Encyclopedia article on linen, covering its ancient origins, the flax and hemp raw materials, and substitutes such as jute and ramie. It traces the history of linen manufacture in Egypt, England, Ireland, Scotland and continental Europe, and describes the development of hand and machine processing (heckling, spinning, wet- and dry-spun yarn, power looms). It closes with the main types of linen cloth (lawn, diaper, damask, dowlas, cambric and others), the centers that produce them, and the state of the linen trade in the U.S. around 1891.