Seeds of the Past: A Flax Garden Journey in Time at the Old Berwick Historical Society

                         Old Berwick Historical Society & The Counting House Museum

Seeds of the Past: A Flax Garden Journey in Time

 By Beth Gallucci, Executive Director

 

Why Flax? This was a question often asked by visitors to the Old Berwick Historical Society’s (OBHS) experimental archaeology project at the Counting House Museum, Seeds of the Past: A Flax Garden Journey in Time. The answer is deeply rooted in New England history. This spring, in collaboration with the Woodman Museum and the Newmarket Historical Society, OBHS (and partners) grew their own community flax gardens, a project initiated by Dr. Kimberly Alexander, as part of her broader flax-to-linen research. The project was funded by a grant from the James Hayes Fellowship at the UNH Center for the Humanities.

 

This collaboration aimed to explore the process of growing and harvesting flax, a crop that played a crucial role in the region’s pre-industrial, rural-based textile economy. Historically, flax was once a cornerstone of local life. It was essential for producing linen for clothing and household textiles. By recreating these processes, the project offered a hands-on approach to understanding the agricultural practices and economic exchanges that shaped our ancestor’s daily lives, and a deeper appreciation for the historical significance of flax in our shared history. 

 

Dr. Erin Sigel, Collection Manager at The Hodgdon Herbarium/Department of Biological Sciences at the University of New Hampshire and her staff extracted some of OBHS’s flax plants from the garden in mid July. The samples will provide a picture of this years growing cycle and aid Dr. Alexander’s research. Additionally, filmmaker Catherine Stewart was onsite documenting the process.

 

OBHS planted its flax on June 1st, and after a 91-day growing period, the crop was harvested on August 30th. The growth of some flax strands was affected by the site conditions, including prior construction, backfill, and an underground clay pipe. These factors contributed to uneven growth and yellowing of the stems in certain areas of the garden. However, we had a successful harvest overall and will proceed with drying the flax stooks, followed by the retting process, which will allow us to then break, scutch, and comb the flax in preparation for spinning it into linen thread.

The Old Berwick Historical Society houses an extensive collection of linen items, including dresses, waistcoats, military patches, pantaloons, and tablecloths, as well as artifacts like ships’ log covers and linen-lined clothing and shoes. Among these pieces, the Counting House Museum also displays a diary entry written by Benjamin Gerrish, a farmer from South Berwick, Maine, dating to the late 18th century. On October 18, 1791, Gerrish recorded harvesting 50 pounds of flax. After his death in 1792, his probate inventory listed several linen items, including pillowcases, a set of linen damask curtains, and two homespun linen diaper tablecloths valued at 6 shillings. Wills and probate documents like these offer valuable insights into the significant role that flax and linen played in the New England economy.

Join OBHS & The Counting House Museum in celebrating the final weeks of their historic exhibition, “Material Culture: Domestic Cloth-Making in 18th Century New England.” On view through October, the exhibit is open on Sundays from 1-4 PM, or by appointment. This thoughtfully curated display will be of particular interest to textile enthusiasts, artists, and scholars of material culture.

 

The UNH Flax-to Linen-Project Expands to Three Community Grow Sites

Posted by Dr. Kimberly Alexander

Director of Museum Studies and Senior Lecturer, UNH Department of History

James Hayes Fellow, 2023-2024 and 2024-2025

Funded by two fellowships from the UNH Center for the Humanities, the overall conceptual framework for this project began in a UNH History Department classroom in Spring of 2023 while teaching a new course for HIST600/800 entitled "From Homespun to Fast Fashion: A Global History of Textiles."  Now in our second year, in addition to growing, harvesting and processing flax and conducting primary source research, the Flax Team has presented over a dozen talks, given numerous demonstrations, and of note, opened an exhibition about the project at the Woodman Museum in Dover. (The exhibition entitled “Combing History: Flax and Linen in New Hampshire” is on view through 24 November 2024.)

For the 2024-2025 season, we shifted the project from its initial physical core at UNH and took what the project team learned about the growing and processing of flax out into the larger public Seacoast museum and history community. Dr. Alexander and graduate research assistants in the UNH History/Museum Studies program are working with three community partners (‘grow sites’), where each will grow flax and can incorporate hands-on teaching about the importance of growing flax and processing linen in New Hampshire into their public educational activities. Other related educational opportunities include discussions of sustainability, fast fashion and circular design models, gendered workspaces, and community agricultural events and seasonal celebrations.

 

There are three components to this next phase of the project: Allocating funds to three community partners as grow sites [Woodman Museum, Dover; Old Berwick Historical Society, South Berwick, ME, and Newmarket Historical Society, Newmarket]; exploration of the use of film shorts with film-maker Catherine Stewart to increase audience reach throughout New Hampshire and beyond and continued archival research. 

In the past, the unrecorded thousands of hours of cutting, retting, braking, spinning, dying, weaving, and sewing small clothes, bed linens, and all manner of domestic items contributed greatly to a New Hampshire family’s financial stability. This aspect of domestic production in rural economies continues to remain largely absent from history texts, particularly in the time before the mid-19^th century and the growth of the textile factory/industrial complex seen in just about every New Hampshire town.

 

The ability to deep dive into this single important fiber, while growing it at UNH and surrounding communities, offers a tremendous opportunity for university- and community-wide engagement and allows the extension of historic research surrounding our flax project to include 18^th and early 19^th century flax growing and linen production in the Seacoast.  The project started in the classroom and will continue evolve in the classroom, but it will spill out into the community, to Woodman Farm, and local archives, to presentations for interested groups both inside and outside UNH. It is anticipated that students will take this multi-faceted experience with them beyond the campus to expand in any number of ways.

 

Dr. Alexander’s research is funded by two James Hayes Fellowships from the UNH Center for the Humanities.

All photos are from community flax harvest days at the community grow sites.

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

Introduction: #TeamFlax

Greetings, and welcome to our 

University of New Hampshire History Department 

Flax Project 

A few introductions...

Hello - I am Professor Kimberly Alexander, Director of Museum Studies & Senior Lecturer in the History Department at UNH.  My research and teaching examines material culture with a focus on historic textiles, and so I am excited about directing the Flax to Linen Project. This experimental undertaking explores the year-long cycle from planting to harvesting of flax, through its production and processing as linen. Linen was a common textile used in early America.  Funding from the UNH Center for Humanities, James Hayes Fellowship, allows me to introduce my graduate and undergraduate students into every phase of this New England experience as told via material culture and primary sources - account books, journals, diaries, newspapers, and probate inventories from the 17th through the early19th century. 

 

If you would like to know more about my publications, teaching. and public engagement, you can find me here: https://findscholars.unh.edu/display/ksd38

 

Invaluable assistance for this project is provided by COLSA Professor Rebecca Sideman, Department Chair, Agriculture, Nutrition, and Food Systems, and Evan Ford, Manager of the Woodman Horticultural Research Farm and the Kingman Research Farm. Financial support comes from a James Hayes Fellowship from the UNH Center for the Humanities and the History Department Harris Fund.

Professor Rebecca Sideman
https://colsa.unh.edu/person/rebecca-sideman

Evan Ford, Farm Manager
https://colsa.unh.edu/spotlight/evan-ford

Research Assistants

Hello, my name is Sophie MacDonald and I am a Museum Studies student at the University of New Hampshire. I love being able to experience history in person and am passionate about giving others the same opportunity to learn. Recreating historical processes allows researchers to truly grasp the skill and labor required to thrive in the past. This flax project is incredibly exciting because it allows me to deeply understand the process and work that went into the creation of a single scrap of fabric. Turning a simple plant into cloth is an impressive example of the continuation of knowledge over generations.

Hello! My name is Sydney Rue, and I am a Museum Studies Masters student at the University of New Hampshire. I have always been fascinated with experimental archeology and history. By recreating historical agricultural practices, you can uncover what has been forgotten or left unsaid. When Professor Alexander asked me to be a research assistant for the Flax Project, I was ecstatic. Fabric binds us to the past, and having the chance to grow and be a part of this endeavor is a dream for me.

Hello! My name is Erica Linderman and I am a PhD Candidate at the University of New Hampshire. I am thrilled to be a part of Team Flax and can't wait to see how this project unfolds. For me, history is storytelling; learning about the day-to-day lives of people deepens our understanding of the past and offers a way to make history more accessible. My work focuses on citizenship in New England during the Early Republic and how people navigated their communities in a world where the rules of citizenry were ill-defined. Flax played an integral role in the inner workings of New England communities, so to be able to part of this project and glean more information on the importance of flax was an opportunity I wasn't going to pass up.

Interns

Greetings! I am Beth Gallucci, currently a graduate student in the Museum Studies program at the University of New Hampshire. My journey into the captivating world of history and culture has led me to Dr. Alexander's and UNH's Flax Project, which has been a remarkable experience. Originally hailing from Minnesota, I was drawn to Dr. Alexander's innovative approach that melds history and museum studies in the classroom, igniting my curiosity to delve deeper into New Hampshire's rich history and engage in this unique project at the intersection of history, agriculture, textiles, and sustainability research. My ultimate goal is to preserve and spotlight the fascinating history of New Hampshire through this educational research project.

Hi! My name is Zoe Sizemore. I am a Museum Studies Master's student at the University of New Hampshire. I have always really enjoyed history and creating projects that are accessible to the general public. I am very excited to be working on this project because of the digital component that will allow people from all over to explore our project virtually. I think it is very important to be as inclusive as possible when creating a history project and that was one of the reasons why I was so excited to be able to work on the Flax Project for my internship with Professor Alexander. 

Hello, I am Katherine Morgan, a community member who became involved in the Flax Project after auditing Professor Alexander’s class which focused on the global history of textiles Spring semester, 2023.  Though I was a high school English teacher, history has been an avocation and I have researched, edited and published the correspondence of my great grandmother to and from her mother (1868 - 1882) in a book entitled My Ever Dear Daughter, My Own Dear Mother. My interest in the flax project is primarily to help establish the local historical context for flax growing and its transformation into linen for household use and as a commodity in early New England.

Not pictured: Alison Hertweck, Alex Runyon and Ryan Cutting

Process, Method, and Timeline

Sophie measures and sketches a hemp break at the Woodman Museum, Dover, NH

Sowing, growing, harvesting, and processing

Traditionally, from sowing to harvest to processing was a year-long cycle as revealed in historical accounts.  Our project timeline is roughly May 2023-June 2024, which will encompass planting to harvest, process to production. We will work with Professor Sideman from the Sustainable Agriculture department on growing our crop while also undertaking the necessary historical research.

We sowed two varieties of flax seed — Avian and Nathalie -- on May 17th, 2023, and now, in mid-June, our plants our looking healthy and are approaching a foot in height. We plan to harvest the crop in late August or early September, at the beginning of the fall semester. [For updates on the growth of the flax, please see additional blog posts and attached videos.]

Historic Context 

Account book kept by currently unknown Dover resident, c. 1779-1780
Woodman Museum, Ellen P. Rounds Collection, #3749

The cultivation, production and sale and trade of flax is an integral part of my scholarly research into New Hampshire’s pre-industrial, rural-based textile economy. I have worked extensively with the 18^th century writings of shoemaker and Deacon Samuel Lane of Stratham, NH, General John Montgomery of Haverhill, NH and numerous other day and account books throughout New England, looking at the home production and sale of textiles at places like Portsmouth Market Day or via trade and barter with neighbors. The opportunity to deep dive into this single important fiber, while actually growing it at UNH offers a tremendous opportunity for university- and community-wide engagement and allows the extension of historic research surrounding the flax project to include late 17^th through early 19^th century flax growing and linen production in the Seacoast.  For example, last summer, with the assistance of the Stratham Historical Society (one of our community partners) I located two c1825-35 child's dresses from the Lane family which are of homespun linen and handsewn. Through lengthy research, I was able to determine that the dresses were worn by Olivia Emeline Lane (14 November 1825- 4 September 1905) and made by her mother, Hannah French Lane (1802-1841). Look for a future post on these charming garments.

We are continuing to work with the Stratham Historical Society, the Newmarket Historical Society, the New Hampshire Historical Society, the Portsmouth Athenaeum, the Moffatt-Ladd House, and the Woodman Museum, in addition to many others. 

Backstory: How the Flax Project Began

 

"….in all Joshua Sow'd about 1½ Bu. & ½ peck flax Seed.”

Samuel Lane, Almanack, May I, 1769.

The concept for this project began in a University of New Hampshire (UNH) History Department classroom. During the Spring semester of 2023, I taught HIST600/800 "From Homespun to Fast Fashion: A Global History of Textiles." After several classes spent on an in-depth study of both the global and local history of growing flax for linen production, a student noted it would be a unique experience if we could try growing flax and processing it. My response--why not?

The class is now collaborating with UNH Extension Professor Becky Sideman from UNH’s Sustainable Agriculture program and is experimenting with growing flax, cotton, and rye in a 50’x50’ plot at the Woodman Agricultural Research Farm, part of the UNH Campus. After access to the plot was confirmed, class members (grad and undergrad working together) conducted research on the best type of flax seed for New England soil and textile production. The students and the Department are excited about the project, which will extend from spring 2023 through spring 2024. We hope it will generate more interdepartmental collaborative projects. 

The following posts will introduce you to team members, track the growth of the flax, take you behind the scenes to New England museums and historical societies, and chart our experiments with everything from building a flax break to harvesting, retting and scutching the flax and -- we hope--processing enough linen thread to make a small article of clothing. 

Our methodology is both experiential and archival-- based on the knowledge shared in newspapers, documents, letters, diaries, and almanacs, as well as the surviving textiles made and saved by those living in the Seacoast of New Hampshire during the late 17th through early 19th centuries. We thank these frequently anonymous individuals for taking the time in their busy world to record their endeavors. 

Dr. Kimberly Alexander

Director of Museum Studies & Senior Lecturer