SPINSTER
Back before you could go downtown and buy new clothes, people in Bowling Green were spinning their own clothes with various types of materials. Around 5000 BC people started to realize that there weren’t enough animals to kill for fur coats so they started making their own clothes. Around this same time, the spindle was invented to make the process of spinning your own fabrics easier. The spindle is a device that uses pedals and wheels to twist strands of different materials together. There were many different fabrics that people would spin including hemp, flax, wool, cotton, and silk. This was the easiest and most inexpensive way to make clothing.

TINSMITH
During the late 1800's a tinsmith in Bowling Green would have provided a variety of household objects for the local community. Cake stamps (cookie cutters) and pill boxes are a few of the simpler items a tinsmith would produce. Tinsmiths would also produce items such as milk pails, basins, cake and pie pans. After mastering his trade, a tinsmith would move on to more complicated pieces such as chandeliers and crooked-spout coffee pots.

CANDLE-MAKING
Up until the the early 1900's candles had been the single source of artificial light. When electricity was unavailable, chandlery was a skill known to most Bowling Green families. Candles were made of paraffin, beeswax, or bayberry. The candle maker would dip the wick, usually made out of stearin, into the wax, pull it out and let it dry. They would then continue to dip the wick until the layers of wax would build up to make a candle. Today, industrialization has brought many changes to the candle making world. Machines have taken over the production of most candles but there are a vast number of candles still produced by hand.