We all enjoy the feeling of comfort that we get when getting into a cozy bed with clean sheets.  Sometimes it is the coolness of cotton on a hot summer night that makes us sigh with relaxation as we slip between the sheets.  Then again, on those frigid winter evenings, when we are shivering with anticipation of crawling between a great pair of soft flannel sheets that makes us smile.  Whatever your preference, I am sure we all can relate.  But where did the sheet originate?  Who decided that it was a good idea?  How are they made?

Nobody can pinpoint when people started using sheets to make the sleeper comfortable, but the bed in some form has been around for over one thousand years.  In all likelihood the material used for the first form of bed sheets was linen.  Linen is made from flax.  The Flax plant was woven for centuries by the Egyptians and while it was a very hard, they perfected the cultivation and weaving of the flax plant.  Linen is perfect for being used as bed sheets, even more so than cotton, because of its nature to become softer with use.

Thanks to the Europeans, linen was brought to the New World.  Early Americans, especially women, worked long and hard to spin flax into sheets, pillowcases, napkins, hankies, etc.  Regardless of the arduous task of cutivating, harvesting and weaving the linen, Americans through several centuries continued with the linen industry.  Eventually, early in the 19th century a new plant and process was discovered.

With the invention of the Cotton Gin by Eli Whitney, suddenly the difficult task of seperating the seeds from cotton became much more feasible and the cotton sheet was born.  Suddenly, American plantations turned to cotton as their main industry.  With the unfortunate use of slave labor, suddenly the Colonies of North America became a cotton making machine.  Looms became more mechanized and cotton became the easier of the two to cultivate, that in turned made it cheaper than flax to produce and cotton became the new king of sheets.

Whether your preference is for high thread count, satin sheets or the coziness of flannel sheets, it is important to understand the history behind something that we take for granted everyday.  Something that we probably never thought to wonder about it’s history.  One of North America’s most important and socially disturbing parts of history can be traced back to sheets.  Before you fall asleep curled up in those sheets, trying to warm yourself on that bitter cold night, that those sheets can be traced back to an important part of history, one we shouldn’t take for granted.