The Shepherds of Needlelace: Armenian-American Lace After the Genocide

Abstract

This paper will act as a document of needlelace preservation methods in the United States since 1895, including relief effort marketplaces, publications, demonstrations, collections, exhibitions and internet communities. These pieces of visual and material culture will be contextualized alongside the broader issues of gendered labor, cultural memory, assimilation pressures and Orientalism. Using these frameworks to look at the history of needlelace, I will interrogate cultural preservation methods in an attempt to create a potential roadmap to maintaining specific craft histories while also being socially and culturally adaptable.