Woven Protest Banners







At least half of Carlisle's mill workers lived in poverty and Stephen White told us around 1823 some petitioned the King pleading to be sent to America and in 1826 the mill workers rioted in protest over their living and working conditions.

Sadly conditions failed to improve and although the Reform Act of 1832 gave more people the right to vote, ordinary workers had no way of making their voices heard.  Wages were being cut throughout the country and the workers gathered together (The Chartists) to demand a People's Charter - to provide for fair treatment of the workers.

We discussed how if we had lived 200 years ago we could let people know how unhappy we were with the way we were being treated.  

There was no television, no radio, no internet and no social media.  We would need to put our feelings and demands onto a poster which would get our message to those who needed to know.

In preparation for learning to weave in a few weeks time, we took strips of recycled card,  which we wove together and decorated.



 We looked at examples of Weaving Society Posters from the time and using our drawings and bold writing, we made large striking posters to let people know how we felt about our poor conditions.






This taught us how to weave - that vertical pieces are called the warp and horizontal pieces are the weft.   We learned how the weft goes over and under the warp to form the weave.














Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Stead McAlpin, Print Works, Cummersdale

Image
Stead McAlpin, Cummersdale This week 30th January,  Ros Downing was due to visit us and give us a talk on the history of Stead McAlpin printworks in Cummersdale but unfortunately had to cancel due to illness. Although not in as much detail as Ros could have told us, we looked at the history of Stead McAlpin who have had a factory at Cummersdale since 1835 and is the only surviving print works in Carlisle and the most versatile print maker in the UK, using rotary, flatbed and digital printmaking. We talked about what life would have been like as a print worker in the 1800s.  The factory would have been unheated, the only light coming from candles stuck into blocks of wood hanging from the roof.  Many bleaching and dyeing processes involved harsh chemicals and unpleasant substances - lime and dung for instance.  Working conditions would have been harsh for unskilled workers and a long apprenticeship would have to be served to become a printer, who were the elite of the workforc
Read more

Building our banners 1 - 19th June, 2019

Image
Our two main large banners will be made up of approximately 30 printed pieces for each class and using a tessellated brick design will symbolize our journey in building our knowledge of the history of our local textile heritage. Using our notes and drawings from looking through our sketchbooks and our blog last week, we started to think about what we could include on our individual piece which was our decision. It needs to be bold, bright and striking as it will be seen from a distance   We will use a combination of techniques to achieve this. We started by adding blocks of colour - some made by printing and others by painting.  A really good print using impressed polystyrene tile We masked off areas then used fabric paint to paint blocks of bright colour. Some engraved textile inspired drawings into foam and printed onto the fabric. Over the next few weeks we shall be adding more detail.  We aim to have two or three pieces from which w
Read more

The Journey of Raw Cotton - Carlisle Ship Canal 1823 - 1853 - 22rd May, 2019

Image
Carlisle Ship Canal by local historian and author David Ramshaw  - As part of tracing the journey of raw cotton to the Mills in Carlisle we today learned how cotton made its way from the port of Whitehaven into the centre of Carlisle. Britain was developing fast - there was a high need for a cheap and reliable way to transfer raw and manufactured materials to and from the new factories and canal building was at its height.  Factories were being built in Carlisle to meet the demand replacing the hand loom weavers and more people were coming into Carlisle to work in the mills.  But Carlisle had poor transport links - goods were transported to and from Carlisle to the Solway ports by horse and cart along inadequate roads.  A river - the Eden connected Carlisle to the sea but was shallow, ships could get so far but ran aground.  The local council looked at the possibility of building a canal from the Solway coast to Newcastle - money was raised by the sale of shares and it was deci
Read more