Making Cotton Learning Journey

Cotton is not made; it is a plant which grows in warmer parts of the world. Cotton plants have yellowish pink flowers which bloom very briefly. The seed bearing part of the plant is known as the boll and it is this which is picked to make cotton. For thousands of years cotton has been harvested, cleaned, spun, woven, bleached and dyed to make an astonishing variety of different items.

Click on the steps below to learn about cotton through history, cleaning and carding, spinning, weaving, bleaching and dyeing.

Click on the steps below to explore.

Making Cotton Learning Journey Step 2: Cleaning and carding cotton After the cotton was harvested it had to be cleaned of seeds and impurities. Separating cotton seeds from the bolls by hand was a time consuming and tedious task. Early farming communities had the time and the woman power to do this job which in later centuries would be given to slaves. In 1793 Eli Whitney revolutionised this process with the invention of his 'cotton gin'. The gin (short for engine) separated the seeds and removed dirt, stems and leaves mechanically, greatly speeding up the output of cleaned lint ready for baling. The next step of preparation was known as carding and was often done by younger people of the household when making cotton was still a cottage industry. They had to separate the cotton fibres and remove any remaining impurities which were done by combing them with teasels. Fullers Teasels and Wild Teasels (which grow in hedgerows) were used for this purpose. Today teasels are mainly grown in Somerset. Teasels are like sharp prickly thistles and had the same effect as a stiff wire comb. The Latin for thistle is 'carduus' and this may be the reason why this particular process was called carding. In 1748 Lewis Paul developed a hand driven carding machine which had strips of wire held around a cylinder. Richard Arkwright improved on this in 1775 by adding a mechanically revolving cylinder and a 'crank and comb mechanism' which removed the cleaned cotton fibres from the revolving cylinder in the form of a 'filmy fleece'. See also on this website: Industry: machines and processes - cultivation and harvesting

Associated Objects
Related Narratives