Item #506 Das Americanischen Seidebauers Anweisung, oder, Die Kunst den Maulbeer-Baum und die Seide zu zieh. Agriculture, William Kenrick.
Das Americanischen Seidebauers Anweisung, oder, Die Kunst den Maulbeer-Baum und die Seide zu zieh
FEEDING THE SILK CRAZE OF THE PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN FARMERS

Das Americanischen Seidebauers Anweisung, oder, Die Kunst den Maulbeer-Baum und die Seide zu zieh

Philadelphia: Gedruckt bey Edmund Y. Schelly, 1838. Item #506

12mo., 180 x 105 mm., [7 x 4 ¼ inches]. 103 pp. One woodcut illustration of a “silk reel” in the text. Publisher’s leather spine over printed boards, cut of the silk reel printed on rear cover. Paper stock toned with age, showing some tide marks otherwise a very good copy.

First German language edition of this standard work on growing silk and mulberries originally published in Boston in 1835. The business of growing mulberries was one of the boom crops in American agriculture during the 1830s and Pennsylvania was one of the centers for its cultivation. “In the mid-1830s a new species of mulberry tree was introduced into America that purportedly grew much faster and could feed significantly more silkworms than the native species. This gave rise to a brief silk craze, with increased, widespread attempts at domestic silk cultivation and much financial speculation in the industry.”

For an interesting insight into the mulberry craze, see the archive of William and Jacob Schoener at the Library of Congress, where documents show how the family invested heavily in the crop.

American imprints 51116. Philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/silk.

Price: $200.00

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