spinning wheel, early machine for turning fibre into thread or yarn, which was then woven into cloth on a loom. The spinning wheel was probably invented in India, though its origins are obscure. It reached Europe via the Middle East in the European Middle Ages. It replaced the earlier method of hand spinning, in which the individual fibres were drawn out of a mass of wool held on a stick, or distaff, twisted together to form a continuous strand, and wound on a second stick, or spindle. The first stage in mechanizing the process was to mount the spindle horizontally in bearings so that it could be rotated by a cord encircling a large, hand-driven wheel. The distaff, carrying the mass of fibre, was held in the left hand, and the wheel slowly turned with the right. Holding the fibre at an angle to the spindle produced the necessary twist.
The Saxon, or Saxony, wheel, introduced in Europe at the beginning of the 16th century, incorporated a bobbin on which the yarn was wound continuously; the distaff on which the raw fibre was held became a stationary vertical rod, and the wheel was actuated by a foot treadle, thus freeing both of the operator’s hands.
The improvement of the loom in 18th-century Great Britain created a yarn shortage and a demand for mechanical spinning. The result was a series of inventions that converted the spinning wheel into a powered, mechanized component of the Industrial Revolution.