7 - New England

Summary

This chapter demonstrates how New England – an Atlantic region that differed greatly from the Lower South in its origins, climatic characteristics, and demographic make-up – nonetheless found ways to embrace sericulture. The pursuit figured little in corporate or imperial plans, arrived late, and was never really oriented towards export, growing out of the particular preoccupations of a small number of local promoters. But by drawing on the region’s distinctive organisation and networks, considerable progress was made in planting mulberries, and a foundation was laid that would bring rich engagement with silk culture. Through a case study of one particular household’s pursuit of raw silk – that of Rev. Ezra Stiles – we gain access into what Atlantic silk experimentation meant for the many thousands of families who undertook it at one stage or another across the Atlantic world, and the ways in which it affected their domestic spaces and routines. Lastly, although New England silk trials differed in so many respects from others, it was apparent that they nonetheless shared in common an overriding emphasis on the contribution of female labour – something that their more balanced demographics were better able to support than many outposts in the early South.