Library Exhibit Explores Fraught History of Textile Industry

Social Fabric: Land, Labor, and the World the Textile Industry Created

Cornell University Library
Ithaca, NY 14853

Social Fabric: Land, Labor, and World the Textile Industry Created tells the story of the communities affected by the textile and garment industries in the United States and around the world. Spanning nearly 400 years, it includes indigenous communities that lived along the river valleys in New England where those industries first arose, enslaved people and sharecroppers in the South that grew the cotton that fed the mills, women and immigrants that worked in the mills and factories who fought for worker’s rights through unions, incarcerated people that make clothing and textiles in American prisons, and the workers in the Global South that make much of what we use and wear today. 

More information at www.blogs.cornell.edu/threadsofhistory