The Progress of Wool, "Spinning"

In the illustration on the left page, mother and daughter spin wool, each working at their own spinning wheel in an otherwise empty room, possibly the corner of their cottage. The description to the right uses words of one syllable for beginner readers to describe “the Spin-ning-house, where wo-men are em-ploy-ed in the use of ma-chines, call-ed spin-ning jen-nies,” and explains how women use this machine. The contrast between the earlier cottage industry depicted in the illustration with the newer factory technologies described the text is typical of many production stories about textiles for younger readers. The mother and child spinning in their cottage or outside the cottage door held sentimental value for readers, capturing the industry of virtuous poor families. This older process retains visual prominence in books on cloth even when the text celebrates new inventions that lowered the price these families could demand for their goods. Including the child and parent together symbolizes that older methods of spinning will be passed down regardless of new inventions, lending a comforting sense of generational stability amidst rapid industrial changes of the period. At a time of Luddite resistance and social unrest, reassurance predominates in younger production stories like this one, providing something like Richard Scarry's approach to a busy village at work. The hand-colored engraving is printed on a different kind of paper and appears smaller than surrounding pages. Some users removed pages like these or purchased them separately to hang on the wall as educational prints.