By Kendyl Bostic
Serving with Arthurdale Heritage Inc.
When Arthurdale was established in 1934, one of the most pressing concerns for newly arrived homesteaders (and the government that supported the project) was jobs. Arthurdale was designed to be the nation’s first New Deal Homestead Community where families would work on small subsistence farms while also bringing in money from a factory job or similar. The history of industry in Arthurdale is rife with complicated politics and floundering factories that rarely lasted more than a year. While there is not room in this small article to go into the details of all that, there is space to discuss a cottage industry that became one of the most important in the town: Weaving. (And if you do want to learn more about industry in Arthurdale, take a tour of the museum! You can now book online at https://arthurdaleheritage.org/tours/)
The weaving program in Arthurdale was begun by homesteader women who were already familiar with this skill and decided to teach their friends and neighbors as a way for all involved to begin making items that they could use for themselves or sell. Alongside other heritage trades (carpentry and blacksmithing in particular), the weaving program was organized in cooperation with the Mountaineer Craftsman Cooperative Association, a Quaker-run group that had branches in several places locally. The cooperative nature of this association meant that it was easier for people to establish and run their industry since multiple people contributed to the business costs. In Arthurdale, weaving and spinning both took place in the Loom Room, a building that has since burned down but once housed everything needed for these fiber arts. Students in the Arthurdale schools also learned to spin and weave as there was an emphasis in the schools on hands-on learning and engaging the students in things that already interested them - often the things they saw their parents doing. One young woman, Dorothy (Mayor) Thompson showed such promise as a young weaver that when she graduated high school, Eleanor Roosevelt paid for her to apprentice with master weaver Lou Tate in Kentucky. While Dorothy did not finish her apprenticeship due to a combination of factors, she did eventually open Ben’s Old Loom Barn in Davis, West Virginia, which is now run by her daughter Sarah Fletcher. Over the years, Arthurdale’s weaving program, like most of the other cooperatives here, came to an end. Women who knew how to weave no longer worked at the Loom Room but would instead keep their looms at home. After a couple of generations, the skill mostly died out in Arthurdale, as well as in the rest of the country. We are working, however, to revitalize the program locally.
For a number of years, there has been a small group of Arthurdale Weavers who get together to make projects on some of the historic looms that Arthurdale Heritage owns. When I began my AmeriCorps service in fall 2021, I was invited to take an introductory weaving class, and I was immediately hooked. Since that first class, I’ve continued to study both with Arthurdale’s local weaving instructor, Linda Flemmer, as well as with Sarah Fletcher in Davis. Weaving can be a difficult skill to master; while the actual weaving of a pattern is straightforward and repetitive, setting up the loom (also known as warping) is much more difficult and often time-consuming. Add to that the difficulty of working on historic looms, which each have their own quirks, and it can be intimidating to get started. However, for me–and I think for a lot of people–learning to weave can be a very worthwhile endeavor as you are helping to continue this historic tradition while also taking pride in the process of creating your project!
Currently, we are working on renovations to our modern loom room (located in the Center Hall basement) which will make it a more inviting and functional space for our Arthurdale Weavers. As we cannot use the space at the moment though, we decided to move the loom I am working on into the museum, so that any time I am working on my project, I am also demonstrating for whoever happens to stop by. I love being able to talk about the process and answer questions, but I particularly love the kids who are fascinated by this type of work that they have never seen before. They especially love it when I let them help out by pulling back the beater on the loom each time I finish a row. It has been an incredibly fun and rewarding experience to learn how to weave in my time at Arthurdale, and I am excited to continue honing my ability! And for anyone interested in learning to weave, pay attention to announcements from Arthurdale Heritage regarding our loom room and classes! Once the renovations are complete, we will be offering regular classes for both kids and adults, and you might even have me as your instructor!
Watch Kendyl use the loom:
