Panel 8 Textile Arts and Crafts, Embroidery/Comb Making

Embroidery and comb making provide sustenance for instrument makers in economically difficult times


The comb making

In 1829, the production of wooden combs was started in Klingenthal: According to the chronicler Karl August Wolf, the following is said to have happened: “A local inhabitant had bought a comb in a neighbouring town; it was accidentally broken, and there it was seen that it was not made of horn, but of wood.” The master violin make Christian Friedrich Goram happened to witness this incident and took up the idea of making wooden combs. As a master violin maker, he had a great deal of experience in working with wood, inlay work and varnish, so that comb making from beech wood was basically no difficulty for him.
Economically, both instrument making and embroidery were in crisis at the time, so Master Christian Friedrich Goram received a bonus of 50 talers from the “High Government” for establishing a new breadwinning industry for the population. For about 30 years, not only violin makers and their families, but also lace makers and embroiderers made thousands of combs, which wealthy women in Germany, Sweden and Spain put in their hair for decoration.
The number of pieces swelled to about “forty thousand dozen and more monthly” around 1830. If these figures are to be believed, 480,000 combs a month left the city.
Between 1830 and 1834, contemporary witnesses spoke of the “golden age”. By 1837, hardwood supplies were running low and new tree plantings were being made.
For 1862, Pastor Wolf reported that there were 6 wholesalers and 11 smaller merchants who, in addition to trading instruments, also traded combs.
For about 35 years, combing provided modest prosperity. Then the trade was overtaken by the technical progress of industrial production and new fashion ideals.


The Embroidery

In 1799, “Johanne Magaretha Uhlmann from Baireuth” came to Klingenthal and brought with her the knowledge of embroidery. For almost 200 years, this activity became a steady source of income especially for the people in the districts of Sachsenberg (with Ober-, Untersachsenberg, Georgenthal, Steindöbra and Aschberg), Brunndöbra and Zwota.
The population was quite open to this time-consuming and filigree work, after all, lace-making was already known in the Vogtland Klingenthal.
Around 1800, embroidery was still pure handwork. In the beginning, Johanna Magarethe Uhlmann gave the lessons herself. This was the so-called “Swiss sewing”, tambour embroidery (also tambourine embroidery). “Tambour” is related to the word tambourine - in fact, the stitch requires you to stretch the fabric tightly into a frame, like a drum, the tambourine. Also used is a special needle, called a tambour needle, which resembles a very fine crochet hook with a pointed barb. With this, embroiderers stitched from the top through the stretched fabric, picked up the thread at the bottom and pulled it back up, repeating the whole thing at intervals. The thread pattern finally resulted in a loop row by means of chain stitch. In principle, embroiderers “crocheted” through the fabric, creating tablecloths, clothing, accessories and lingerie.
In the second half of the 19th century, machines operated with pedals increasingly replaced pure manual labour. In the form of a sewing machine but equipped with the special tambour needle, they increased productivity many times over. Embroidery, however, remained home work. In the 20th century, women and men continued to make the tambour embroidery items at home. But also the embroidery trade with whitework (lace) increased in the second half of the 19th century and so chronicler Dörfel reported that: There were “in Klingenthal 6, in Untersachsenberg 12, in Obersachsenberg 1, in Georgenthal 2, in Zwota 2” embroidery shops, and in addition there were 7 embroidery merchants in Untersachsenberg and 13 in Obersachsenberg. The embroidery was delivered to Eibenstock in the Ore Mountains as well as to the lace city of Plauen.


The Lacemaking

The art of lacemaking is primarily associated with the Ore Mountains. But this handicraft was also a source of income in the Klingenthal area.
In 1792, Christian Traugott Grimm was born as the son of a Klingenthal bow maker. Grimm learned lacemaking already at a young age. Presumably, this work was already practiced in the family out of economic hardship. But Grimm began to work intensively on lacemaking.
In 1823, his lacemaking curriculum was published. The Royal Lacemaking School in Schneeberg in the Ore Mountains bought the textbook from Grimm. In terms of content, it envisaged the gradual learning of lacemaking, which would eventually lead systematically to an increase in productivity and thus also in the income of the lacemakers.
Finally, Christian Traugott Grimm was entrusted with the management of this school in appreciation of his professional knowledge and economic efforts.
However, Christian Traugott Grimm died on June 12, 1828, at the age of only 36. In the following decades, lacemaking in Klingenthal was largely displaced by embroidery.