Yakama two-hide dress, ca. 1890. Washington. Hide, pony beads, faceted Russian glass beads, fire-polished glass beads, cut glass beads, seed beads, sinew. From the online NMAI exhibit ‘Identity by Design: Tradition, Change, and Celebration in Native Women’s Dresses.’

In many cultures around the world, probably most, the making of clothing is traditionally the province of women. From sewing hides to weaving fine cloth, textile work has been women’s work for thousands of years. Women invented these technologies, just as they probably invented pottery and agriculture. (For an up-to-date look at the research, check out The Invisible Sex: Uncovering the True Roles of Women in Prehistory.) But women didn’t just create functional garments and the tools to make them: they created art. It is striking to survey world cultures and see how often clothing is the site of brilliant artistic expression.

A wonderful book about this from the Western perspective is Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years : Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times. Elizabeth Wayland Barber traces the development of textiles in the Near East and Europe, from the first string skirts to the fine linens of Egypt, from the earliest wool garments to the incredible explosion of textile art in ancient Crete. For Minoan women, and for their Mycenaean and Greek descendants, textiles were both a personal art form and a means of expressing important cultural values (for example, the funeral cloth that Penelope was weaving and secretly unraveling for years in the Odyssey would have been a tapestry “story cloth” about her family’s deeds.) Many of the symbols and motifs developed thousands of years ago are still being woven and embroidered by women in the Balkans today.

I thought of that rich history as I was enjoying the current online exhibit at the National Museum of the American Indian: Identity by Design: Tradition, Change and Celebration in Native Women’s Dresses. This beautifully curated exhibit focuses on the evolution of Plains dresses from the 19th century to the modern powwow era. From the introduction:

For generations, Native women from the Plains, Plateau, and Great Basin regions of the United States and Canada have designed dresses renowned for their beauty. But each dress has the ability to tell its own story. They speak of an individual designer’s artistic vision; a family’s status; tribal values; and social and cultural change.

The stories of the dresses in this exhibition are revealed through the words, insights, and memories of contemporary Native women designers. For these artists, dresses are more than simple articles of clothing. They are evidence of a proud and unbroken tradition, links to the generations of women who have gone before them, and bridges to the future.

The mastery and sheer exuberance of these artists is stunning, and the high-quality photographs on the exhibit website are a joy:

Crow elk tooth cloth dress, ca. 1890. Montana. Red and green wool, imitation elk teeth (bone), seed beads, muslin, thread. From the online NMAI exhibit ‘Identity by Design: Tradition, Change, and Celebration in Native Women’s Dresses.’

Nez Perce two-hide pattern dress with fully beaded yoke, ca. 1920. Idaho. Hide, canvas, cut glass beads, sinew, thread. From the online NMAI exhibit ‘Identity by Design: Tradition, Change, and Celebration in Native Women’s Dresses.’

Cheyenne three-hide dress, ca. 1995. Made by Rebecca Brady (Cheyenne/Sac and Fox/Pawnee/Oto, b. 1969) and Jon Brady (Arikara, b. 1976). Oklahoma. Commercial hide, cut glass beads, rainbow-list white wool, ribbons, cowrie shells, hairpipes, fire-polished glass beads, rhinestones, horsehair, cotton, paint, canvas, rawhide, thread. From the online NMAI exhibit ‘Identity by Design: Tradition, Change, and Celebration in Native Women’s Dresses.’

This is women’s history in tangible form: art as life, life as art, a thread of meaning and beauty that stretches from generation to generation.

“The making of these Crow traditional dresses was passed on by my mother. She learned it from her mother. Now I’m teaching my daughters how to make these dresses–to try to follow the original pattern. These traditional dresses identify you as being a woman and being able to take care of your children.”
– Gladys Jefferson (Crow), 2005, quoted in online NMAI exhibit “Identity by Design: Tradition, Change, and Celebration in Native Women’s Dresses.”

As a feminist, I’ve always been both forward- and backward-looking. I have no interest in being confined to traditional gender roles, and I look forward to a day when women and men are both free to take on any job or position in society. (I’m still waiting for the first woman President!) But at the same time, I cherish women’s history. I honor the work and art of our foremothers, and I marvel at the incredible beauty they created, often under extremely adverse conditions. It fills me with joy to study the wonderful traditions women have created and continue to develop.

March is Women’s History Month. While we’re honoring the brave women who fought for our political rights, let’s also remember the countless generations of women who fed, clothed, and sheltered the human race, and poured their genius into beautiful but unsigned works of art.