Beschreibung:

GANDHI, Mohandas Karamchand (1869-1948)]. A portable charkha (spinning wheel), owned by Gandhi, and reputedly used by him in Yerawda Jail (Pune) in c.1930, Indian teak, hollow metal handle (clasp replaced, strings and thread renewed, signs of use), the folding case approximately 915 x 233 x 40 mm when open.
GANDHI, Mohandas Karamchand (1869-1948)]. A portable charkha (spinning wheel), owned by Gandhi, and reputedly used by him in Yerawda Jail (Pune) in c.1930, Indian teak, hollow metal handle (clasp replaced, strings and thread renewed, signs of use), the folding case approximately 915 x 233 x 40 mm when open. Provenance : M.K. Gandhi -- given by him c.1935 to the American Free Methodist missionary Revd Dr Floyd A. Puffer (1888-1965) -- presented c.1965 to Revd Dr Frank J. Kline (1910-1993); thence by descent. The origins and operation of the Yerwada portable charkha are described in the American monthly Popular Science (December 1931): 'Mahatma Gandhi ... has devised a portable spinning wheel that folds into a bundle about the size of a portable typewriter and has a handle for carrying. When unfolded for use, it is operated by turning a small crank, which runs the two wheels and spindle of the device. Gandhi worked out the details of this machine, it is reported, while he was confined to the Yerwada jail in India'. It is possible that the tabletop charkha was invented by a member of Gandhi's circle rather than Gandhi himself: Rebecca M. Brown ( Gandhi's Spinning Wheel and Making of India (2010)) dates its development to 1929-31, and notes a visit to Yerawda of Gandhi's British associate Mirabehn (Madeleine Slade) who 'devivered a new charkha there on 18 July 1930. It is possible that this was the new box charkha'. Floyd A. Puffer and his wife worked as missionaries in Maharashtra from 1919 onwards, based at Yeotmal (modern Yavatmal) and later Darwha, approximately 50 miles from the town of Wardha, which Gandhi visited a number of times from 1934 onwards, before establishing his ashram there in April 1936. The Puffers returned to the USA on leave in Spring 1935, and displayed the wheel at a number of talks and events over the next year: the Emporia Daily Gazette (of Emporia, Kansas), which illustrates Puffer demonstrating the wheel, reports its having been given to him 'last spring just before Mr Puffer ... left for home on a year's furlough'; the Titusville Herald (PA) similarly records of the Puffers, 'Among their many curios is a spinning wheel used by Mr. Ghandi [sic] while in Poona jail, and given to Mr. Puffer by the noted Indian himself'; the wheel and its provenance are also cited in Puffer's obituary in the Conference News of the Free Methodist Church for the Pacific Northwest for May 1965 (vol.XIV no.6), 'Dr Puffer was a pioneer in the Indian educational and industrial cooperatives ... He invented a bamboo plow that was adopted by Mahatma Ghandi [sic]. In return for his contribution to Indian life, the leader of the forces of nationalism in India presented Dr. Puffer a spinning wheel used while Ghandi was in prison'. Frank Kline was a fellow Yavatmal missionary (and later founder of the Union Biblical Seminary in Pune); like the Puffers, he subsequently retired to the Pacific Northwest. The production of khadi -- handspun cloth -- was of both symbolic and practical importance in Gandhi's vision of an independent, self-reliant India, and he encouraged all Indians to spend a part of each day in spinning: a spinning wheel was even incorporated at Gandhi's suggestion into the flag of the Indian National Congress, from which the present Indian national flag (which by law must be made from khadi ) derives.