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Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years - Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times Paperback – 1996

by Elizabeth Wayland Barber (Author)

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"A fascinating history of…[a craft] that preceded and made possible civilization itself." ―New York Times Book Review

New discoveries about the textile arts reveal women's unexpectedly influential role in ancient societies.

Twenty thousand years ago, women were making and wearing the first clothing created from spun fibers. In fact, right up to the Industrial Revolution the fiber arts were an enormous economic force, belonging primarily to women.

Despite the great toil required in making cloth and clothing, most books on ancient history and economics have no information on them. Much of this gap results from the extreme perishability of what women produced, but it seems clear that until now descriptions of prehistoric and early historic cultures have omitted virtually half the picture.

Elizabeth Wayland Barber has drawn from data gathered by the most sophisticated new archaeological methods―methods she herself helped to fashion. In a "brilliantly original book" (Katha Pollitt, Washington Post Book World), she argues that women were a powerful economic force in the ancient world, with their own industry: fabric.

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Editorial Reviews

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.

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.

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Product details

Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; New edition edition (1996)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0393313484
ISBN-13: 978-0393313482
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.9 x 8.3 inches
Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 100 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #90,120 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #136 in Books > History > Historical Study & Educational Resources > Archaeology
- #407 in Books > History > World > Women in History
- #777 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Gender Studies

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This is a fantastic well written book detailing the early history of textiles ...

ByTeresaon May 27, 2016

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I have the hard back copy first edition and I wanted a portable version so I purchased it for my Kindle and smartphones. This is a fantastic well written book detailing the early history of textiles and their role in history. Its interesting to read and easy to understand. This book isn't just for women but for everyone as it gives you a great understanding into the labor intensive process of early textile production.

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The best anthropology book ever

ByOmega Caton February 6, 2017