ABSTRACT
Scholarly and popular interest in needlework has been growing steadily, particularly in the fields of Victorian and women’s studies. Much of the work published on the topic focuses on the image of the needlewoman as a cultural symbol or on a sort of mystical or mythic relationship between textiles and women. Such approaches are tremendously helpful in assessing the significance of needlework in nineteenth-century American texts, but rarely step back to examine how and why writers of the period, more especially women, came to give needlework such a large role in their works. Needlework, as a virtually universal activity among women in the past, deserves careful attention. Reading texts of the period without some awareness of needlework’s presence is a bit like reading Jane Austen’s novels with the assumption that nothing of real import happens at dances and picnics.
