Exhibition: Threads of Bondage, Invisibility, and Style Influence: Hidden African American Contributions to American Couture — Closes

Note: This exhibition has been extended; it will now close April 30.

February 26–April 30, 2018

The Office of Educational Opportunity Programs and Leonard Davis present Threads of Bondage, Invisibility, and Style Influence: Hidden African American Contributions to American Couture.  It is estimated that between 1525 and 1866 some 12.5 to 15 million African men, women, and children were violently forced from Western and Central Africa into brutal captivity to provide labor for the Western Hemisphere. Approximately 450,000 of the 10.5 million who survived the overseas voyages were sent to North America to be enslaved. Within this environment developed highly skilled and valued enslaved dressmakers and seamstresses. The exhibition is in tribute to the many unrecognized women who but for their bondage would have been recognized as “designers.”

Items on view are provided courtesy of the Leonard Davis collection.

The exhibition is located on the west side of the fourth floor corridor connecting the Business and Liberal Arts Center and the Dubinsky Student Center.

This exhibition is free and open to the public.