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Basketmaker

  • Baskets necessary for rural family life
  • Families made rather than purchased baskets
  • White oak preferred material
  • Entire family learned the trade

Today, Colonial Williamsburg interpreters practice the art of basketmaking at the Wythe House on Palace Green in the Historic Area.

Long strips of white oak are woven into baskets.

Families made their own baskets

Woven white oak baskets were as useful to colonial Virginians as they were simple, beautiful, and strong. Basketmaking was a domestic activity rather than a business, as families needed baskets of all sizes and shapes for personal family use, and most families made their own baskets – which lasted many years.

American white oak was preferred construction material

Today demonstrated at the Wythe House, basketmaking requires an ax, a few wedges, a large knife, and a supply of saplings. Baskets would have been made from ash, hickory, cedar, and reeds in colonial times. In England, willow branches – called "sallows" if the bark was left and "osiers" if it was stripped – were popular. But England also imported from America the tough and supple white oak the colonists preferred for its tractability and its clear, perfect, straight grain.

Weaving and plaiting required nimble fingers

Basketmakers started with green, six-foot sections of 10-inch diameter logs and split them into sixteenths. They saved the reddish heartwood for basket handles. Slicing along the growth rings, the knife peeled away long flexible, wooden ribbons. The weaving and plaiting required more nimbleness than strength, and both men and women made baskets and taught the children as soon as they were old enough to learn.

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