of a Lesson Plan for Rope Making.
THE ROPE MAKER
LESSON TOPIC: Rope Making
TEACHER: Theodore R. Hazen
GRADE LEVEL: 4th to 6th DATE: August 2006.
1. The student will understand who the rope maker was and why
he was important to the early settlers.
2. They will recognize the basic equipment found inside the rope
3. They will be able to understand that the rope maker and his
apprentice were craftsmen who deserve special recognition.
4. The student will define in special terms distinguished from
other craftsman because he worked with tools often of his own
design and creation manipulating a material called rope.
The rope maker was a professional who worked in the field of
iron working, and was a well qualified specialist in fibers and
textiles. The rope maker transformed lumps of fibers into objects
of utility and grace.
The rope maker has been neglected by history. The rope maker's
trade, his methods of working are like of the raw material which
he harvested from the earth. The rope maker worked with fibers
and yarn, and sweat to create an inexhaustible amount of rope
over the centuries from the prehistoric times through the Renaissance.
When the rope maker came to American he was on his own. He had
to start from scratch. He was dependent upon England and Europe
to import his basic tools and the raw material with which he worked.
When the American rope was produced by rope walks in America the
British crown discovered new ways of reshipping to impose taxes
on their product. During the colonial period the rope makers specialized
during their apprenticeships and often learned to make just many
varies of rope and cord. After the colonies fought the Revolution
and people began spreading over the Appalachian Mountains, rope
making began making began to become steam powered, and the industry
A. The Name of the Site.
B. Self Introduction.
C. Program Introduction.
D. Safety message.
2. Rope-Making trade:
A. Rope the magic cord.
B. Seventeen thousand year history. The knowledge of fibers and
C. Discovery of different types of fiber and twisting them into
crude implements of warfare, hunting.
D. What part did rope play in the thrust forward to civilization?
Its part in invention and manufacture of complex machines which
could not have been built with traditional materials, such as
E. The workability of rope gave inventors and woodworkers the
ability to make intricate moving parts with an accuracy superior
to wooden counterparts.
3. Discuss the properties of rope:
A. hemp is the rope maker's raw material.
B. Rope is tough, long lasting, naturally elastic.
C. The most important thing about fibers is that it is easily
"worked" with the equipment of the rope maker.
D. Rope walks became long covered wooden buildings.
4. Discuss the rope walk and the vats of molten tar:
A. The rope walk is the heart of the rope making, and the piles
of fiber is the soul of this shop.
B. The revolving hooks which turn and twist the fibers, and creates
C. Simple tools were used for thousands of years in rope making
all over the world.
D. The rope maker and his helper or apprentice worked the walk.
E. The rope and his world, the coastal towns, the ship yards,
sailcloth makers once part of everday America.
F. What do the records show and what, where and who are the rope
makers of today.
5. What was the importance of the rope maker?:
A. Making rope.
B. How many people, crafts, industries, mills, use rope?
C. Ships, boats, fishing industry, and canal boats.
D. The rope maker's world ever become part of our world with "sayings,"
the material of the makers' culture in our lives today.
E. How did the rope maker get paid for his hard work?
1. Set: Introduction to program.
A. Compare modern methods of rope making with historical process.
Is it the same or has it changed?
B. Demonstrate simple rope making skills.
C. Make a piece of rope from start to finish.
A. One student will crank the hooks of the jack and another crank
the hook on the traveler.
A. Ask students if anyone in their families was a rope maker?
B. Discuss what type of world it would be if we never learned
to use fibers and there were never rope makers.
A. Ask students to compare modern importance of rope makers with
that of the mid-1800's rope makers. Which was more important?
B. What are the benefits and effects of items made by the rope
maker on our lives and culture?
4. Knife, cutter, tape measure.
1. Observe how easily the students learn the basic steps of processing
fibers into everyday usable items.
2. Ask the students to list the basic steps in making a simple
3. Ask the students to identify the tools used historically by
the early rope makers.
4. Ask the students if there is an end to the usefulness of rope
makers in our world and in the future?
An 18Tth Century Craft:
A Craft is an occupation in which a skill is needed. An art,
trade, sense of skill, ingenuity or profession requiring special
skill or knowledge, especially manual dexterity. A member of a
trade or handicraft. A skill or technique. A Craftsman.
Chaucer said, "The Life Is Short, The Craft so Long to
A Craftsman a workman skilled in a craft. A person woo practices
a handicraft, an artisan. Craftsmanship
A Trade is a skilled handicraft. The habitual practice of an
occupation, business or skilled handicraft, especially one requiring
an apprenticeship. as distinct from a professional, or skilled
handicraft, as distinct from any other occupation. The development
of a regular course, or occupation
A Tradesman (Tradeswoman) a person who is skilled in and follows
a trade or skilled handicraft, an artisan, a craftsman. A person
who is engaged in trade or the sale of commodities, especially
a shopkeeper. An artisan.
Tradsmanship is the fact of being a tradesman, the character
of a tradesman, tradesmen, collectively.
Sinclair (1782) said, "A "tradesman" in Scotland,
implies one who works with his hands at any handicraft trade;
where as in England, it means a shopkeeper."
A Handicraft is work that needs both skill with the hands and
artistic design, such as woodworking, needlework and pottery.
Today we are going to talk about and demonstrate a very old
and long craft. Does anyone know what I could be talking about?
Early ropes were either twisted or braided. Rope making goes
back 17,000 years, and its exact original may be never know. The
Egyptians first developed simple mechanical advantage tools. Their
tools was like a drop spindle where three strands were twisted
together. There is some argument as to if this could work or not,
and it may be simply a misinterpretation of written inscriptions.
A Similar method was used by the Indians in the American Southwest
about 1,000 A.D.
Fibers used in rope making. Animal Sources: Hair, horse hair,
hide, sinew (fibrous muscle tissue), and gut, catgut. Vegetable
Sources: There is an Egyptian mention of the use of papyrus. A
Roman mention, Pliny mentions the use of flax. Hemp was used for
sea-going vessels. In the 14th century there is mention of birch,
juniper and willow twig cordage used since the from the 12th and
13 h centuries, together with cordage of shredded wood. There
is also mention of heather cordage, and roping thatch. In the
19th century manila began to replace hemp. Hemp has been used
for 12 thousand years as a rope material. In the Orient shoots
of bamboo, reeds, small grasses, and the hairy covering of coconuts
The history of rope making would undergo four major changes:
1. Hand twisting/braiding; 2. Simple mechanical advantage tools;
3. Compound mechanical tools; 4. Power machinery.
The Persian ruler Xerxes were able to spin huge ropes a mile
long and more than two feet in circumference in order to rig an
invasion bridge across the Hellespont to Greece.
In the middle ages (from the 13th century until the 18th century)
rope was used using the "rope walk" method. This allowed
for ropes up to 300 yard or long to be made. Sometimes rope walks
were more than a quarter mile in length. They were using a covering
considered a light shed. Short ropes to make them long would require
splicing and a short splice would double the diameter of the rope
in the area of the splice. This would cause problems in rigging
hard ware such as buckles, and pulleys.
Almost every culture and country have stories of the dishonest
miller. There may be dishonest people in other crafts and trades.
The following is an example of the rope making trade of a dishonest
In 1460-1480 an engraving with accompanying text, in an archaic
dialect of German, reads: "I am a rogue and a blighter. I
worked together flax and powder(?), and covered it with hemp.
That is how I cheated people."
Another called the THE ROPE MAKER
An industrious man
never stops weaving the rope.
Yet as much as he can twist,
the donkey can devour.
Thus the lazy wife squanders on herself
what her compliant husband has gained.
The first settlers who founded the colony at Jamestown, Virginia,
in 1607, however, did not make the long journey across the Atlantic
to become hemp farmers. Like most Englishmen, they came to America
in the belief that the country abounded in gold and silver. These
early colonists expected to make a quick and easy fortune and
planned to return home as soon as possible. When they found no
gold or anything else of material value, they became so discouraged
they refused to work to support themselves. Had it not been for
the friendliness of the Indians who gave them food and showed
them how to raise some basic crops, they would have starved to
In 1611, formal orders to raise hemp were finally received
in the colony. Hemp was among the first crops to be introduced
into the Massachusetts Colony. In 1629, shipbuilding was started
in the village of Salem, and hemp was so scarce that it had to
be imported from abroad.
In 1630 was one John Harrison, master rope maker, of Salisbury.
For 30 years he practice rope making in the Massachusetts colony.
In colonial times rope making, like many other trades, relied
on a system of indentureship, which bound young apprentices to
a sort of limited-term paid slavery.
The early rope walks were relatively primitive industries.
All that was needed was a large open field. Later on, when rope
making became a major industry in America, the fields were enclosed
in long covered alleyways, some of which stretched over 1,000
feet in length and 20 feet in width, with three or four rope makers
working side by side. The sight of one such enterprise later inspired
Longfellow's poem, the "Rope walk" (1854):
In that building, long and low,
With its windows all a-row,
Like the port-holes of a hulk,
Human spiders spin and spin,
Backward down their threads so thin
Dropping, each a hempen bulk.
A core rope made the rope stronger. Tar, used to make rope
smoother and more water-resistant.
The great enemy of the rope walks was fire. The structures
were too long for economical stone construction, they were usually
wooden structures full of dried hemp. Tar-soaked rope and the
open flames of the tarring vats were first-class fire starters.
Often one rope walk would burn to the ground several times.
History of rope making is vary scant, the first process is
spinning the yarn. Then the yarns were stretched on revolving
hooks sometimes 300 yards apart. These hooks twist the yarns together
First the material was treated and combed, like that used to
spin cloth (Wool or Cotton) into clothing. The fibers were spun
together to form yarns. Each stage of twisting was preformed in
the opposite direction to prevent unraveling.
Hemp came to rope walks in bales. It was processed similar
to that of flax. It was first soaked (retted) and beaten (scutched)
to clean the fibers. Sometimes it was spread on the grass for
several nights to be dew-retted. The fibers were then combed out
by being drawn through a series of spikes arranged like a bed
of tall nails. This process, called hackling, transformed a mass
of rough, treated fibers into bundles of long, straight threads
and prepared them for spinning on a wheel or series of wheels
The rope walk method employed a JACK or SPINNER. These are
where the three revolving hooks would turn on a stationary Jack.
Three strands of rope was stronger than a four or five strand
On the other end of the rope walk you had the TRAVELER. A single
revolving hook constructed on a simple wheeled device that would
allow it to move slowly in the direction of the JACK as the yarns
were twisted and grew shorter into rope.
Moving back and forth on the rope walked backward from it at
a practiced pace of about two miles per hour. Thus a rope walker
would walk close to twenty miles in a ten-hour workday. To prevent
the strands from entwining too rapidly, an instrument is imposed,
which is called the TOP. It has two or more notches on a handle
called a STAFF. As the TOP is moved away from the JACK it regulates
the amount of twist the rope will receive. The rope walker had
yarn wrapped around his waist which he used to recharge the rope
The beauty of this process is they replicate exactly the way
rope was made in the medieval times down through modern times.
The spun yarns were gathered together in loose skeins called
junks, to prevent them from becoming tangled during the next step,
tarring. Ropes exposed to air and or water are usually tarred.
Most naval rope had to be tarred to preserve it from the effects
of sea water. After a thorough soak in the black preservative,
the junks were squeezed out through rollers like so much wet laundry
and separated into individual yarns again. The seasoned and tarred
yarns were then wound onto large spools or bobbins, just as in
any textile factory, and the bobbins themselves were skewered
in long rows on racks known as creels.
The rope walks were generally powered by water wheels until
steam came in in the nineteenth century. The spinning wheel was
the first piece of rope walk machinery to be steam-driven in 1808.
In 1841 Moses Day adapted the spinning jenny for rope yarns. By
the latter half of the nineteenth century, rope making was changing.
The whaling fleet, withering as the whale population dwindled
from over hunting, was already in decline by 1861. Then another
blow came with sail-assisted steam power, and on the newer ships,
wire became the material of choice for the standing rigging that
supported masts and smokestacks.
During the nineteenth century abaca, a plant native to the
Philippines (also known as Manila hemp, though it is a completely
different type of plant), increasingly replaced American-grown
hemp as a raw material for rope. Abaca was stronger than hemp
and did not need to be soaked in tar.
Intestines of animals are composed of fibers, sheep and lambs
which is made into cat-gut. This is used for musical instruments,
hatters, watch-makers, etc. Horse hair which comes from the mane
and tale and is frequently used for rope making is durable, elastic,
and impervious to moisture. However, the rope cannot be used where
is is subject to considerable friction.
Spot Cord, a cotton rope first made in 1884. Rather than being
laid up in the time-honored way, it is plaited, woven in a tight
geometric pattern around a straight fiber core. It has proven
to be very resistant to snags and abrasions. Spot Cord has been
the ideal sash cord for windows, clotheslines, and many other
Modern rope making materials Nylon, polyester, and Dacron.
Rope was originally used for mill drives to power machinery
with pulleys that had grooves for the rope to travel though. Flat
leather belts replace rope drives in mills. When wire rope and
steel cable was developed it was never used for mill drives inside
of the mill because of the problems of spark, fire and dust explosions.
Ropes are also used to tie down culprits for especially severe
physical punishment, in exposed positions, on various contraptions.
Ropes can be used for whipping, of widely different impact depending
on length, weight and whether the target zone is bare; working
in knots or hard objects gives a fiercer bite. Aboard ships, a
rope's end was frequently used to administer the lightest on-the-spot
discipline to boys and adult sailors,
For somewhat worse offenders the fearsome cat o' nine tails
was usually made of rope. A rope of about 18 inches long, dipped
in hot tar to make it heavier and brittle, usually with a knot
on the striking end. Nothing like a cat o' nine tails dipped in
hot tar struck across one's back!
The rope is also a metonymical expression, as is the noose,
for capital punishment by hanging.
HEMP (Roman Times).
ABACA (Manila Philippines).
NYLON (About 1937)
Guild of rope makers in London at least as early as 1328. The
record shows that in that year five men were elected and sworn
to govern the "ministry of Corders."
Strong tread or string made of two or more strands twisted
Hazen, Edward, 1846, Popular Technology, Professions and Trades
(The Panorama of Professions and Trades; or Every Man's Book),
Chapter: The Rope-Maker, in Two Volumes, Harper and Brothers,
New York. Reprinted by Early American Industries Association,
Albany, New York, 1981.
Lane, Frederic Chapin, 1932. The Rope Factory and Hemp Trade
of Venice in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries, Journal of
Economic and Business History, Vol. 4 No. 4 Supply. (August 1932).
Plymouth Cordage Company, 1931. The Story of Rope; The History
and the Modern Development of Rope-Making. Plymouth Cordage Company,
North Plymouth, Mass.
Sanctuary, Anthony, 1996. Rope, Twine and Net Making. Shire
Publications Ltd., Cromwell House, Princess Risborough, Buckinghamshire.
Teeter, Emily, 1987. Techniques and Terminology of Rope-Making
in Ancient Egypt, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 73 (1987).
Tyson, William, no date. Rope, a History of the Hard Fibre
Cordage Industry in the United Kingdom. Wheatland Journals, Ltd.,
Question: How many uses of rope and cordage are there in
Answer: (1) Rope is used in the sack hoist. (2) Rope is
used as control ropes which activates the movement up and down.
(3) Rope is used to tie the canvas sails on the arms of the wind
wheel. (4) Rope is used on the wind mills break wheel. (5) Rope
can be used in rope drive instead of using flat leather belting
to operate cleaners and sifters. (6) Cord is used to tie the miller's
knots on the sacks of flour and meal. (7) Cord is used on value
chutes to control the direction or movement of material inside
of the mill. (8) Cord is used on the door latch of the mill. Etc.
Note: (1) Leather cord or strips are used as the crook
string which connects the twist peg, damsel, and miller's willow.
(2) If the mill has a lighter staff and bottle weight tentering
system, then a leather strap is used to attach the end of the
strap to the bottle weight, and wrapped around the staff several
time. (3) A leather cord or strip is used on the warbler or warning
bell. This was a bell that sounded automatically when the hopper
was empty, to prevent the millstones from running empty. Such
a device was found on older mills such as the pairs of French
millstones in Peirce Mill (before it has been fooled with) in
Rock Creek Park, Washington, D.C., the Grist Mill at Lobachsville,
Odey, Pennsyvania, and a number of the mills in Perry County,
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