Program Schedule & Registration
Lectures will begin at 8:45 am both days
We are very proud to offer the best experts in textile history in our Penn Dry Goods Market lecture series. This year, you will have the opportunity to hear lectures from nationally recognized authorities in textiles. Our speakers are not merely experts in their respective fields, but are entertaining and very approachable.
All lectures require a ticket ($25/lecture purchased ahead), and tickets will be taken at the door. If you purchase a ticket the day of the event, it is $35/lecture.
SLHC will issue refunds only if a lecture is canceled, OR if it is filled before we receive your registration, OR if we receive your request at least 48 hours in advance of the program.
You can pay for each lecture with a credit card below.
Paying with Check or Cash? Download, complete, and mail in your registration form.
Mail completed registration forms to:
Schwenkfelder Library & Heritage Center
105 Seminary Street
Pennsburg PA 18073
2025 Textile History Lecture Series
Thursday, May 8 (all times are EST)
7:00 — 8:00 pm SHOW ME! An On-Line Trunk Show of Rare and Historic Quilts
(this is a Zoom only lecture and it will not be recorded)
Julie Silber, lecturer, author, consultant, and curator
As a long time collector and dealer, as well as the caretaker of several other quilt collections, Julie has had access to some of the greatest antique quilts ever made.
This Zoom talk features extraordinary historic quilts, some of them never published or exhibited before. Examples include true Baltimore Album Quilts, other Pre-Civil War quilts, museum quality Amish quilts, Depression-era examples, quilts with tens of thousands of tiny pieces, and unique pictorial and other one-of-a-kind quilts.
Friday, May 16 (all times are EST)
8:45 — 9:45 am This is the Way I Pass My Time:
Mennonite Hand Towels from Eastern Pennsylvania
Joel Alderfer, Collections Manager, Mennonite Heritage Center
10:00 — 11:00 am Colonialism, Power & Identity: Fashion in American Portraits, 1670-1840
Lynne Bassett, Independent Scholar, Curator, and Author
12:45 — 1:45 pm Heritage Craft, Community, and Continuity among Scandinavian Americans
Josh Brown, Skwierczynski University Fellow (University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire) and folk weaver
2:00 — 3:00 pm Pennsylvania German Quilt Turning—40 Examples from Both Sides of the Susquehanna
Debby Cooney, Independent Quilt Scholar
PLEASE NOTE: the same quilts will be shown in both the Friday and Saturday quilt turnings.
3:15 — 4:15 pm Hidden in Plain Sight: Uncovering the Samplers of Black Girls
Lynne Lynne Anderson, Ph.D., President of the Sampler Consortium and Director of the Sampler Archive Project
Sponsored by M. Finkel & Daughter
Saturday, May 17
8:45 — 9:45 am A Useable Past: American Hand-Weaving Revival in Appalachia, 1892-1940
Matthew Monk, Linda Eaton Associate Curator of Textiles, Winterthur
10:00 — 11:00 am Pennsylvania German Quilt Turning—40 Examples from Both Sides of the Susquehanna
Debby Cooney, Independent Quilt Scholar
PLEASE NOTE: the same quilts will be shown in both the Friday and Saturday quilt turnings.
11:15 am — 12:15 pm So intimately are we connected: Antislavery Textiles and the Weight of Cotton
Mariah Kupfner, Assistant Professor of American Studies and Public Heritage, School of Humanities, Penn State Harrisburg
12:45 — 1:45 pm The Joys of Tape Weaving as Viewed Through the Eleanor Bittle Collection
Brother Johannes Zinzendorf and Zephram De Colebi, The Mahantongo Heritage Center at the Hermitage
2:00 — 3:00 pm A Legacy in Thread: Schoolgirl Needlework and Female Education In Dutchess County, New York
Stacy Whittaker, Independent Needlework Scholar
3:15 — 4:15 pm The Quilt That Never Was: Solving the Mystery of the Inscribed Great Valley Quilt Blocks
Charlene Bongiorno Stephens and William Stephens, Independent Quilt Scholars