Textile and Costume Specialist Senior Curator of Textiles and Costumes, Emerita, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Employment
Independent Textile and Costume Specialist, 2017 to present. Researching and writing about quilts and historic clothing. Creating line drawings of quilting patterns using Computer-Assisted Design.
Curator of Textiles and Costumes, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation., 1978–2017.
Associate Curator and later Curator of Textiles, Valentine Museum, Richmond, Virginia. 1972–1978.
Instructor, Textile Related Arts, University of Wisconsin, Madison. 1968–1970.
Education
Master of Arts, Early American Culture, Winterthur Program of the University of Delaware and the Winterthur Museum, class of 1972. Thesis: “The Textile Trade in Boston, 1650–1700” (submitted under the name of Linda Baumgarten Berlekamp).
Bachelor of Science and Master of Science, Textile Related Arts, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1967–1968. Worked with the Helen Allen Collection of antique and modern study textiles.
Publications
The Art of Quilting, a Pattern and Coloring Book. Williamsburg: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 2016.
Four Centuries of Quilts, The Colonial Williamsburg Collection with Kimberly Smith Ivey. Williamsburg and New Haven: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and Yale University Press, 2014.
What Clothes Reveal, The Language of Clothing in Colonial and Federal America. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002. (Winner of Costume Society of America’s Millia Davenport award for excellence in publication.)
Costume Close-up with John Watson and Florine Carr. New York: Quite Specific Media Group, Inc. and Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1999.
Eighteenth-Century Clothing at Williamsburg. Williamsburg: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1986.
Articles
Forthcoming: “Regionalism in Quilted Petticoats: The Influence of Pattern Drawers” in Lynne Z. Bassett et al, New London County Quilts and Bedcovers (Working Title)
“The Layered Look Revisited: New Discoveries in Quilted Petticoats,” Dress 47, no. 2 (2021)
“Vase-Pattern Wholecloth Quilts in the Eighteenth-Century Quaker Community,” Uncoverings 36 (2015)
“The Layered Look: Design in Eighteenth-Century Quilted Petticoats,” Dress 34 (2007)
“Altered Historical Clothing,” Dress 25 (1998)
“Nineteenth Century Children’s Costumes in Tasha Tudor’s Collection” with Jan Gilliam, Antiques Magazine, April, 1998
“Leather Stockings and Hunting Shirts” in American Material Culture: The Shape of the Field, Ann Smart Martin and J. Ritchie Garrison, eds. Henry Francis duPont Winterthur Museum and Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1997.
“Dressing for Pregnancy: A Maternity Gown of 1780–1795,”Dress 23 (1996)
“Book Review: The Art of Dress by Aileen Ribeiro,” Dress 22 (1995)
“Oriental Export Textiles at Colonial Williamsburg” in The Conservation of 18th-Century Painted Silk Dress, Chris Paulocik and Sean Flaherty, eds., New York: Costume Institute, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1995.
“Protective Covers for Furniture and Its Contents” in American Furniture 1993, Luke Beckerdite, ed., Chipstone Foundation Journal, University Press of New England, 1993.
“Plains, Plaid and Cotton: Woolens for Slave Clothing,” Ars Textrina 15 (1991).
“Dolls and Doll Clothing at Colonial Williamsburg,” Antiques 140: 1 (July, 1991).
“Curtains, Covers and Cases: Upholstery Documents at Colonial Williamsburg,” in Upholstery Conservation, Marc Williams, et al, eds., East Kingston, New Hampshire: American Conservation Consortium, 1990.
“Textiles in the Eighteenth Century,” “Bed Hangings,” and “Window Curtains” in Williamsburg Reproductions, Williamsburg: CWF, 1989.
“ ‘Clothes for the People’: Slave Clothing in Early Virginia,” Journal of Early Southern Decorative Arts 15 (November, 1988).
“Costumes and Textiles in the Collection of Cora Ginsburg,” Antiques 134: 2 (August, 1988).
“Welcome Little Stranger: Fashions of Motherhood,” Colonial Williamsburg Journal (Winter, 1987–1988).
“The Textile Trade in Boston, 1650–1700” in Arts of the Anglo-American Community in the Seventeenth Century, Ian M. G. Quimby, ed. 1974 Winterthur Conference Report. Charlottesville, Virginia: University Press of Virginia, 1975.