From Library Journal
Theorizing that needlework represents a variety of life-sustaining bonds among individuals, generations, and traditions, Bausum investigates the role of threadworkers and their creations in human culture by surveying a broad range of literary sources containing passages related to needlecrafts. She considers threadwork from the perspectives of religion, myth, warfare, art, and technology, ranging from biblical references to clothing made in the Garden of Eden, to portrayals of threadworkers in Greek and Roman myths and Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey, to references to textiles in Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities and Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. After briefly reviewing the plot of each literary work, Bausum notes references to cloth, clothing, fashion, and characters working on needlework and provides some historical background. The result, while broad, is not very deep or rewarding. A more scholarly evaluation of women's lives and their social roles through the history of needlework is Rozsika Parker's The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine (1989). Not recommended. Judith Yankielun Lind, Roseland Free P.L., NJ Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.


CHOICE, February 2002
"[R]ichly annotated account....Recommended for general readers of literature, cultural history, and women's history....including graduate students, faculty, and researchers."


Dallas Morning News, January 7, 2002
"[N]ine years of documented research woven into a fascinating tapestry...[I]llustrates how fabric making has altered the makers."


LDB INTERIOR TEXTILES, January 2002
"Full of rich detail...gives readers a broad and interesting account of textiles throughout a developing Europe."


Book Description
In a ground-breaking survey taken primarily from literary sources, the author reveals the essential link between the human spirit and the art of connecting threads. Whether looking at stories about clothing made in the Garden of Eden, a medieval manuscript, or modern fiction and poetry, the author traces the importance to humankind of a craft that has never ceased since it began at least forty thousand years ago. The author's conception of threadwork throughout is generic, including all kinds of work done with thread, yarn, or fiber.


From the Publisher
As an original view of threadwork written from a broad chronological perspective, "Threading Time" will appeal to textile artisans and collectors. It will also interest readers of literature, women's history, and cultural history.


From the Author
My family, loyal friends, and total strangers recognized the importance of my endeavor to write this book in honor of threadworkers who have played a vital, though often undervalued, role in our human relations, cultural experiences, and physical survival.


From the Inside Flap
"Threading Time" traces the history of one of the world's oldest and most enduring human endeavors. 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. A rip in the fabric can be alarming; mending it is necessary to avert instability and even chaos. This is a book about both art and people. The author draws on stories about threadworkers from ancient literature...and from more recent works by such authors as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Theodore Dreiser, Margaret Mitchell, and John Updike....Artistic images from classic sculpture, windows from the Cathedral at Chartres, paintings by such masters as Vermeer and Monet...illustrate the significence of threadwork.


About the Author
A former teacher and newspaper columnist, Dolores Bausum has worked in textiles and in threadwork related research for two decades. This book is the culmination of that experience. Both her grown son and daughter are authors of books; her husband edited a scholarly journal from 1989-99.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"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 - play-wright 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." "Artistic images from classic sculpture, a window from the Cathedral at Chartres, paintings by such masters as Vermeer and Monet, twentieth-century quilts, and works by contemporary painters such as Elien Day Hale and Margaret Schillie further illustrate the significence of thread-work." 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.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal