View the highlights & photographs from our current issue.

Current Issue: #49 - July 2005

In this issue we trace the marks of two Pennsylvania spinning-wheel makers. We also learn about two inventors, one from the 19th century and one from the late 20th century. We look at a strange object in hope of figuring out its mysterious function and hear about a spinning wheel from Latvia with an elusive past.

Two Pennsylvania Great Wheels
by Ron Walter

Ron Walter of Hilltown, PA, enjoys collecting textiles and textile-related tools. When he acquired two signed great wheels, he decided to research the marks. He found two wheel makers from the same geographic area who lived during different periods but who made quite similar wheels.

Wheel marked RUD KINSLE

Wheel marked M CARPENTER

The Browning Spinning Wheel
by Florence Feldman-Wood

A unique wheel in the collection of the American Textile History Museum, in Lowell, MA, has always intrigued me. Checking the records, I discovered that the donor was a descendent of the maker, Jedediah Browning of Woodstock, CT. A family history about Browning provides some interesting insights into this inventive builder.

Browning spinning wheel
Courtesy of the American Textile History Museum

A Mystery Object in the Cummer Collection
by Florence Feldman-Wood

When the museum's collection cataloger discovered a strange object in the Cummer Collection with no records, she contacted me. I did not know what it was but suggested that my readers might be able to help.

Courtesy of American Textile History Museum

Nels Wiberg, Spinning-Wheel Maker
adapted from an article by Jane Metcalf

Traditionally spinning-wheel makers have used the materials that were readily available in their culture. Nels Wiberg of Whitewater, WI, has created spinning wheels using that uniquely 20th-century material, PVC pipe. He explains how and why. His Web site is: www.babesfibergarden.com

Babe's Fiber Starter

Production double treadle with Woolee Winder

A Talk With a Spinning Wheel
edited by Sandra Rux

Sandra Rux provides the introduction to the essay "A Talk with a Spinning Wheel" written by Alice Davis Hubbard [1863-1927], when she was fifteen years old, about 1879. The wheel, which Alice found in the attic of the family home in Guilford, CT, belonged to her grandmother, Achsah Davis [1793-1869].

Collection of Guilford [CT] Keeping Society

How a Latvian Spinning Wheel Gained Freedom
by Ita Ozols

Ita Ozols of Etobicoke, ON, tells how a Latvian spinning wheel came to reside in Toronto. Very little is known about the man who made it.

Latvian spinning wheel