Wuxi Silk Industry Museum

The Wuxi Silk Industry Museum is housed in a former silk-reeling mill at 364 Nanchang Street, Liangxi District, Wuxi, in China's Jiangsu province, on the banks of the Grand Canal. The mill belongs to the late Qing and Republican period, when Wuxi grew into one of the country's principal centres of cocoon purchasing and silk reeling, supplying export markets through Shanghai. The museum tells that story through the surviving factory buildings and their contents. Galleries cover the life cycle of the silkworm, mulberry cultivation, the stages of reeling raw silk from cocoons and the evolution of machinery from hand-operated basins to powered frames. Visitors can see reeling equipment, tools, photographs, account books and examples of finished silk, and some sections explain the labour conditions of the women who worked in the mills. The building is an early industrial brick structure with long halls and a courtyard facing the water, and the display is arranged both chronologically and by stage of production. The canal setting makes the connection between transport and industry clear, since cocoons and silk once moved by boat past the museum's doors. Restoration of the mill complex preserved its original character, and the museum now forms part of the cultural offer of the Qingming Bridge district. A visit is brief, usually under an hour and a half, and suits a canal-side walk along Nanchang Street.