History of Michigan weaving textiles & handcrafted goods
From the Ottawa, Potawatomi, and Ojibwa women who wove hemp, flax, wool, rushes and cattails in the early 1800s through the famed Cranbrook School, a prestigious graduate art school and center for weaving today, textiles have a rich and varied history in Michigan.
Southern Michigan was the highest producer of sheep in the midwestern region from the Civil War through 1910, and their fleece was a vital source of raw materials for textiles as well as income for the state. The growth of the furniture industry in Grand Rapids and Zeeland and the auto industry in Detroit provided not only more markets for the traditional fibers but also experimental wool mills that improved Michigan breeds.
A movement in the early 1900s to return to original, handcrafted goods after the Industrial Revolution led to a rise in arts and crafts schools, colleges and guilds. Michigan already had a strong relationship with fiber arts and it only made sense for textiles to be at the forefront. Grand Rapids and Detroit created Arts and Crafts Societies in 1902 and 1906 respectively, and Cranbrook, Hartland, Greenfield Village and the College for Creative Studies followed shortly.
Everyone who has heard of the Cranbrook Loom: raise your hand. That should be almost every weaver in the audience. The large looms, designed and built at the Cranbrook Kingswood School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan in 1936 by John Bexell, were developed to allow the Cranbrook weaving studio to create custom rugs and other large woven pieces. Begun as a school for the Arts, primarily architecture, in 1925, Cranbrook became noted for weaving when Cranbrook founder George Booth invited Loja Saarinen to design textiles for the new Cranbrook buildings created by her husband, Eliel Saarinen, she suggested that the rugs be woven by the school rather than be imported from Finland. The textile department was born and never looked back.
The Cross Village Rug Works is the proud owner of a 72” Cranbrook Loom, which is featured in our gallery showroom.
Fiber farms as a viable source of income in Michigan are now few and far between. The majority of sheep breeders are retirees who raise sheep as a hobby, using the fleece for personal enjoyment. There are a few out there, however, like the 6th generation Matchett Farm near Charlevoix and Irish Acres in East Jordan, who are working to save rare breeds and an even rarer way of life and the Cross Village Rug Works is fortunate to be able to support their efforts.
Few of the large woolen mills of the last century are still in business. The large Clinton Woolen Mill, opened in 1866, was closed 1957. A fire in 1969 destroyed the original Davidson Woolen Mill that had opened in 1921 but it has been rebuilt and is still in business. One of the longevity awards must go to the Abraham family of Frankenmuth. The Frankenmuth Mill opened in 1894; in 1910, Mr. Abraham joined as a part owner. His family continued to run the mill until 1977, when it was purchased by Gary McClellen. In December of 1985, Kathy (Abraham) Zeilinger and her husband Gary left the Frankenmuth Mill and opened their own mill, Zeilinger’s, which is a familiar name in milling and fiber festivals throughout the state. Stonehedge, a mill owned and operated by Debbie McDermott in East Jordan in N.Mi. Charlevoix County is a newer face on the scene and it is encouraging to see that the art of milling has not been forgotten.
People and companies like the Matchetts, Irish Acres, Stonehedge, the rebuilt Davidson Mill, and Zeilingers, among others, help keep fiber farming and the textile manufacturing industry alive today. The huge growth in number of guilds in the past several decades points to the importance of the textile arts, and the schools established at the turn of the century are still going strong. Michigan remains an important center for textiles, from the sheep to the shawl.
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