In the News

Flax to Linen Project Weaves History With Experience

             BETH GALLUCCI '24G, A MUSEUM STUDIES STUDENT, HARVESTS 

                       FLAX AT WOODMAN FARM. PHOTO BY DAVID VOGT.

By Beth Potier, UNH Communications and Public Affairs

The path to a deeper understanding of rural New England’s pre-industrial textile 

economy begins in a muddy field on the edge of UNH’s Woodman Horticultural 

Research Farm. There, a historian and an agriculture professor, along with 

students in UNH’s museum studies program, have joined forces for an intimate, 

experiential understanding of an iconic fiber: Linen.

“Linen was such an important staple in New Hampshire,” says Kimberly Alexander, 

senior lecturer of history and  the force behind The Flax to Linen Project. 

“The opportunity to deep dive into this single important fiber while actually 

growing it at UNH offers a tremendous opportunity for … research into 17th through 

early 19th century flax-growing and linen production in the Seacoast.”

Read on: https://www.unh.edu/unhtoday/2023/09/flax-linen-project-weaves-history-experience