The Way We Wore: Island Textiles & Fashion Before 1850

At 6:00 PM on Tuesday, March 18th, local historian Norah Van Riper returns to the Vineyard Haven Library for another interactive program about Martha's Vineyard History, entitled “The Way We Wore: Island Textiles & Fashion Before 1850.” This event will be held on the upper level of the library, with refreshments provided by the Friends of the Library. 

Today, wool and linen are considered luxury fabrics, but for most of Western history, they were the fibers that everyone of every social status wore and used on a daily basis. Sheep arrived on Martha’s Vineyard with the earliest English colonizers and flax became an important crop on their farms. The sheep were so successful that wool became the Island’s premier cash crop for nearly two hundred years! But what changed, and why? This interactive program demonstrates (almost) the entire process of taking raw wool and flax and turning them into useful textiles by hand. This program is presented in historical costume from a modern perspective. 

Itinerant historian Norah Van Riper has been in the museum and living history trades for the better part of twenty-five years. Her focus is primarily on historical agriculture and domestic life in New England before the Industrial Revolution, however, she’s known to dabble in a number of other subjects and periods. Her real passion lies in giving voice to the forgotten and misunderstood people of the past. She lives in Vineyard Haven

For more information, please contact the library at (508) 696-4211 or send an email to vhpl_programs@clamsnet.org.