Artifact of the Month: Sewing Pins Let's put a pin in it...

The simple, yet elegant straight pin. Around for millennia, the first straight pins were probably made from bone or some type of plant material like thorns, then iron and bronze, and eventually brass. This change in copper alloy has been documented by researchers who noted the increase in zinc and decrease in tin from the 14th to the 19th centuries. Today, sewing pins are made from brass or steel.

Pins were used to hold clothing together. Written records show the emergence of the wire pin industry in England during the 14th and 15th centuries, with the trade of 'pinner' being noted in York for the first time in 1379. The pin industry appears to have exploded on the scene to meet the need for pins in the evolving female fashion world with its intricate folds and tucks. Where once whole families were dedicated to the trade, the industry grew so large that by 1623, one company employed over 1500 people.

Most pins were made of wire which was drawn through a hole to reduce it to the desired diameter. For an interesting overview of this process, here’s a modern look at this old technology: Medieval Wire Drawing Bench.

Once the wire was the right diameter, the pin-maker would cut a length of wire, sharpen the ends, cut these ends the needed length for the shank of the pin, then repeat the process as long as a usable length of wire remained.

The next step in the process was creating a head. Unlike modern pins which are made in one piece, the pin head was made of a separate coil of wire which then had to be attached to the shank by hand. This wire-wrapped head pin would become the most common type of pin until the advent of pin-making machines; indeed, they are the pins we find in our collection.

There are 126 pins or fragments of pins in the collection to date. Often these are found in dredge spoil, though they can be found in concretion alongside iron objects as well. Surprisingly, the head remains on many of the pins. XRF of some of the pins have shown them to be a brass composition of approximately 70% copper, 30% zinc, with trace iron and lead. Although there are some longer pins, most are about an inch long. If you look closely, you can see long scratches on the shank – evidence of it being drawn through the sizing hole.

Pirates, for their fierce reputation, still had to deal with the mundane maintenance of clothing. Straight pins would have been important in that endeavor and the large number of pins recovered to date attest to that. As for modern times, thank goodness for safety pins!

References:
-Caple, Chris. 1992. “The detection and definition of an industry: the English medieval and post medieval pin industry,” The Archaeological Journal 148(1):241-255.
-Caple, Chris. 1986. An Analytical Appraisal of Copper Alloy Pin Production 400-1600 AD. PhD Dissertation, Department of Physics, University of Bradford.
-Kane, Kathryn. 2011. Regency Pins: https://regencyredingote.wordpress.com/2011/09/16/regency-pins/ Accessed July 19, 2021.

Images:
Pins from Site 31CR314, La Concorde/QAR, with and without heads. Image by NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
A 900-Silver Wire Emerging from the Draw Plate. Image by Mauro Cateb. {{CC BY-SA 3.0}}
Pin with head from Site 31CR314. Image by NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.