(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved. Contact us for information about using this image.
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This Allen sisters [Frances and Mary Allen] photograph captures the textile processing equipment common to every household in the 17th to 19th centuries. By the time Memorial Hall Museum in Deerfield Massachusetts, opened in 1880 few women and girls were involved in home production of cloth. Most people purchased cloth that had been produced in factories in Europe as well as in America, not in homes. The old-fashioned spinning wheels, winders, and flax breaks, honored tools of the women of the nation, could then be given to museums.