Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years : Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times

Elizabeth J. W. Barber

W W Norton & Company Incorporated, 1995 - Social Science - 334 pages

New discoveries about the textile arts reveal women's unexpectedly influential role in ancient societies.

Twenty thousand years ago, women were making and wearing the first clothing created from spun fibers. In fact, right up to the Industrial Revolution the fiber arts were an enormous economic force, belonging primarily to women.

Despite the great toil required in making cloth and clothing, most books on ancient history and economics have no information on them. Much of this gap results from the extreme perishability of what women produced, but it seems clear that until now descriptions of prehistoric and early historic cultures have omitted virtually half the picture.

Elizabeth Wayland Barber has drawn from data gathered by the most sophisticated new archaeological methods—methods she herself helped to fashion. In a "brilliantly original book" (Katha Pollitt, Washington Post Book World), she argues that women were a powerful economic force in the ancient world, with their own industry: fabric.

What people are saying

Review: Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times

User Review  - KA Jordan - Goodreads

I don't care who you are - 20,000 years is a long time! What this book tells us is simple: Women clothed the human race because it was something they could do while raising the next generation. There ...

Review: Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times

User Review  - Eddy Allen - Goodreads

New discoveries about the textile arts reveal women's unexpectedly influential role in ancient societies. Twenty thousand years ago, women were making and wearing the first clothing created from spun ...

About the author

Elizabeth Wayland Barber is the author of Womenrsquo;s Work and The Mummies of Ürümchi. Professor emerita of archaeology and linguistics at Occidental College, she lives in California.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years : Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times; Norton paperback; Women's studies/archaeology
• Author: Elizabeth J. W. Barber
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: W W Norton & Company Incorporated, 1995
• ISBN: 0393313484, 9780393313482
• Length: 334 pages
• Subjects: Social Science / Women's Studies