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BY ELIZABETH CYNTHIA BARNEY BUEL _Regent “Mary Floyd Tallmadge Chapter,” Daughters of the American Revolution_
ILLUSTRATED BY EMILY NOYES VANDERPOEL AUTHOR OF “COLOR PROBLEMS” AND “CHRONICLES OF A PIONEER SCHOOL”
COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY ELIZABETH CYNTHIA BARNEY BUEL
UNIVERSITY PRESS · JOHN WILSON AND SON · CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.
DEDICATED IN GRATEFUL AFFECTION TO THE MARY FLOYD TALLMADGE CHAPTER DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
WHOSE READY SYMPATHY AND ENTHUSIASM HAVE NEVER FAILED IN WORK FOR “HOME AND COUNTRY”
The Tale of the Spinning-Wheel is revised and enlarged from a paper read before the Litchfield Historical Society, Litchfield, Connecticut; New England Society in the City of New York, Waldorf-Astoria, New York City; Mary Floyd Tallmadge Chapter, D. A. R., Litchfield; Judea Chapter, D. A. R., Washington, Connecticut; Massachusetts Society of the Colonial Dames of America, Boston; Katherine Gaylord Chapter, D. A. R., Bristol, Connecticut; Connecticut Society of the Colonial Dames of America, New Haven, and also in Hartford; Denver Chapter, D. A. R., Denver, Colorado; Warren and Prescott Chapter, D. A. R., Boston, Massachusetts; Orford Parish Chapter, D. A. R., South Manchester, Connecticut; National Arts Club, New York; Esther Stanley Chapter, D. A. R., New Britain, Connecticut; Annual Spring Conference, Connecticut D. A. R., at Middletown; Dorothy Ripley Chapter, D. A. R., Southport, Connecticut; Wiltwyck Chapter, D. A. R., Kingston, New York; Litchfield Club, Litchfield, Connecticut, etc., etc.
“_Queens of Homespun, out of whom we draw our royal lineage._”—HORACE BUSHNELL.
The spinning-wheel—symbol of the dignity of woman’s labor.—What wealth of memory gathers around the homely implement, homely indeed in the good old sense of the word—because belonging to the home. Home-made and home-spun are honorable epithets, replete with significance, for in them we find the epitome of the lives and labors of our foremothers. The plough and the axe are not more symbolic of the winning of this country from the wilderness, nor the musket of the winning of its freedom, than is the spinning-wheel in woman’s hands the symbol of both. So symbolic is it also of woman’s toil, of woman’s distinctive and universal occupation, nay, of woman herself, that the “distaff side of the house” has always been expressive of the woman’s family, and “spinster” is still the legal title of unmarried women in the common law of England. Most ancient of all household implements, it has been used in one form or another by queen, princess, and serving-maid, by farmer’s wife and noble’s daughter, until it stands to-day a silent witness to the fundamental democracy of mankind.