In A New Coat for Anna by Harriet Ziefert, Anna needs a new coat, but her mother has no money, and the stores are empty. The story takes place in the hard times following World War II. Without a functioning monetary system, people have to barter, directly exchanging goods or services without the use of money. Anna’s mother decides to trade the few valuables she has left for the services of a sheep farmer, a spinner, a weaver, and a tailor to produce the new coat. Today, people still barter throughout the world.
In the creation of Anna’s new coat, the production time required to go from fiber to fabric is much longer than that of today. The changing seasons in the book show the passage of time and help the reader understand how long it took to produce just one new, red coat. The story also illustrates the seasonal nature of agricultural production. When Anna and her mother ask to make a trade with the sheep farmer for wool, he tells them they must wait until spring when he can shear the sheep’s winter wool. Spring is the season for shearing sheep, and summer is the season when berries ripen. Although agricultural products may be stored for use in other seasons, they often only have one season for harvest.
Wool, like that used in Anna’s coat, is one of our oldest and most versatile fibers. Wool was used long before World War II, but before it could become a viable fabric, sheep had to be domesticated. Early in the domestication process, it was noticed that the wool on the underside of the sheep was the least brittle and easiest to prepare and spin into fiber. People began selectively breeding the sheep that had the best wool, and after thousands of years, sheep began to produce the kind of wool that we know today. Wool is a durable fabric that keeps the wearer cool in the heat of day and warm in the cold of the night, and it absorbs moisture without feeling wet. Wool textiles are used in a variety of apparel, both lightweight and heavy. Fabrics like chenille, felt, flannel, gabardine, serge, and tweed can be made from wool. Australia, China, and New Zealand produce most of the world’s wool.
Producing wool includes four major steps. The first step is the shearing of the sheep, which usually occurs once a year in the spring or early summer. In large-scale production, the wool is then graded and sorted, separating the best wool from that of lesser quality. The second major step consists of cleaning and carding. Carding is the process of passing the wool through rollers with small, thin, wire teeth that straighten the fibers so they can be spun into yarn. Third, the carded wool is spun into yarn. Wool has microscopic scales on the fibers that interlock as they are spun, helping to make the yarn strong. The yarn is then woven or knitted into the clothing we wear—the fourth major step. However, most people do not want to wear clothing that is all the same color. So, after the wool is washed, it is often dyed. Wool is very porous so when the fiber is dyed, the dye penetrates completely and doesn’t fade. This is the origin behind the phrase “dyed in the wool.”
As your students read A New Coat for Anna, have them discuss bartering, seasons, and the production, processing, spinning, and dying of wool. This discussion will help build understanding of a free market economy, the concept of supply and demand, the effect seasons have on agriculture and our lives, and the importance of wool in both historical and modern constructs.
