Transatlantic Threads: Scottish Linen and Society, c.1707-1780 (Histories of the Scottish Atlantic) - Hardcover

Tuckett, Sally

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1474492991 ISBN 13: 9781474492997

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press, 2025

Synopsis

Transatlantic Threads shows how studying the making, use and meaning of a relatively low-cost, utilitarian cloth like linen, broadens our understanding of eighteenth-century Scotland and the wider Atlantic world. Different types of linen cloth were used across society everyday: from fine shirts worn by the rich, to coarse aprons worn by labourers; from expensive bed sheets, to canvas used for ships’ sails. Eighteenth-century linen production was a Scottish economic success story, with thousands of people working to produce millions of yards of yarn and woven cloth. It was also how Scots became inextricably linked with transatlantic trade and the slavery economy, as the desire to capture the colonial market was a key driver for developing coarse linen production. Using a material commodity to explore everyday experiences of ordinary people, particularly women, non-elite and enslaved people, Transatlantic Threads examines the cultural and social significance of linen in Scottish and transatlantic society.

About this title

About the Author

Sally Tuckett is Lecturer in Dress and Textile Histories at the University of Glasgow. She is co-author (with Stana Nenadic) of Colouring the Nation: The Turkey Red Printed Cotton Industry in Scotland, c.1840-1940 (2013, National Museums of Scotland) and has published articles in Scottish Historical Review, Journal of Scottish Historical Studies and Textile History. Sally was awarded a Research Incentive Grant from the Carnegie Trust for Transatlantic Threads and is currently working on an AHRC funded project, ‘Fleece to Fashion: Economies and Cultures of Craft in Scotland, Knitted Textiles c.1780-present’.

Edition details

• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1474492991
• ISBN 13: 9781474492997
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256