"Behind the Seams: The Silk Industry of the Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor"

      Silk, the world's most precious fabric, once flowed in a lustrous, luxurious stream from the coal mining towns and gritty industrial cities of eastern Pennsylvania.  From noisy mills full of whirring spindles and clattering iron looms poured out the finest silks for America's ladies and gentlemen.      

     "Behind the Seams" incorporates hands-on activities, historical artifacts and documents, and a series of black-and-white images by photographer Carol Front.  Guest Curator Martha Capwell-Fox interprets the story of the silkworm industry in the National Heritage Corridor, describing how the silkworm produces silk and the early attempts to cultivate silkworms in the U.S.  She also describes the role of women and children in the labor force, and focuses on the Read & Lovatt Silk Manufacturing Company, located in Weatherly.  Read & Lovatt was the world's largest silk throwing plant in 1895.  

       The hands-on exhibits in "Behind the Seams" encourage visitors to learn about textiles and weaving.  They include a giant silkworm head that extrudes silk fibers, a weaving wall, kiosks demonstrating different types of knots and braids, and a loom station where visitors learn to weave on different types of looms.  

     "Behind the Seams" is supported with funds from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, the Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor Commission, and through education grants from The Air Products Foundation, Binney & Smith, Inc., The Charles H. Hoch Foundation, Just Born, Inc., McGinley Mills, PNC Banks and PPL.  

For more information about the exhibit please contact the National Canal Museum at (610) 559-6613.

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