Threading Time: A Cultural History of Threadwork by Dolores Bausum

Threading Time traces the history of one of the world's oldest and most enduring human endeavors. The author's conception of threadwork includes all kinds of work done with thread, yarn or fibers including knotting, weaving, stitching, embroidering, knitting and more. In the author's long range view, threadwork becomes more than a garment, a rug or a tapestry on the wall. It is often a bond shared with contemporaries and with ancestors, a link between humans and cultural belief, even a tie between humankind and the Divine. The close association of interwoven fibers and humanity is found today in a metaphor that is used to convey the concept of shared traditions, values and beliefs: the fabric of society. This is a book about both art and people. The author draws on stories about threadworkers from ancient literature - the Bible, the Iliad and the Odyssey - and from more recent works by such authors as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Theodore Dreiser, Margaret Mitchell and John Updike. Works by two Germans - playwright Gerhart Hauptmann and artist Kathe Kollwitz - and English poets such as Robert Burns and William Blake illustrate the sweatshops characteristic of textile and garment production for centuries, a pattern that persists today in developing countries. As an original view of threadwork and those who create it written from a broad chronological perspective, Threading Time reaches beyond textile artisans and collectors to present a study significant to readers of literature, women's history and cultural history.

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