rags for tin
An early definition of paper reads: "A material made in thin sheets from a pulp of ground rags or other fiber, and used for writing or printing upon or for wrapping." To expand on this, true paper was defined as being "made of rags or other vegetable fiber, reduced to a pulp, gathered into a sheet, felted in setting, and dried." Paper thus produced has been around for over two thousand years; the Chinese produced vegetable fiber paper out of rice, bamboo, and bark. From China, paper-making spread to Asia, Europe, America. As the process of paper-making spread, so did the materials used in its manufacture - eventually giving rise to the use of cotton, then flax.

It wasn't until about the 12th century that the Spaniards began using linen and cotton rags in paper-making, instead of the raw material itself. It was found that rags pounded into pulp made a paper that was less brittle, which was a very good thing. At the time of Farmer Boy - when flax was grown as a staple on almost every northern farm and spun into linen - linen rags and worn-out articles of linen clothing were sought after by paper mills in New York and Pennsylvania. Could it have been that The War of Northern Aggression had somehow made cotton a little harder to come by? Could it have been that cheap northwest trees for paper pulp and the transportation to get it from here to there hadn't yet arrived on the scene?

Could it be that the publishing industry was on the rise in New York and that paper was sorely needed? Newspapers even advertised for women to save their rags (and old newspapers) for collection; the following poem appeared in a Massachusetts newspaper:

Rags are as beauties which concealed lie,
But when in paper how it charms the eye.
Pray save your rags, new beauties to discover,
For paper, truly, every one's a lover;
By the pen and press such knowledge is displayed
As wouldn't exist if paper was not made.
Wisdom of things, mysterious, divine,
Illustriously doth on paper shine.

Enter Nick Brown, the tin-peddler. He traded his tinware for Mother Wilder's "good, clean rags of wool and linen" (Farmer Boy, Chapter 12, "Tin-Peddler"), which he would then sell to a rag merchant for about four cents per pound. Laura Ingalls Wilder was astute to include the superior quality of Mrs. Wilder's rags, as there were at least five different categories of rags purchased by rag merchants. Mr. Brown's standing as a rag seller would depend on the quality of rags he collected, and while many fictional stories include a tin peddler as a lower class and dishonest traveling merchant (and excellent story-tellers), Mr. Brown seems to have been both honest and highly regarded by the Wilders.

In Farmer Boy, Mr. Brown gives token gifts of tinware to Eliza Jane, Alice, and Almanzo. One can only wonder if the "gift" the tin-peddler gave to Royal Wilder was the desire to become a traveling salesman?
- posted by pioneergirl at 6:30 PM