asia. Weaved textiles in Southeast Asia are mostly made with looms. The foot brace loom is the earliest loom introduced to Southeast Asia from China, having its first appearance in Vietnam. Another loom that is widely used across Southeast Asia is the ground level body tension loom, also known as the belt loom, as a part of it needs to be attached to a belt-like strap on the weaver’s waist to control and hold the tension of the warped threads. The weaver worked at home and marketed his cloth at
fairs. The supply of thread has always limited the output of a weaver. About that time, the spindle method of spinning was replaced by the great wheel and soon after the treadle-driven
spinning wheel. The loom remained the same but with the increased volume of thread it could be operated continuously.
Colonial United States Colonial America relied heavily on
Great Britain for manufactured goods of all kinds. British policy was to encourage the production of raw materials in colonies and discourage manufacturing. The
Wool Act 1699 restricted the export of colonial wool. As a result, many people wove cloth from locally produced fibres. The colonists also used wool,
cotton and
flax (linen) for weaving, though
hemp could be made into serviceable canvas and heavy cloth. They could get one cotton crop each year; until the invention of the
cotton gin it was a labour-intensive process to separate the seeds from the fibres. Functional tape, bands, straps, and fringe were woven on box and paddle looms. A plain weave was preferred as the added skill and time required to make more complex weaves kept them from common use. Sometimes designs were woven into the fabric but most were added after weaving using wood block prints or embroidery.
Industrial Revolution Before the
Industrial Revolution, weaving was a manual craft and wool was the principal staple. In the great wool districts a form of factory system had been introduced but in the uplands weavers worked from home on a
putting-out system. The wooden looms of that time might be broad or narrow; broad looms were those too wide for the weaver to pass the shuttle through the shed, so that the weaver needed an expensive assistant (often an
apprentice). This ceased to be necessary after
John Kay invented the
flying shuttle in 1733. The shuttle and the picking stick sped up the process of weaving. There was thus a shortage of thread or a surplus of weaving capacity. The opening of the
Bridgewater Canal in June 1761 allowed cotton to be brought into Manchester, an area rich in fast flowing streams that could be used to power machinery. Spinning was the first to be mechanised (
spinning jenny,
spinning mule), and this led to limitless thread for the weaver. In 1784
Edmund Cartwright first proposed building a weaving machine that would function similarly to recently developed cotton-spinning mills, drawing scorn from critics who said the weaving process was too nuanced to automate. He built a factory at
Doncaster and obtained a series of patents between 1785 and 1792. In 1788, his brother Major
John Cartwight built Revolution Mill at
Retford (named for the centenary of the
Glorious Revolution). In 1791, he licensed his loom to the Grimshaw brothers of
Manchester, but their Knott Mill burnt down the following year (possibly a case of arson). Edmund Cartwight was granted a reward of £10,000 by
Parliament for his efforts in 1809. However, success in power-weaving also required improvements by others, including H. Horrocks of
Stockport. Only during the two decades after about 1805, did
power-weaving take hold. At that time there were 250,000 hand weavers in the UK. Textile manufacture was one of the leading sectors in the
British Industrial Revolution, but weaving was a comparatively late sector to be mechanised. The loom became semi-automatic in 1842 with Kenworthy and Bulloughs
Lancashire Loom. The various innovations took weaving from a home-based
artisan activity (labour-intensive and man-powered) to
steam driven
factories process. A large metal manufacturing industry grew to produce the looms, firms such as
Howard & Bullough of
Accrington, and
Tweedales and Smalley and
Platt Brothers. Most power weaving took place in weaving sheds, in small
towns circling
Greater Manchester away from the cotton spinning area. The earlier combination mills where spinning and weaving took place in adjacent buildings became rarer. Wool and
worsted weaving took place in
West Yorkshire and particular
Bradford, here there were large factories such as Lister's or Drummond's, where all the processes took place. Both men and women with weaving skills emigrated, and took the knowledge to their new homes in New England, to places like
Pawtucket and
Lowell. Woven '
grey cloth' was then sent to the finishers where it was bleached, dyed and printed.
Natural dyes were originally used, with
synthetic dyes coming in the second half of the 19th century. A demand for new dyes followed the discovery of
mauveine in 1856, and its popularity in fashion. Researchers continued to explore the chemical potential of
coal tar waste from the growing number of
gas works in Britain and Europe, creating an entirely new sector in the
chemical industry. The invention in
France of the
Jacquard loom, patented in 1804, enabled complicated patterned cloths to be woven, by using punched cards to determine which threads of coloured yarn should appear on the upper side of the cloth. The jacquard allowed individual control of each warp thread, row by row without repeating, so very complex patterns were suddenly feasible. Samples exist showing calligraphy, and woven copies of engravings. Jacquards could be attached to handlooms or powerlooms. A distinction can be made between the role and lifestyle and status of a handloom weaver, and that of the power loom weaver and craft weaver. The perceived threat of the power loom led to disquiet and industrial unrest. Well known protests movements such as the
Luddites and the
Chartists had handloom weavers amongst their leaders. In the early 19th-century power weaving became viable. Richard Guest in 1823 made a comparison of the productivity of power and handloom weavers: A very good Hand Weaver, a man twenty-five or thirty years of age, will weave two pieces of nine-eighths shirting per week, each twenty-four yards long, and containing one hundred and five shoots of weft in an inch, the reed of the cloth being a forty-four, Bolton count, and the warp and weft forty hanks to the pound, A Steam Loom Weaver, fifteen years of age, will in the same time weave seven similar pieces. He then speculates about the wider economics of using power loom weavers: ...it may very safely be said, that the work is done in a Steam Factory containing two hundred Looms, would, if done by hand Weavers, find employment and support for a population of more than two thousand persons.With the Industrial Revolution came a growth in opportunity for women to work within textile factories. However, in spite of their gender, their work was perceived to have a lower social and economic value than work done by their male counterparts. Under the direction of
Gunta Stölzl, the workshop experimented with unorthodox materials, including cellophane, fibreglass, and metal. From expressionist tapestries to the development of soundproofing and light-reflective fabric, the workshop's innovative approach instigated a modernist theory of weaving. Other notables from the Bauhaus weaving workshop include
Otti Berger,
Margaretha Reichardt, and
Benita Koch-Otte. In the Bauhaus, the weaving workshop was considered "the women's department", and many women were forced to join against wishes to study another art form. In Southeast Asia, some communities are working to revive weaving traditions as a way to address poverty, improve living conditions, support local communities, and to promote environmental sustainability. Several initiatives have been established to support this effort, such as the Maybank Women Eco-Weavers program by the Maybank Foundation which currently operates in Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia and Indonesia. This program helps create opportunities for women weavers throughout the Southeast Asia region to improve their livelihoods and to give them financial independence. Additionally, similar programs exist in Taiwan and in the Philippines. In Taiwan, The Lihang Studio and S’uraw Education was founded by Yuma Taru to revive the Atayal weaving culture and to promote indigenous education in weaving and dyeing. In the Philippines, the Kyyangan Weavers Association was established in the Ifugao Province as a way to conserve and promote the Ifugao weaving culture and other traditional practices. Also, this association collaborates with academic institutions, government agencies and other non-government organizations on research and product development to be able to offer economic opportunities for communities. ==Types of weaving==