See the BE LINEN movie here
Flax is one of the oldest fibres in the world, and along with wool, the most familiar and intimate. Local production was widespead as recently as a century ago, with a field set aside for flax for the farmer's wife and daughters to spin and weave into cloth for their own use and for sale.
There were larger operations as well, but linen as a cottage industry and winter occupation didn't end until the industrial revolution, when it couldn't compete with cheap cotton grown by slaves.
Domestic production died out (attended by a lot of hardship in rural Europe), and linen became a luxury product, although young women still created the basis of their household by making, embroidering and collecting bedding and table linens before they were married.
Linen was valued over cotton for its stamina, sheen and wonderful 'handle', but its democratic roots were long forgotten, and it became a high-maintenance starched, ironed and decorated symbol of class and status.
Cotton took over by virtue of cheapness and ease of ironing, if it were ironed at all.
Knowing this, I was fascinated when I found one very old homespun natural linen pillowcase in my grandmother's linen cupboard. She had proudly maintained stacks of carefully tended cotton sheets, and I found her 'best' linen sheets still in their wrapping and never used! But there in the back was the last of her grandmother's own production, in soft natural flax, not bleached, sturdier than modern sheeting. A cord had been strung in the hem to make it into a bag for scraps, it had been kept for utility, not valued. I was absolutely mesmerised.
