Thursday, July 12, 2007

Rags to Riches ...

... or at least to more widespread literacy. (Not to mention -- hold your britches! -- a 13th century case of recycling that made sense.)

2 comments:

Grotius said...

One of the first major industries in the U.S. was the production of rag papers in the Berkshires. The raw material came from recylced clothing shipped in from Britain.

Grotius said...

You can read about papermaking in the Berkshires in Judith McGaw's wondrerful book:

Most Wonderful Machine: Mechanization and Social Change in berkshire Paper Making, 1801-1885