Agricultural History Review, Volume 49 Part 2 (2001), pp. 140–171

Historians have always assumed that the 'modernization' of North American agriculture necessarily entailed the disappearance of domestic manufacturing, including the production of handmade cloth. The weavers, who were female, gave up weaving in favour of dairy and poultry production as soon as factory-made materials became available. This process fits Jan de Vries's model of an industrious revol- ution in the countryside. Consequently, lingering domestic cloth production is described as symptomatic of a stagnant agriculture. However, late domestic cloth production may not have been the consequence of poverty, but a rational economic choice. It may also have been part of a North American variant of the 'industrious revolution'. These themes are examined using detailed data mostly drawn from the Canadian census of 1871 for household and farm production in a number of Canadian villages. 

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