![]() ![]() First published in 1930 in Britain, it’s about a plucky young woman who succeeds in the clothing business, in part by anticipating the huge changes about to wash over the industry as a result of mass production. This interweaving of fabric and invention is the basis of High Wages, Dorothy Whipple’s irresistibly shrewd novel of business and love. ![]() Virginia Postrel, who stitches a grand history of textiles in her book The Fabric of Civilization, reminds us that Athena was the goddess of weaving, among other things, and that “the Greeks called her domain ‘techne,’ a word that shares a root with both technology and textile.” No less important was the technological and managerial evolution of the “rag trade,” which for the better part of two centuries has provided a path (however arduous) toward freedom and equality for women in developing countries-including Britain and the United States in the 19th and early 20th centuries. ![]()
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