Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/24

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THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

small quantities of cotton and flax for muslin and linen. The coarse muslins of the stores, however, are too cheap to permit this industry greatly to enlarge. The mountain product of woolen dress goods, on the other hand, is held in high esteem,

SPINNING FLAX

and nothing could be more contemptuous than the references of the Kentucky housewives to the machine-made cloth of the storekeepers.

But linsey forms only a part of the mountain weaving. Blankets and coverlets, known as " kivers," come in consider- able numbers from the household looms. The wealth of the housewife is reckoned in " kivers." The mountain bride brings as her dowery a collection of these treasures, to which she adds as many as she can to pass on to her own daughters. In several families we were shown thick, well-woven quilts which had come down from a great-grandmother, and were cherished with some- thing like Roman awe for household gods. We heard much complaint of the modern dyes sold in the stores. They were compared disparagingly with the more permanent colors given by the bark and berry dyes of the earlier days. Yet, so far as we could discover, the analine products are very generally used.