Curator's Choice

Maryland Archaeological Conservation Lab

Unraveling Dis - Card - ed Fragments: 18th-Century Wool Card

By Arianna Johnston, Conservator

X-radiography is a fantastic tool to peer through corrosion concretions, document artifacts, and unravel mysteries in archaeological collections. After the generous donation of the artifacts excavated by William Doepkens encompassing Middle Plantation (18AN46), Tucker (18AN227) and Indian Range (18AN230), MAC Lab staff have worked to x-ray every metal artifact. This allows us to identify and check the condition of thousands of artifacts resulting in over 100 x-ray plates!

One of our most interesting finds were these fragments from 18AN227, the Tucker site, an 18th-century farmhouse or plantation site three miles south of Middle Plantation (Doepkins 1991, 92). From one side, the fragments consist of even rows of iron wire aligned in an off-set pattern with corrosion and compacted soil covering the rest of the surface. The fragments mend together along several edges, indicating pieces of a larger object.

Corroded artifact broken into seven pieces.
Figure 1: 18AN227 fragments before treatment.

X-radiography of these fragments shows an orderly but complex array of bent wires. Rotating the fragments shows the profile of these wires: a rectangular staple with its legs bent at a consistent angle – like a staple. Curator (and small metal finds extraordinaire) Sara Rivers Cofield identified these closely set, bent wires as parts of a card for processing wool or cotton fibers.

Detail of corroded wire with its ends lined up in rows next to an x-ray of the artifact showing a series of dense lines.
Figure 2: One wool card fragment and its x-ray showing iron wires in an offset pattern.
Detail of corroded wire chevrons evenly spaced and an x-ray of the artifact from the same angle showing a series of evenly spaced lines with the same chevron angle.
Figure 3: Wool card fragment side profile showing bent staple shape and x-rays showing the wire shape.

Hand cards are used to untangle and align fibers for spinning. Fibers are arranged onto the tines, and the two cards were gently pulled away from each other to draw fibers in one direction. Cards were labeled in different grades depending on the quality of fiber or textile, and grades were regulated in Europe in the 18th century to prevent poorer quality fabric from being sold as higher quality (Diderot and Alembert 1751).

A woman in a 19th-century outfit and a headscarf holds wool cards with handles facing away from each other. Raw fluffy wool sits in a basket to her left and finished carded wool sits in a basket to her right. Etching has brown ink on a yellowed paper background.
Figure 4: La Cardeuse by Jean-Francois Millet ca. 1865. Etching. Cooper Hewitt.

Cards were constructed from wood, wire, and leather. A sheet of leather was pulled taut on a frame. Wire lengths were shaped into staples, slotted into pre-punched holes then bent in place, forming an array of tines. A “strong glue” was applied to the reverse to keep points in place. Once dry, wires were sharpened, aligned, and replaced if needed, and the leather was mounted to a wood backing board with tacks (Diderot and Alembert 1751).

Rectangular flat wood with handle extending from the center of one long side. An array of evenly spaced metal tines protrude away from the wood backing at a 45 degree angle toward the handle.
Figure 5: 19th-century wool hand card, National Museum of American History.

In 18th-century Maryland most fabrics were imported from abroad, but these cards demonstrate that small-scale fiber and textile production did take place in central Maryland before 1800. The threads spun from carded fibers would have contributed to the family’s ability to make and mend textiles such as clothing, bedding, and other linens (Sara Rivers-Cofield in discussion with the author, May 2026).

Historic etching depicting three workers creating a wool card. Includes a diagram of the wool card in production with only 8 bent staples arranged in an offset pattern along a rectangular piece of leather. Also includes a diagram of staples with angled legs that would become the tines of the card.
Figure 6: Diagrams of the production of wool cards depicting the punching of leather, hand carving of the wood backer, and placing the staples through the leather. (Diderot et al 1762, 396).

References

Diderot, Denis, and Jean Le Rond d'Alembert

1751    . Encyclopédie, ou, Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, Vol 2. Paris: Chez Braisson, David, Le Breton, Durand. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, CA. pp. 678-680. https://archive.org/details/gri_33125011156318/page/678/mode/1up. Accessed 15 May 2026.

Diderot, Denis, Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, and Robert Bénard

1762    Recueil de planches, sur les sciences, les arts libéraux, et les arts méchaniques, avec leur explication, Vol 3. Paris: Chez Braisson, David, Le Breton, Durand. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, CA. pp. 393-395. https://archive.org/details/gri_33125006581629/page/n393/mode/2up. Accessed 15 May 2026.

Doepkens, William P.

1991    Excavations at Mareen Duvall’s Middle Plantation of South River Hundred. Gateway Press, Inc., Baltimore. p 92.

Millet, Jean-Francois

1856    La Cardeuse (circa 1856), print/etching. Platemark: 25.7 × 17.8 cm (10 1/8 in. × 7 in). Cooper Hewitt, NYC. Gift of Mrs. David Keppel, 1957-168-15. https://www.si.edu/object/la-cardeuse-wool-carder:chndm_1957-168-15.

National Museum of American History

    Hard Carder (Wool Card). https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object/nmah_1456171. Accessed 21 May 2026.