Throstle Spinning Frame, circa 1835
Add to SetSummary
Spinning frames spin cotton fiber into yarn and then wind it onto a bobbin. This throstle spinning frame could simultaneously spin 64 strands of yarn. (Throstle -- an old name for a song thrush -- refers to the bird-like sounds the machine made.) Machines like this helped produce the large quantities of yarn that growing industrial weaving operations needed in the early and mid-1800s.
Spinning frames spin cotton fiber into yarn and then wind it onto a bobbin. This throstle spinning frame could simultaneously spin 64 strands of yarn. (Throstle -- an old name for a song thrush -- refers to the bird-like sounds the machine made.) Machines like this helped produce the large quantities of yarn that growing industrial weaving operations needed in the early and mid-1800s.
Artifact
Throstle frame
Date Made
circa 1835
Place of Creation
United States, Massachusetts, Lowell
Creator Notes
Likely made by Lowell Machine Shop in Lowell, Massachusetts
Collection Title
On Exhibit
at Henry Ford Museum in Made in America
Object ID
2017.84.1
Credit
From the Collections of The Henry Ford. Gift of American Textile History Museum.
Material
Cast iron
Leather
Metal
Thread
Wood (Plant material)
Dimensions
Height: 72 in
Width: 50 in
Length: 111 in
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