Delineating Women’s Historical Lives through Textiles: A Latvian Knitter’s Narrative of Memory

Eileen Wheeler

In this interpretive study I demonstrate that “textile narratives” are historical sources, together with the study of objects and oral history, which provide more delineation of women's lives that enhance our knowledge of women's history. I bring aspects of this under-explored history into sharper focus by examining the close relationship with textiles that has featured in the lives of many women through their creative work. The associated stories imbedded in the experience of those who negotiate particular historical circumstances that include political resistance and dislocation are also examined. The narrative, on which I focus, revolves around a knitting machine and its place in the history and survival of Latvian refugee Anna Samens and her family in their desperate flight to Canada in World War II. Her story is partially revealed through my study of archival records, interpretation of photographs and interview with the knitter/businesswoman/refugee's daughter. Placed against the backdrop of war ravaged Europe, it unfolds from a precise moment in 1944 when the skilled knitwear designer and factory owner, faced with annihilation, sees her knitting machine as the key to her family's survival. By drawing on the conceptual framework of memory that identifies agency as pivotal in the selection of memory and its articulation, I demonstrate how this textile narrative can be used as a means to communicate knowledge, history, culture and identity. The narrative at the heart of this paper, and its analysis, gives evidence of the value of textile study as a vehicle to shed light on marginalized histories and a means to hear more women's voices to ameliorate a marginalization of the past.

 

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