Overview

Linking histories of women, relationships to the natural environment, material culture and art, Andrea Pappas presents a new, multi-dimensional view of eighteenth-century American culture from a unique perspective. This book investigates how and why women pictured the landscape in their needlework. It explores the ways their embroidered landscapes address the tumultuous environmental history of the period; how their depictions of nature differ from those made by men; and what women’s choices of motifs can tell us about their lives and their relationships to nature. Embroidering the Landscape situates these pastoral and georgic needleworks (c. 1740-1775) at the intersection of environmental and social histories, interpreting them through ecocritical and social lenses. Pappas’ investigation draws out connections between women’s depicted landscapes and environmental and cultural history at a time when nature itself was a charged arena for changes in agriculture, husbandry, gardening, and the emerging discourses of botany and natural history. Her insights change our understanding of the relationship between culture and the environment in this period and raise new questions about the unrecognized extent of women’s engagement with nature and natural science.

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9781848226241

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Reviews

'By isolating the contingent details found within these embroidered landscapes, Pappas foregrounds the economic, geographical, and horticultural knowledge possessed by the women who produced them... Overarchingly, Embroidering the Landscape: Women, Art and the Environment in British North America, 1740–1770 is an important contribution to the study of visual culture as well as the complex ecosystem of British North America with its dependence upon a global economy for its very survival. This much-needed study will complement the fields of American art, decorative arts, environmental history, and women’s studies.’ – Nancy Siegel, CAA Reviews

'By isolating the contingent details found within these embroidered landscapes, Pappas foregrounds the economic, geographical, and horticultural knowledge possessed by the women who produced them... Overarchingly, Embroidering the Landscape: Women, Art and the Environment in British North America, 1740–1770 is an important contribution to the study of visual culture as well as the complex ecosystem of British North America with its dependence upon a global economy for its very survival. This much-needed study will complement the fields of American art, decorative arts, environmental history, and women’s studies.’ – Nancy Siegel, CAA Reviews 'Pappas has, like the New England women and their embroidered landscapes she studies, fashioned a colorful, intricate, and well-crafted (in every sense of the word) volume that reminds us of our physical and figurative connections to the natural world, not to mention the various means through which we might continue to represent such associations. This is a master class in material cultural analysis, which further demonstrates why scholars must look beyond “traditional” sources in weaving together our frayed but vibrant past.’ – Vaughn Scribner, H-Net Reviews: H-Environment

Author Information

Andrea Pappas is Associate Professor at Santa Clara University. She has published on topics ranging from the Renaissance to the present and is particularly interested in the work of people on the margins or in overlooked artifacts.

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