Textiles Unit
The Textiles Unit began Saturday, October 6, with a Mill Heritage Week reception honoring former employees of the Saxapahaw Mills. Hawbridge School students extended invitations to the guests to be interviewed for the Cultural Heritage Center being planned in Saxapahaw. The center, to be located in a restored one-room schoolhouse that served the African-American community, will collect and preserve the history of the village and its inhabitants, and be an outlet for school program involvement.
Activities during the week following the Mill Homecoming centered on traditional textiles. Professor Heather Williams from the UNC-Chapel Hill History Department lecured on quilting and displayed her beautiful collection of quilts designed around themes from African-American history. Dr. Williams is the author of Self-Taught: African American Education in Slavery and Freedom, and presented a signed copy to the school library.
Under the direction of Monique de LaTour, whose previous association with the Harlem Textile Works in new York provided the basis for several relevant lessons, students designed camouflaged clothing and painted jeans that were based on many scenes from nature, not only the desert or forest.
Mathematics students learned about design repetition and fractals as the basis for military camouflage design.
Hawbridge social studies classes focused on the history of southern mill towns and analyzed the paternalism inherent in mill life.
History students interviewed mill employees for an oral istory project.
English classes read Miachel Chitwood's Weave Room and senior art student Chloe Streeter created a wall hanging using one of the poems, The Weaving.
The past gave way to the future the following week when the students visited NC State University and learned how textiles are used in the aerospace and medical industries. The College of Textiles hosted Hawbridge students in a large classroom where four internationally renowned professors discussed their research and patents. Late, Hawbridge students visited the College of Engineering freshman engineering students' exhibition of culminating projects for the introductory engineering course.
As part of the science curriculum, the medical use of textiles also was studied on the Hawbridge campus. Tri-State Hospital Supply Company in Michigan sent samples of their custom medical products that are made of textiles which improve patient care and healing.