Lacemaking in colonial Ipswich, Massachusetts

Magazine Antiques, Dec, 1997 by Marta M. Cotterell

The town of Ipswich, Massachusetts, became a prosperous seaport and administrative center after its incorporation in 1634. However, by the mid-eighteenth century the harbor had silted up, excluding the larger cargo ships. Precisely at this time all the Colonies began to share the hardships of heavy taxation and embargoes, then the declaration of independence, and finally war. During this era of struggle, Ipswich initiated the most improbable of industries - lacemaking. In 1797 the American Gazetteer, under "Ipswich," reported, "Silk and thread lace, of an elegant texture, are manufactured here by women and children, in large quantifies, and sold for use and exportation in Boston, and other mercantile towns."(1)

The skills for making lace were brought to Ipswich by immigrants from the lacemaking centers of the English Midlands. The local industry, which began about 1750 with a small number of women trying to supplement their family income, peaked after the American Revolution and gradually declined as Ipswich companies began to make lace by machine in the 1820s.(2)

Traditionally, the production of handmade lace on a commercial scale has been a European phenomenon.(3) In America, the industry existed only in Ipswich. The lacemakers were housewives who worked at home after they had finished their other chores. Each woman averaged seven inches of bobbin lace a day, which is a surprisingly large amount considering the intricacy of the procedure. On a round or elliptical pillow eight to twelve inches in diameter [ILLUSTRATION FOR Pl. V OMITTED] threads from dozens to hundreds of bobbins [ILLUSTRATION FOR Pl. XII OMITTED] are crossed and twisted back and forth over a pattern called a pricking [ILLUSTRATION FOR Pl. II OMITTED]. Pins hold the threads in place as the lace is worked. It can easily take several hours to produce an inch or two of lace.

Once a week the Ipswich lace was collected and taken to Newburyport, Salem, and Boston, where it was traded for necessities such as butter, sugar, and flora, or luxuries such as French calico, silk, and snuff.(4)

The Ipswich industry is documented in an exchange of letters prompted by the first United States census of 1790 between the Reverend Joseph Dana (1742-1827), the pastor of the South Church of Ipswich from 1765 until his death,(5) and George Cabot (1752-1823), soon to be the United States Senator from Massachusetts. Dana was asked, presumably by Cabot, to describe the industries active in the town, their size, and the value of their production. The inquiry was part of Alexander Hamilton's preparation for the Report on Manufacturing, which he delivered to Congress on December 5, 1791. This report was his responsibility as Secretary of the Treasury.

In Dana's final accounting of lacemaking in the town he reported to Cabot on January 24, 1791, that between August 1789 and August 1790 six hundred lacemakers produced 41, 979 yards of lace. Included with the letter were thirty-six samples of this lace, an account of the amounts produced and sold, and the bartering price of the whole output. Twenty-one of these samples survive with the original letters, which are among Hamilton's papers in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. [ILLUSTRATION FOR Pl. VII OMITTED].(6)

Before Dana reached these conclusions he faced a formidable task. In his first letter to Cabot he reported that lacemaking

is in a dispersed Situation; there being in the different parts of this town, probably not less than 600 persons who do more or less in it; ... and all independent of each other - So that to ascertain "the quantity and value of the annual finished work," is an undertaking of some difficult.(7)

There was no agent who sold the towns lace and whom Dana could consult, since the industry was not modeled on the European lace trade. This may explain why collecting information fell to Dana, who was well respected, educated, had investments in local industry, and had parish volunteers to help him.

The lace merchants of Ipswich were women, most of whom were lacemakers themselves or daughters of lacemakers. Sarah E. Lakeman (1850-1937) of Ipswich wrote to Frank Waters, an Ipswich historian, on September 30, 1903:

My G. [great] Grandmother Sutton [Elizabeth Foster Sutton] who was born in 1736 made enough [lace] to purchase silk for a dress for each of her [five] daughters and one daughter who was born in 1771 was the lace merchant to take it [the lace] by stage to Newburyport and Salem.(8)

During the War of 1812 the story goes that Daniel Hams of Ipswich was confined to Dartmoor prison in England for more than three years for refusing to pledge allegiance to the king. During this time his wife, who was living in Ipswich, supported their five children by making lace and exchanging it with farmers for pork, potatoes, and meal.(9) However, if economics were the incentive for lacemaking, fashion provided the market, since wearing lace was a status symbol for both men and women. A portrait of Sarah Noyes Chester painted in 1796 shows her wearing Ipswich lace [ILLUSTRATION FOR Pl. I OMITTED]. Another of Mrs. Hezekiah Beardsley (frontispiece) shows her with a shawl edged in Ipswich lace of a pattern that can be matched with one of the twenty-one surviving samples that Dana submitted to Cabot [ILLUSTRATION FOR Pl. XI OMITTED].