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Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
While men dominated early agriculture, women for millennia took primary responsibility for sewing, weaving textiles and making clothing. In this beautifully illustrated study, Barber ( Prehistoric Textiles ) retrieves an important chapter in the history of civilization by drawing on archeological evidence, ancient texts, myths and linguistics to reconstruct women's paramount role in the fiber arts until the start of the late Bronze Age, about 1500 B.C., when, Barber observes, the advent of commercial textiles brought men to the looms. In prehistoric Europe, women invented elaborate textiles with complex designs; women of ancient Anatolia ran cloth-making establishments. Barber begins her saga with the description of a Paleolithic "Venus figure" that dates from about 20,000 B.C. and is carved wearing a skirt woven of loose strings. Ranging from Egypt to Greece to Sumatra, covering the period from 20,000-500 B.C., Barber illuminates women's changing social status as makers of cloth and clothing.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
In this age of ready-to-wear clothing and shopping malls, we sometimes forget that for the first 20,000 years of human existence, all textiles-from everyday clothing to ship's sails-were made by women (and sometimes men) who used a hand spindle to spin threads and a loom to weave the threads into cloth. As an archaeologist and a knowledgeable weaver capable of reproducing the cloth remnants she is studying, Barber is ideally qualified to investigate early textile production and its relation to women's changing roles in ancient societies. Here she reconstructs the history of textiles (primarily in Europe and the Near East), based on the hard evidence of archaeology, geology, art, and ancient texts. Her approach is scholarly yet presupposes no practical knowledge of textile production on the part of the reader. Highly recommended for academic and larger public libraries.
Janice Zlendich, California State Univ. Lib., Fullerton
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Janice Zlendich, California State Univ. Lib., Fullerton
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
For millennia women have sat together spinning, weaving, and sewing. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
For millennia women have sat together spinning, weaving, and sewing. Read the first page
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Concordance
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Greatest Invention?,
This review is from: Womens Work the First 20000 Years (Paperback)
This was a great and very informative book to read, not too scholarly jargoned, and quite the eye opener. All the world's fabric of various types produced by a drop spindle and weighted looms; just think what your denim jeans would be worth to you if you had to produce them in that manner? By the end of this fascinating book, I had a greater appreciation for what women were truly worth in the world economy for so many centuries. This is something nobody in ancient history ever even contemplated when the subject was spoken about at school or university. So many times we were told that the greatest leap in ancient technology that helped to civilize the world was the invention of the wheel. By the end of reading this book I felt like that string or twined spun fiber was the greatest civilizing factor. Suddenly we were no longer dependent on furs and skins to help keep us warm. Spindling and weaving brought about a revolution in dress as other sources of fiber such as linen or nettle(bast fibers)supplemented those furs, and wool could be harvested repeatedly from one animal for several years instead of killing it for it's skin. Domestication of animals became a necessity. Without decent clothing, shelter and food, would anyone have ever developed the wheel?
5.0 out of 5 stars
This book is a fascinating view of textiles through time.,
By
This review is from: Womens Work the First 20000 Years (Paperback)
At first, I had to get used to the female centric writing however, that is the thrust of this book. Not really. The title says it all "Women, Cloth, and Society in Early times."With the lack of reading time people have nowadays, I found it necessary sometimes to scan books looking for the individual items that I am interested in or need. However, I found Elizabeth Wayland Barber's writing style and information so intriguing that I could not miss a word. I purchased this book mainly because I was interested in the history of textiles. I dabble in spinning and weaving having a few different spinning wheels and looms myself. I was surprised and delighted to find that I got more than I paid for. Dr. Barber not only puts the craft in a historical perspective but also gives us a more personal view s she describes her experience such as reconstructing or emulating the early crafts. I also learned quite a bit of the origin of the technical words I used but never thought to read about them. One great plus of this presentation is that no matter what background your are coming from there is always something new to learn even if it is looking at the same thing from a different angle. An added bonus it does not distract from the original purpose of this book is the insertion of linguistics as word origins parallel crafts and help us understand better, when different things were invented or discovered and where they were invented or discovered. I also own several books on the origin of words because this also intrigues me. My copy of the book has monochrome diagrams and plates. I hope that one day the book will be published with color plates and diagrams. I found that the reader really needs to study the chart of the Main chronological periods covered in this book is it helps to keep everything in a time line perspective. On a technical note, I found the footnotes and the resource section helped to go beyond this book in many different directions. Thank you Elizabeth Wayland Barber for giving me a useful reading time and a new perspective on "Women, Cloth, and Society" not only in Early times but today.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Incredible history of women and fiber art,
By "twilight93" (Ponca City, OK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Womens Work (Hardcover)
As a fiber artist, I am very interested in the history of fiber. Elizabeth Barber's "Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years" is fantastic, both as a history of the use of fibers and as a history of working women. I learned a great deal about women's role in society from her research, and it makes me proud to be a modern woman working with fiber, just as my ancestors did. Highly recommended!
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