Transatlantic Threads: Scottish Linen and Society, c.1707-1780

by Sally Tuckett

Overview

Transatlantic Threads shows how studying the making, use and meaning of a relatively low-cost, utilitarian cloth like linen, broadens our understanding of eighteenth-century Scotland and the wider Atlantic world. Different types of linen cloth were used across society everyday: from fine shirts worn by the rich, to coarse aprons worn by labourers; from expensive bed sheets, to canvas used for ships’ sails. Eighteenth-century linen production was a Scottish economic success story, with thousands of people working to produce millions of yards of yarn and woven cloth. It was also how Scots became inextricably linked with transatlantic trade and the slavery economy, as the desire to capture the colonial market was a key driver for developing coarse linen production.

Using a material commodity to explore everyday experiences of ordinary people, particularly women, non-elite and enslaved people, Transatlantic Threads examines the cultural and social significance of linen in Scottish and transatlantic society.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781474492997
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	05/31/2025
Series:	Histories of the Scottish Atlantic
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Sally Tuckett is Lecturer in Dress and Textile Histories at the University of Glasgow. She is co-author (with Stana Nenadic) of Colouring the Nation: The Turkey Red Printed Cotton Industry in Scotland, c.1840-1940 (2013, National Museums of Scotland) and has published articles in Scottish Historical Review, Journal of Scottish Historical Studies and Textile History. Sally was awarded a Research Incentive Grant from the Carnegie Trust for Transatlantic Threads and is currently working on an AHRC funded project, ‘Fleece to Fashion: Economies and Cultures of Craft in Scotland, Knitted Textiles c.1780-present’.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Note on Language
List of Illustrations
Maps
Tables

Introduction: The Making, Movement and Meaning of Linen

1. Linen in Scottish Society
2. Cloth, Control and Commerce
3. The British Linen Company and the Transatlantic Trade
4. Linen and the Atlantic
5. Scottish Cloth and Enslaved People in the Chesapeake
6. Material Meanings

Conclusion: The Legacies of Scottish Linen

Appendix I: Stamped Linen, 1728-1780
Appendix II: Cargo of the Dove, 1742
Appendix III: Suppliers and Manufacturers for the Dove

Glossary
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

Transatlantic Threads offers an innovative analysis of the role of linen in eighteenth-century Scottish society and the Atlantic economy. By focusing on coarse linen, Sally Tuckett imaginatively brings together dress, economic and social history, and the study of slavery in the eighteenth-century Atlantic world. She shows how linen was the fibre and fabric of choice for young and old, free and enslaved, linking Scotland to a wider British imperial remit.

Giorgio Riello

Sally Tuckett’s pathbreaking Transatlantic Threads reveals how a humble textile – linen – carved out a place for Scottish exports in the fast-growing British imperial economy of the eighteenth century. Adopting a novel approach that links people, places and things, Tuckett follows Scottish linen’s journey from flax to fabric, from the hands of Highland girls learning to spin to the backs of enslaved Africans clothed in coarse linen shirting as they toiled in the tobacco fields of Virginia.

John Styles

Transatlantic Threads is an exemplary textile history, recovering the deepest structures of eighteenth-century economy, culture, and social life. The sustained attention to enslaved wearers and the place of Scottish linen in the Atlantic colonial system gives this book an unrivalled urgency while also showcasing Sally Tuckett’s scholarly skill and agility.

Seth Rockman