Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years; Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times Elizabeth Wayland Barber New York: W. W. Norton, 1994. Paperback, 336 pages, $19.95. ISBN 9780393313482.
This textile history classic is well worth revisiting in the context of living through (and spinning through) a pandemic. Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years traces the development of ancient textiles back to the invention of string 20 to 30 thousand years ago. As professor emerita of archaeology and linguistics at Occidental College, Dr. Elizabeth Wayland Barber pulls from wide-ranging sources including ancient Greek poetry, Indo-European linguistics, prehistoric art, and archaeology for her research. A maker herself, Barber's approach to history places real value on the knowledge that comes with practicing a craft, mining her sources for milestones in human civilization and women's…
