An Enslaved Woman and her Dressmaker Daughter

April 24, 2014
At the Commodore Theater
421 High Street
Portsmouth, VA
(757) 393-6962
Doors open at noon
Lunch may be purchased from noon-12:45
Talk begins at 1:00 p.m.

Historian, Kathleen Curtis Wilson will tell the story of an exceptional African American family in Appalachia

Historian Kathleen Curtis Wilson

Virginia and explain what is known and not known about skilled enslaved women and the importance of new discoveries in the field of African American studies.  Her presentation includes photographs of textiles made by Lizzie Bolden, photographs of her mother and father, members of her family and other freed slaves living and working in Bath County.

Historians have long underestimated the importance of the skills that enslaved individuals possessed because there is no body of work to study.  That is especially true in Appalachia.  In the world of textiles and clothing, it is accepted that many skilled slave artisans spun thread and wove cloth, stitched slave clothing from coarse fabrics, did the fine (but tedious) finish quilting on their mistresses’ showpiece quilts, or were hired out as dressmakers, earning money for their masters and sometimes saving enough from their earnings to purchase freedom.  However, there is little physical evidence of these skills to support further scholarship.  Since slave-made textiles have traditionally remained with the master’s family, historians have had no way to authenticate the original maker of a quilt, bedcover, or other piece of cloth that has only a vague provenance.

Elizabeth Morris Bolden, Lizzie, lived in Warm Springs, VA all of her life.  She and her husband hand one

Lizzie's quilt, Warm Springs, Virginia

daughter, Alice.  What makes her story worthy of historical documentation are the textiles she leer behind, evidence of her skill as a seamstress and her status in the community.  Five textiles have passed from mother to daughter along with remembrances of Lizzie’s life and details of her sewing career.  At a time when African Americans in Appalachia had few opportunities for more than unskilled employment, Lizzie had her own business as a dressmaker for clients in the community. Lizzie’s great granddaughter, Perlista Y. Henry, will be at the presentation to answer questions at the end of the talk.

Kathleen Curtis Wilson is a Fellow at the Virginia Foundation of Humanities, Charlottesville, VA.  A renowned authority on Appalachian crafts, Wilson is craft section editor for the Encyclopedia of Appalachia. As an Appalachia textile historian, Wilson has been documenting, photographing, and writing about regional craft traditions for more than 25 years.  Currently she is working on her first novel, The Fabric of Wishful Thinking.

The talk is being held in conjunction with the exhibit Changing Appalachia: Custom toCutting Edge at the Portsmouth Art & Cultural Center. This program is sponsored in part by the Commodore Theater, Portsmouth Art & Cultural Center, the African-American Historical Society of Portsmouth and the Thomson Family Foundation of Minnesota.