A Thread of Evidence: Shaker Textiles at South Union, Kentucky

Textile production was one of the many routine tasks performed in the early American home. Those who joined communal groups, like the Shaker converts at South Union, Kentucky, brought to the colony knowledge of these activities. Shakers manufactured fabric – linen, silk, and woolens – in about the same manner as most of their contemporaries, only on a larger scale. Though few of their contemporaries left documentation regarding the tedious tasks involved in textile production, the South Union Shaker community, located in Logan County, kept intimate accounts of daily activities through journals, diaries, day books, and correspondence which included records of South Union’s carding, fulling and woolen mills and their linen and silk production