This summer marks the 250th anniversary of America's founding as nation, born in a successful rebellion from the British crown. Events and politics tell us one tale, but textiles always give us another view. Much of the textile history of America is deeply painful – a story of enslavement and hardship in Victorian mills and garment sweatshops. But there is another side to this, because creating textiles for the home has always involved community, and throughout the two and half centuries America has been in existence, quilting, knitting, sewing and mending have been deeply social activities.

This episode of Haptic & Hue is about one group of people who designed and made craft textiles at a particular moment in America's history. The Folly Cove Designers came from a little-known area of Massachusetts. They had no professional qualifications and they were taught around a kitchen table by one woman. For nearly thirty years in the mid-twentieth century they formed a close creative and supportive network making work of the highest quality. Even today, over seventy years later their story has a lot to tell us about how communities help individuals shine.

For more information about this episode and pictures of the people and places mentioned in this episode please go to https://hapticandhue.com/tales-of-textiles-series-8/

And if you would like to find out about Friends of Haptic & Hue with an extra podcast every month hosted by Jo Andrews and Bill Taylor – here's the link: https://hapticandhue.com/join/

There is a little mannequin which has played a hidden role in history. We admire the portraits of the great men and women of the past dressed in the height of fashion. But how, in an age without cameras or magazines, did they know what was in style?

Step forward the Pandora doll, who may be as much as 3,500 years old. These miniature mannequins have played a role in communicating fashion down the centuries from the time of the Egyptian pharaohs, through the Second World War, right up into the era of COVID.

We know that the fashion dolls were owned by Mary Queen of Scots, and Jane Seymour, wife of Henry the Eighth of England. Elizabeth the First of England was sent a set by the Queen of France. They played an important role in diplomacy amongst the royal houses of Europe and above all they worked hard to cement the role of Paris, and French dress-making, as the world's style-makers.

For more information about this episode and pictures of the people and places mentioned in this episode please go to https://hapticandhue.com/tales-of-textiles-series-8/

And if you would like to find out about Friends of Haptic & Hue with an extra podcast every month hosted by Jo Andrews and Bill Taylor – here's the link: https://hapticandhue.com/join/

In a small corner of London lies one of the most evocative collection of textiles anywhere in the world. The fabrics – which are quite ordinary - are in the so-called billet books which recorded the identity and clothing of every baby accepted at the Foundling Hospital from the mid 1700s onwards.

What makes these books so moving is that often the birth mother left a scrap of cloth or ribbon when she gave up her baby. She held onto the other half so that if her circumstances changed, she could return to the Foundling Hospital, match the two pieces of cloth and reclaim her child. The result, two hundred and fifty years later, is one of the best collections of textiles samples worn by ordinary people in Europe the seventeen and eighteen hundreds.

It is hard to imagine today how we would feel if we had to place our own child in a foundling hospital, if this was part of our family history. One woman recently discovered that this is exactly what happened to her ancestor. She arrived at the Foundling Hospital in 1758 at just a few weeks old. But she lived to be 87 – an incredible age for that time – and became a mother and grandmother herself. Find out more in this episode.

For more information about this episode and pictures of the people and places mentioned in this episode please go to https://hapticandhue.com/tales-of-textiles-series-8/

And if you would like to find out more about Friends of Haptic & Hue with an extra podcast every month hosted by Jo Andrews and Bill Taylor – here's the link: https://hapticandhue.com/join/