Cotton - Fashion History Through Textiles Unit Study 3

Cotton is a natural fiber that grows on cotton plants. It is one of the most widely used natural fibers. Fibers of the cotton plant are called raw cotton which is made into textiles and then clothing. Cotton plants grow in the sub-tropics which are warm areas of the world just north and south of the equator.

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Cotton fibers were grown, spun and woven into cloth by peoples living in India, South America, Africa and Mexico as early as 3000 BCE.
By the 600s CE trade routes from India to Venice, Italy were controlled by Arab traders. These traders travelled across the deserts by camel caravans. They sold a fine cloth called muslin and a colourful printed fabric called calico. From India, cotton spread to Persia, Egypt, the Middle East and eventually Europe.

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Founders of the first colony in the United States, Jamestown Virginia, planted cotton among their other crops in 1607. By the late 1600s farmers in Virginia and North and South Carolina were exporting cotton to other colonies. By the 1800s, millions of pounds of cotton were being exported to England. This increase was mainly due to the invention of the Cotton Gin.

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American cotton accounted for 60% of the world's cotton. But by the 1900s, the cotton industry was drastically downsized. In 1892 the boll weevil, an insect that attacks cotton plants, found its way to Texas from Central America.

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Cotton is a popular clothing fabric due to its many qualities. It is a versatile, soft, breathable, comfortable and durable fiber which has found uses in clothing from underwear to overcoats. In the late 1700s American factories began producing a fabric from cotton they called denim. Denim blue jeans began to be popular in large part because of the California Gold Rush. In Europe, after the industrial revolution made cotton an affordable, mass produced fabric, it was also determined that it was the best fabric for underwear.

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Find out more about the history of cotton when you download the full unit study. The combined information and fun activities can supplement a lesson or be a lesson in itself.

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