Fun Facts About Cotton

The history of cotton is a long and fascinating subject. Here are a few little-known facts about this unassuming, everyday fiber which has made-and broken-entire civilized societies.

Cotton seeds are tough enough to survive travel across oceans on the wind. This probably explains why similar varieties grow sometimes thousands of miles apart-and why botanists are not sure where the first plants came from.

Cotton has been cultivated in many different parts of the world for more than 5,000 years. Even though the people who grew and used it never came in contact with each other-in fact, some of them lived on different sides of an ocean-they still managed to develop similar tools to clean, prepare, spin, and weave it.

Cotton was originally grown in several different colors, including brown, rust, and even light purple. However, most of the cotton grown today is white. When mechanical processing methods were introduced it was easier to maintain a consistent color by using only white-fibered plants. Colored cotton is still grown, but on a very small scale.

The word “cotton” is an English version of the Arabic “qutun” or “kutun,” a generic term meaning fancy fabric. But one of cotton’s original popular names was “vegetable wool.

The myth of the “Vegetable Lamb” was probably started by an English knight named Sir John Mandeville who spent more than 30 years traveling the world in the 14th century. In his memoirs he described bushes with baby sheep-lambs-growing on them. The branches would bend, allowing the lambs to feed on the grass under the bushes. But once the grass was gone, the lambs would die and fall to the ground, where their fluffy remains could be gathered up, spun, and woven into cloth.

Mahatma Gandhi’s Khadi Movement was launched in the 1920s. It was a way to help the people of India become independent of British rule by spinning and weaving their own cloth instead of relying on British-made fabric. “Khadi” was the name of the cloth, a plain white cotton that was made into high-collared jackets and loincloths (dhoti) that were worn together-much to the disgust of British citizens like Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

The boll weevil created a crisis all over the American South by laying its eggs in the cotton bolls, destroying them in the process. Cotton growers in the Alabama town of Enterprise watched the spread of this bug and worried what it would do their economy-until someone suggested they try growing peanuts instead. They did, and were so successful that they erected a statue to the boll weevil in appreciation for its contribution to their prosperity.

The word “denim” comes from “serge de Nîmes,” a fabric made in the French town of Nîmes more than 400 years ago. Unlike today’s cotton version, it was made from silk and wool. But as the name evolved-dropping the “serge” and combining the “de Nîmes” into one word-it was used to describe the all-cotton fabric we now know as denim.

“Jean” was the French name for a blended cotton-linen or cotton-wool cloth popular with the sailors of Genoa (who were nicknamed “genes” by the French). Unlike denim, which was woven of alternating blue and white threads, jean was a solid color, and was produced in many different colors.

Cotton jean”-jean cloth made from 100% cotton-became a favorite with the well-to-do, and eventually changed its name to “denim pants.” “Cotton denim” was made into “waist overalls” for working men like loggers and miners. And waist overalls were eventually improved with a riveting technique patented in 1874 by Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis, and eventually became “blue jeans.

Reference:

• Big Cotton by Stephen Yafa The Story of CottonThe National Agricultural Library’s page on the Legend of the Lamb-PlantMore information on the Enterprise, Alabama Boll Weevil MonumentPhoto courtesy of Mary R. Vogt