I stumbled across this book today at the paperback exchange place.  The History and Folklore of North American Wildflowers.  I quote from the Spanish Bayonet entry (family Agave, Yucca filimentosa), because I have one by the front porch steps:

In Virgina Thomas Harriot (1590) reported, "Here is a kind of grasse in the countrey uppon the blades whereof there groweth very good silke in forme of a thin glittering sking to bee stript off."  In 1610, Sir Thomas Gates, governor of Virginia, described some Indian "womens girdles of silke of the Grassesilke, not without art, and much neatnesse finely wrought".

So should I ever need to prune it, I might try to get the fiber out.  Neat!  What would also be fun, is to label all the plants in the yard with period markers, displaying what they’re ‘good for’.  That’ll be a Project.