Please take the online poll. It may seem rather strange to have a project on spinning yarn in a chemistry class, but a great deal of the chemical industry was originally motivated by the textile industry. Synthetic polymers have a huge impact on modern textiles, but even in ancient times chemistry and textiles were intertwined. As we will see, cloth provided the motivation for the development of soap, dyes, bleach, and sulfuric acid.
Textiles decay much more quickly than artifacts made of stone or bone.
Consequently there are very few surviving examples of the earliest textiles. However, the earliest cave art and in clay sculptures depict clothed human figures. The earlist style of clothing, the string skirt, was worn exclusively by women and consisted of a simple belt with strings hanging from the waist to above the knees. We begin with a discussion of the natural materials from which cloth is made. We have been using the formula CH 2 O as the formula for cellulose, but this tells us nothing about the structure.