Issue #117 – July 2022

$6.00

• Sit Down and Spin at the Chair
• Appalachian Tabletop Wheel
• A Traditional Distaff From Peru
• Spinning Wheels by Earl Oman

Description

Highlights From This Issue

In this issue we study a chair-frame spinning wheel to see if it was built by a wheel maker from New York State. We compare a tabletop wheel to some patented examples to figure out where it was made and used. An unusual hand-held distaff is discovered to be from a certain region in Peru. We view pictures of spinning wheels by a 20th-century wheel maker.

Sit Down and Spin at the Chair

Barbara Lovesey describes the unusual characteristics of her unsigned chair-frame spinning wheel. She speculates that it was made by W. Fancher of New York State. After studying my own wheel marked W. FANCHER, which has a slightly different structure, I find many matching features.

Appalachian Tabletop Wheel

A newly acquired tabletop spinning wheel has Michael Taylor wondering about where these wheels were built and who used them. He refers to two patented tabletop wheels, one patented by Wilson and Fairbanks and the other by J.W. Burkhardt. I provide a few more details and the patent drawings of them.

A Traditional Distaff From Peru

When a friend gave Susan Hector a wooden object he bought in Peru many years ago, she consulted historic documents and a contemporary expert, Abby Franquemont. She concluded that it is a handheld distaff from the Huancayo area of Peru.

Spinning Wheels by Earl Oman

Matt Oman is the grandson of the late Earl Oman of Proctor, MN, a spinning wheel maker who we wrote about in Issue #74.Thanks to Matt and other members of the family for sharing pictures of their wheels.