Heroes, Heroines, and History

 Tape: The Tie That Binds

By Izzy James

Reproduction of Colonial Tape

Textile work. Nowadays it’s done primarily as a hobby. I have been an avid needleworker since I learned to knit when I was eight years old. It is rare to see me without my knitting, and these days tatting. It is a peaceful and useful pastime. In colonial times, a woman’s time spent with needles, yarn, and thread was working time. Today I thought I would talk about tape.

Tape in colonial times refers to cloth ties that were used for closures on everything. Petticoats, pockets, hair ties, powder sacks, satchel straps, wagon cover ties, drawstrings, garters, all if these and more required tape.

A docent demonstrates one use of tape. 

Tape had all types of uses.

 

Colonial Women's Pockets were tied around the waist under the skirt.

There were decorative trims available for purchase from England, but most people weren’t tying their petticoats with them. The basic utilitarian tape, ubiquitous to life in the colonies was made at home. On simple looms also made at home. 

There were three basic types:  “the paddle, lap, or knee tape loom; the box tape loom; and the standing or floor tape loom."

 

Antique Scandinavian Tape Loom

Box or Table Tape Loom

 

Floor Tape Looms were a bit more complex than their more portable counterparts.

These looms were in constant use in the home to produce the tape so necessary to colonial life. There were no zippers, dresses were still held together with straight pins--while wearing them! Children, boys and girls, were taught to weave tape as well as adults. Like knitting and other forms of textiles, tape looms accompanied girls when they made visits to friends or attended working “bees” where women came together to work on something large like a quilt. They would have traveled with families over the Wilderness Road to their new homes in the West. 

 

The Governor Mifflin of Pennsylvania and his wife, who is working on her box loom.

In my book, The Road Home, Beti is a shepherdess and a weaver. She uses a rigid heddle loom that would fall in the paddle or knee tape loom category. The rigid heddle she uses was given to her by her mother. Who received it from her father on the eve of their courtship. 

According to an old Nordic tradition, a young man presented a small gift at the beginning of a courtship to the girl he’d chosen to marry. The tradition says that if the woman accepted the gift the relationship began, if she returned the gift that was the end. Small band heddles with meaningful carvings were just the right type of gift for this tradition. Women often gave a gift of their own in return. Usually textile items like “knitted mittens or stockings, suspenders, or stocking bands.”

Tape was made primarily of flax (linen), hemp, wool, or cotton. The fiber would have been harvested, spun, and dyed before being woven into yarn, cloth, or tape. The process takes considerable time even today. Thankfully we have alternatives reading available so we don't HAVE to weave our own closures, but looking at the many beautiful patterns and varieties of tape I can't help but wonder about how much we have to be thankful for. So much history is hidden from us because the plain, homely things like making tape and how much tape was used was never recorded. 

A Cinderella story about a pirate's daughter on the Wilderness Road to Kentucky.

Beti Boatman, pirate's daughter, long dreamed of traveling to a place where no one knew her name. When looters showed up on the day she buried her father her choice was made. Leave her home or allow the only two people in the world she loves to live in constant danger.

When Zeke and what's left of his regiment organized a wagon train west, they did not expect to encounter a woman traveling alone. Beti insists she doesn't need his help, but Zeke knows better and the strong need to protect her runs deep. Things get complicated when looters track Beti down. And emissaries from her mother’s country claim Beti is a real princess. Now Beti must choose: the hardships in Kentucky or a throne.

Izzy James lives in the traces of history in coastal Virginia with her fabulous husband in a house brimming with books. Born with a traveling bone and an itch to knit. Izzy travels to every location where her books take place, from Williamsburg to Wyoming, popping in yarn stores along the way. 

Connect with Izzy through her website at izzyjamesauthor.com and sign up for her monthly newsletter. 

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References:
Handwoven Tape: Understanding Weaving and Early American and Contemporary Tape, by Susan Faulkner Weaver, Shiffer Publishing, LTD, Atglen, PA, 2016. 

Norwegian Pick-Up Bandweaving, by Heather Torgenrud, Shiffer Publishing, LTD, Atglen, PA, 2014

Images:

Pocket: https://i.pinimg.com/736x/a8/ed/2b/a8ed2b213a21ecc6030751413ebb4ea7.jpg

Tape: https://i.etsystatic.com/7762935/r/il/585045/5419240255/il_600x600.5419240255_b229.jpg

PA Governor and wife: https://i.pinimg.com/236x/e0/a7/6b/e0a76b73423db7ab496177a76acd8d4e--morris-th-century.jpg
Loom: https://i.pinimg.com/736x/08/bb/5c/08bb5cb78f76ae6a65e1f572a685896c.jpg
Loom: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/20/da/11/20da11d1a63232774199f26d5dbb597e.jpg
Loom: https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dvu9dy5wEOs/VqvmxycQ-9I/AAAAAAAAAaA/njL5Qea1kKY/s1600/Jonathan%2BSeidel%2Btape%2Bloom.jpg