Silk production does not immediately come to mind when thinking about Arkansas history. But a surprising number of 19th-century Arkansans tried their hands at producing silk, and during Reconstruction an effort was made to use it to promote Arkansas nationally as a land of potential riches.
Silk production is an interesting example of proposed alternatives to the cotton monoculture that held Arkansas in a tight economic grip. "The Southern people," wrote editor and lawyer John R. Eakin of Washington, Ark., in 1871, "have been so devoted to the cotton staple, that they have, as a mass, wholly neglected horticultural pursuits." Eakin urged Arkansans to grow grapes, and he had more than 1,000 vines in his vineyard by 1869.
Eakin's neighbor in the little village of Washington was promoting silk as a means to develop the new state. Nathan Douglas Smith, M.D., was scientifically inclined, and his farm became a testing ground for a variety of medical and agricultural observations and innovations. As landscape historian C. Allan Brown has noted, "Dr. Smith became fascinated with the possibility of establishing a silkworm industry in Arkansas and advocated planting mulberries through the state to sustain it."
Dr. Smith was one of many people nationally who saw the possibility of developing a national silk industry. This became known popularly as the "mulberry mania," since the domesticated silk moth (Bombyx mori) feeds nearly exclusively on Asian mulberry leaves. By 1839 Dr. Smith could report to the Arkansas Gazette that he had a large mulberry nursery, and he was offering 4,000 mulberry plants for sale to the public.
The Arkansas Gazette was quite supportive of silk production, publishing many long articles on silk production in other states, making readers aware of a published guide to silkworm production, and bragging on silk made in Arkansas. In June 1835, the Gazette ran an article praising silk recently made in Union County, noting "hereafter we shall devote a liberal share of our paper to articles on the culture of silk."
One of the major appeals of silk production was that it could be almost exclusively carried out by women and, importantly, by children. In early 1839 the Gazette reminded readers that "this business can no doubt be made profitable in all parts of Arkansas, and to none more so than to those [who] have been blessed with small farms and large families."
Silk production was labor intensive, involving hatching the silkworm eggs, feeding the young voracious larvae--up to five pounds of Asian mulberry leaves per 1,000 worms per day--and providing conditions for the larvae to spin cocoons. After the mature moths hatched, the cocoons were gathered and unraveled, called spinning, producing a long filament of pure silk. These strands of silk were joined together into skeins weighing several ounces.
The Gazette, which was rabidly opposed to Reconstruction, found a willing ally in promoting silk production among Reconstruction Republicans.
State residents got their first chance to view Arkansas-produced silk in 1869 when an exhibit at the state fair featured the work of Mrs. M.A. Yarborough of Ouachita County. The Reconstruction Secretary of State, Robert J.T. White, sent samples of Mrs. Yarborough's silk to newspaper editors around the country as he tried to boost immigration to Arkansas.
Another flurry of newspaper accounts in 1875 brought silk production back into the public eye. In August of that year, the Gazette mentioned receiving "some samples of sewing silk manufactured near Fayetteville in Washington County, in this state, by Mrs. Washington."
"She superintended the process from the hatching of the worms to the dying of the silk," according to the newspaper. The editor forwarded the silk specimens to the committee putting together the Arkansas exhibit for the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia the following year.
What the newspaper did not point out was that Mrs. Washington was a widow living in the mountains who produced the silk to feed her family. An observer in Conway County told the newspaper he had known Mrs. Washington for 30 years, and that "for nearly that whole time she has been a producer of silk. Mrs. Washington is not a wealthy person, but, in fact, a poor widow, who by great industry, has raised a large family."
An 1882 newspaper report told how silk was being produced at the Arkansas Blind Asylum. In a wooden structure behind the main asylum building, the newspaper reporter was shown "scores and scores" of small wooden boxes in which the silk caterpillars were feeding on leaves. It turned out that the silkworm operation was the work of the "institute matron," a Mrs. Quinley, who, contrary to common practice, fed her "worms" exclusively on leaves from the Osage orange (also known as the hedge apple and many other names) rather than the non-native mulberry.
Despite all the boosterism, silk production never caught on in Arkansas, though a significant silk industry arose in the American northeast, especially in Paterson, N.J. The Paterson silk industry is famous for difficult labor problems--almost 140 strikes between 1881 and 1900.
Tom Dillard is a historian and retired archivist living near Glen Rose in Hot Spring County. Email him at Arktopia.td@gmail.com. An earlier version of this column was published May 12, 2013.
Editorial on 02/18/2018