Hanging with the Machinery

      In class we prepared for the Google hangout in a couple ways. First we watched a video that Jamie sent us. It had a bunch of textile terms that we wrote down to define later. Some of the words were draw frame, sliver, speed frame and carding. After the video Then we split into groups to look up all the definitions up. Once we found out the definitions, we were told to come up with some questions that we had for Jamie. We were allowed to ask these questions if we wanted to during the video call.

       I learned quite a few things about the textile process during the video chat. One was that it was incredibly dangerous. There were so many ways that you could get sick or injured by using the machines. Another thing i learned was that it took approximately 20 minutes to create the cloth that they wanted to make. Industrialization has both positive and negative impacts on familes. Some positve things were that it was one less mouth to feed. With the children gone, it was a lot easier for the parents to feed the family. Another thing was that the children at the mills sometimes sent some money home to their families. The negatives were that the children were gone for a very long time. So the families rarely got to see their kids. The mills were also very unsafe. So there was a very high chance that the families kids would not come home safe.


     Overall, I really enjoyed the experience. I liked seeing the actually mills that were used. Jamie also gave a lot off cool stats and facts. He also answered my classmates questions really well and thorough. I wish that the connection was a little better because that would of made the experience more enjoyable, but we were video chatting with someone from a different continent. Another topic that would be cool to do this with would be the civil war. It would be cool seeing the weapons and memorabilia. But overall, it was a really fun and interesting class activity.

Jamie using the feeder hopper scucher