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

Sally Tuckett

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1474493009 ISBN 13: 9781474493000

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press, 2026

Synopsis

The first in-depth study to combine social, economic, cultural and material cultural perspectives on linen in eighteenth-century Scotland, showing definitively how the colonial context helped drive the industry

• Uses linen as the ‘thread’ and brings together economic, social and cultural primary material from marginal groups in two Atlantic societies, with particular focus on women in Scotland and enslaved people in North America.
• Highlights the value of using material culture and dress and textile history to further our understanding of Scottish history and Scottish society.
• Shows how Scots reacted to, and influenced, wider economic, social and political forces between the Union of 1707 and the rise of cotton at the end of the eighteenth century, and the impact these forces had on workers and consumers across Scotland and in colonial society.
• As part of the Histories of the Scottish Atlantic series, this work demonstrates how Scottish textiles and the people that made them contributed to the wider Atlantic economy, society and the perpetuation of the slavery system.

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: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1474493009
• ISBN 13: 9781474493000
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224