Enfilade

From the Schwenkfelder Library & Heritage Center, as noted by The Decorative Arts Trust:

Penn Dry Goods Market Textile Lecture Series

Schwenkfelder Library & Heritage Center, Pennsburg, Pennsylvania, 16–17 May 2025

Image: Deborah Simmons Coates quilt detail, 1840s–1850s, Lancaster History — to be discussed in Mariah Kupfner’s talk.

The Penn Dry Goods Market Textile Lecture Series offers a chance to hear nationally recognized authorities in textile history on a broad range of topics—from embroidered hand towels to Appalachian weaving, from quilts to samplers, and from Scandinavian American and African American traditions. All lectures require a ticket ($25/lecture prepaid or $30 at door). Each ticket also provides access to the Penn Dry Goods Market antique show.

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8.45am  ‘This is the Way I Pass My Time’: Mennonite Hand Towels from Eastern Pennsylvania — Joel Alderfer (Collections Manager, Mennonite Heritage Center)

10.00  Colonialism, Power, and Identity: Fashion in American Portraits, 1670–1840 — Lynne Bassett (Independent scholar, curator, and author)

12.45  Heritage Craft, Community, and Continuity among Scandinavian Americans — Josh Brown (Skwierczynski University Fellow, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, and folk weaver)

2.00  Pennsylvania German Quilt Turning: 40 Examples from Both Sides of the Susquehanna — Debby Cooney (Independent quilt scholar)

3.15  Hidden in Plain Sight: Uncovering the Samplers of Black Girls — Lynne Anderson (President of the Sampler Consortium and Director of the Sampler Archive Project)

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8.45am  A Usable Past: American Hand-Weaving Revival in Appalachia, 1892–1940 — Matthew Monk (Linda Eaton Associate Curator of Textiles, Winterthur)

10.00  Pennsylvania German Quilt Turning: 40 Examples from Both Sides of the Susquehanna — Debby Cooney (Independent quilt scholar)

11.15  ‘So Intimately Are We Connected’: Antislavery Textiles and the Weight of Cotton — Mariah Kupfner (Assistant Professor of American Studies and Public Heritage, School of Humanities, Penn State Harrisburg)

12.45  The Joys of Tape Weaving as Viewed through the Eleanor Bittle Collection — Johannes Zinzendorf and Zephram de Colebi (The Mahantongo Heritage Center at the Hermitage)

2.00  A Legacy in Thread: Schoolgirl Needlework and Female Education in Dutchess County, New York — Stacy Whittaker (Independent needlework scholar)

3.15  The Quilt That Never Was: Solving the Mystery of the Inscribed Great Valley Quilt Blocks — Charlene Bongiorno Stephens and William Stephens (Independent quilt scholars)