Review: The Fabric of Civilization by Virginia Postrel: String-Driven Technology

The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World by Virginia Postrel

Four and 1/2 Stars: nonfiction, aspects of life you never considered before

I loved this book. Virginia Postrel covers a piece of civilization that affects us every day yet we rarely think about: textiles. Or fabric, to use a more common term.

It’s hard to think of cloth as being technology, but it is. Someone, back in the mists of time, looked at that moth cocoon, that furry goat, that fluffy seed covering, and thought, hmm. I’d like something to cover my body besides an animal skin. Or, more likely what came first, hmm. I’d like something stronger than a grass stem to tie my stone axe head to the handle. Maybe I can do something with those fibers and turn them into … into …

String!

Yes, string is technology. Can you make string with what’s hanging around your household? I can’t and I have a spinning wheel I don’t know how to use lurking in my attic. I’ve got carding combs too, to card the wool from sheep and goats I don’t have. They don’t do me a lot of good, but I’ve got them. I also know how to construct a simple box loom so I could conceivably weave the string I manufacture into a small piece of cloth. After I weave one small piece of cloth, I could spin more string (or yarn or thread); enough to weave another small piece of cloth. Eventually, once I’ve spun enough thread and woven enough pieces of cloth, I might have enough cloth rectangles to sew into a coat to keep out the cold.

It’s a lot of work and I’m stuck with whatever color the original thread is, unless I want to learn how to dye the yarn. Or the resulting cloth.

Did you know that women used to spin — all around the world too — plant and animal fibers into thread every waking moment when they weren’t doing something else? It took a dozen or more skilled spinners (or spinsters) to spin enough yarn to keep up with one, count ‘em, one weaver.

I actually got to see a demonstration of this at a Farm Show exhibit a few years back. I coaxed my husband into watching a sheep to shawl competition. There were many teams. Each team included a sheep, a man to shear the sheep (it requires both muscle and skill to wrestle a sheep in submission; points are deducted if the sheep’s skin is nicked or the fleece is damaged) and a team of six to ten spinsters who card and comb and as soon as enough fleece is processed into something spinnable, they start spinning yarn.

There is one weaver. The weaver and spinsters were about 95% female but I seem to recall there was a male spinner in one group. The weaver cards and spins too, until enough yarn accumulates to thread the loom with the warp and get started. The shearer, once the sheep was de-fleeced, also carded wool to get the production line moving fast enough for the weaver to have yarn to weave.

I don’t recall them wasting time trying to dye the fleece or the yarn. The color of the finished shawl was whatever the sheep was.

Once the excitement of sheep wrestling was over, my husband claimed it was like watching paint dry. The rest of the audience (including me) was riveted. It was a large audience too and clearly not just made up of the teams’ friends and relatives.

Today, we don’t even think about where cloth comes from or what its fibers started out as. Clothes are so cheap these days. Every thrift shop and yard sale is heaped high. They used to be valuable. Dressing well mattered because it showed your status and wealth. Today, you can strut around in jeans that are pre-ripped.

The development of textiles led to dyeing and, eventually, a big part of the modern chemical industry. Textiles led to industrial production on a huge scale. The need for better natural fibers, whether wool, cotton, silk, or linen, led to genetic manipulation of plants, insects, and animals. This is similar to the genetic manipulation over countless generations of food crops and animals bred for milk, meat, and eggs.

Selling textiles and their components across continents helped develop the banking industry, improvements in accounting, like double-entry bookkeeping, and mail systems and roads.

It’s fascinating. Who thinks of textiles as technology or driving changes in civilizations? But they are. Think of one of the simplest bits of technology: a button.

Essentially, buttons started out as flat beads. That’s what they are. But someone had to think of piercing that flattish shell or slice of horn or metal disk and sewing it onto a garment as adornment. It took generations after the development of buttons for someone to think … Hmm. I could cut a slit in the garment, reinforce the edges so they don’t unravel, and then — gasp! Push the button through! And hold two edges of a garment closed!

Cutting-edge technology, folks, and someone had to think of it, just like someone had to work out how to cut a hair comb from a turtle shell.

Then there’s the discussion of synthetic fabrics, starting with nylon. We’ve got a world of fibers available to us today that weavers and consumers in the Middle Ages could only dream of. Washable, colorfast, soft, wears well, inexpensive, and even printed with bright fun designs. What is not to like about modern cloth?

Walk around a big fabric store and marvel at the bounty laid out in front of you; cloth for jeans, for pajamas, for light summer blouses and winter coats, for eveningwear that would impress the kings and queens of old.

It’s a marvel and it’s so commonplace we don’t see it any more.

Ms. Postrel breaks textiles up into separate discussions of fiber, thread, cloth, dye, traders, consumers, and finally, innovators heading into a brave new world of synthetics that will keep the wearer cool and clean and never need washing.

If you’re a movie buff like I am, you may be seeing shades of Alec Guinness right now. He made a movie in 1951 titled The Man in the White Suit that considers the implications of synthetic fabrics and what they mean.

Guinness plays Sidney Stratton, a brilliant and naïve chemist. Like many brilliant and naïve scientists, he does not consider what his fabulous invention will do to other people’s lives. His new, miracle fabric is indestructible and never needs care. Here’s the statement from his landlady and washerwoman, encapsulating textile workers everywhere as change comes whether they want it or not:

“Why can’t you scientists leave things alone? What about my bit of washing when there’s no washing to do?”

The Fabric of Civilization is a terrific, very readable book. I highly recommend it. It’s got everything, including a glossary and an index. What doesn’t it have?

More pictures!

This book could have used a lot more pictures, including a color plate section showing the differences between the various dyes. Rose Madder is not cochineal but what reds are they? I would like to see the glorious colors. A description of the astounding color combinations from the Mauve Decade isn’t the same as a color picture. You have to see brilliant pink and green swirls on black to believe it. It sounds so modern and not drab and Victorian at all.

But that’s what was fashionable about 150 years ago.

The Fabric of Civilization is a worthy addition to any well-stocked library, whether for research, ideas for novels (check out Jakob “the Rich” Fugger’s life story in addition to a host of other fascinating historical figures), or just to better see and understand the astonishing world around us. A world made of textiles.

If you want to follow Virginia Postrel’s adventures, here’s her website. She’s written several other books, all worth having a look at.

If you want to get a copy of The Man in the White Suit, here’s where you can buy a copy.