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History

Prehistoric and ancient times. No one knows when people first made textiles. The earliest evidence of woolen textiles dates from about 6000 B.C. This evidence comes from what is now southern Turkey. Bits of linen from Egypt indicate that people there wove flax about 5000 B.C. Archaeologists have found Egyptian mummies from the 2500’s B.C. wrapped in linen as well made as that produced today.

By 3000 B.C., cotton was grown in the Indus River Valley in what are now Pakistan and western India. Cotton may also have been used for textiles in the Americas by this time. The Chinese began to cultivate silkworms about 2700 B.C. They developed special looms for silk filaments.

The ancient Greeks used chiefly woolen textiles. They also used some linen.

In the 300’s B.C., Alexander the Great’s army brought cotton goods from what is now Pakistan to Europe. The ancient Romans developed an enormous trade in textiles. They imported woolens from Britain, Gaul, and Spain; linen from Egypt; cottons from India; and silks from China and Persia/

During the Middle Ages, from the A.D. 400’s to the early 1500’s, the textile industry gradually developed in Europe. The production of woolens centered in England; northern Italy; and Flanders, a region that now covers parts of present-day Belgium, France, and the Netherlands.

As the textile industry expanded, production techniques improved, stimulating further growth. The spinning wheel came into use by the 1200’s. Meanwhile, Italy had become the silk center of Europe. The invention of a machine to unwind silk from cocoons led to further expansion of Italy’s silk industry.

In the large towns of Europe, associations of weavers and other craftworkers regulated textile production.

The Industrial Revolution. Important developments in textile production continued after the Middle Ages. For example, an English clergyman named William Lee invented a machine a machine for knitting hosiery in 1589. During the 1600’s, textile workers in the Netherlands developed improved methods of dyeing and finishing cloth. But the greatest advances in the textile industry occurred during the Industrial Revolution, which began in England im\n the 1700’s. In fact, the Industrial Revolution was largely a textile revolution created by a flood of English inventions that enormously increased the production of yarns and fabrics.

In 1733, John Kay, an engineer, invented the flying shuttle. This device enabled weavers to pass the filling through the warp yarns mechanically instead of by hand. About 1764, a weaver named James Hargreaves invented