Spinning wheel
Eventually, simple mechanisms were created that let a person simply push at a pedal and keep the wheel turning at an even more constant rate.
The first stage in mechanizing the process was mounting the spindle horizontally so it could be rotated by a cord encircling a large, hand-driven wheel.
In general, the spinning technology was known for a long time before being adopted by the majority of people, thus making it hard to fix dates of the improvements.
Lewis Paul and John Wyatt first worked on the problem in 1738, patenting the Roller Spinning machine and the flyer-and-bobbin system, for drawing wool to a more even thickness.
[17] Newer technologies that offer even faster yarn production include friction spinning, an open-end system, and air jets.
To begin spinning on a great wheel, first a leader (a length of waste yarn) is tied onto the base of the spindle and spiraled up to the tip.
Once a sufficient amount of yarn has been made, the spinner turns the wheel backward a short distance to unwind the spiral on the spindle, then turns it clockwise again, and winds the newly made yarn onto the spindle, finishing the wind-on by spiralling back out to the tip again to make another draw.
Medieval historian Lynn Townsend White Jr. credited the spinning wheel with increasing the supply of rags, which led to cheap paper, which in turn was a factor in the development of printing.
[37] The ubiquity of the spinning wheel has led to its inclusion in the art, literature and other expressions of numerous cultures around the world, and in the case of South Asia it has become a powerful political symbol.
His personal choice became a powerful political gesture as he urged his more privileged followers to copy his example and discard—or even burn—their European-style clothing and return with pride to their ancient, pre-colonial culture.
Gandhi claimed that spinning thread in the traditional manner also had material advantages, as it would create the basis for economic independence and the possibility of survival for India’s impoverished rural areas.
This commitment to traditional cloth making was also part of a larger swadeshi movement, which aimed for the boycott of all British goods.
As Gandhi explained to Charlie Chaplin in 1931, the return to spinning did not mean a rejection of all modern technology but of the exploitative and controlling economic and political system in which textile manufacture had become entangled.
"[citation needed][39] The Golden Spinning Wheel (Zlatý kolovrat)[40][41] is a Czech poem by Karel Jaromír Erben that was included in his classic collection of folk ballads, Kytice.
Rumpelstiltskin, one of the tales collected by the Brothers Grimm, revolves around a woman who is imprisoned under threat of execution unless she can spin straw into gold.
[42] Another folk tale that incorporates spinning wheels is the classic fairy tale Sleeping Beauty, in which the main character pricks her hand or finger on the poisoned spindle of a spinning wheel and falls into a deep sleep following a wicked fairy or witch's curse.
Numerous variations of the tale exist (the Brothers Grimm had one in their collection entitled Little Briar Rose), and in only some of them is the spindle actually attached to/associated with a spinning wheel.
[citation needed] Perhaps surprisingly, a traditional spindle does not have a sharp end that could prick a person's finger (unlike the walking wheel, often used for wool spinning).
Despite this, the narrative idea persists that Sleeping Beauty or Briar Rose or Dornrosen pricks her finger on the spindle—a device which she has never seen before, as they have been banned from the kingdom in a forlorn attempt to prevent the curse of the wicked godmother-fairy.
Walt Disney included the Saxony or flax wheel in their animated film version of Perrault's tale and Rose pricks her finger on the distaff (which holds the plant fibre waiting to be spun).
In 1814, Franz Schubert composed "Gretchen am Spinnrade", a lied for piano and voice based on a poem from Goethe's Faust.
[48] Antonín Dvořák composed The Golden Spinning Wheel, a symphonic poem based on the folk ballad from Kytice by Karel Jaromír Erben.
Camille Saint-Saëns wrote Le Rouet d'Omphale (Omphale's Spinning Wheel), symphonic poem in A major, Op.
[49] A favorite piano work for students is Albert Ellmenreich's Spinnleidchen (Spinning Song), from his 1863 Musikalische Genrebilder, Op.
[51][52] A traditional Irish folk song, Túirne Mháire, is generally sung in praise of the spinning wheel,[53] but was regarded by Mrs Costelloe, who collected it,[54] as "much corrupted", and may have had a darker narrative.
Gilbert and Sullivan's The Yeomen of the Guard begins with a solitary character singing while spinning at her wheel, the first of their operettas not to open with a chorus.
Spinning wheels may be found as motifs in art around the world, ranging from their status as domestic/utilitarian items to their more symbolic role (such as in India, where they may have political implications).
