Padma Kaimal
K. Sivaramakrishnan
Anand A. Yang
SERIES EDITORS
Making Kantha, Making Home
WOMEN AT WORK IN COLONIAL BENGAL
PIKA GHOSH
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON PRESS
Seattle
Making Kantha, Making Home was supported by a grant from the McLellan Endowment, established through the generosity of Martha McCleary McLellan and Mary McLellan Williams.
Copyright © 2020 by the University of Washington Press
Design by Katrina Noble
Composed in Minion Pro, typeface designed by Robert Slimbach
Photographs are by the author unless otherwise noted.
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Printed and bound in Korea
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON PRESS
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Names: Ghosh, Pika, 1969– author.
Title: Making kantha, making home : women at work in colonial Bengal / Pika Ghosh.
Description: 1st. | Seattle : University of Washington Press, 2020. | Series: Global South Asia |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019038426 (print) | LCCN 2019038427 (ebook) | ISBN 9780295746999 (hardcover) |
ISBN 9780295747002 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Kanthas—History. | Kanthas—Themes, motives. | Kanthas—Social aspects. |
Art, Bengali. | Art and literature.
Classification: LCC NK9276.A1 G46 2020 (print) | LCC NK9276.A1 (ebook) | DDC 746.44—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019038426
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019038427
The paper used in this publication is acid free and meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1984.∞
For Ma
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A book with a long gestation accrues many debts of gratitude, many stories along its journey, and this one is no exception. At the top of my list are Darielle Mason and Leslie Essoglu of the South Asian Art Department at the Philadelphia Museum of Art for providing the first wonderful opportunity to examine the kantha in the Stella Kramrisch and Jill and Sheldon Bonowitz collections for the 2009 exhibition Kantha: The Embroidered Quilts of Bengal. It was an extraordinarily stimulating experience to work closely with spectacular textiles, and I quickly fell in love with the material. I thank the Costumes and Textile Department for generous access to textiles, files, and ideas. Dilys Blum looked at several textiles with me and offered an invaluable sounding board for ideas. Barbara Darlin facilitated opening up the same textiles and checking object files many times in the past few years. I thank Sara Reiter and Bernice Morris for their conservators’ eye and tools in looking at Kamala’s kantha with me. Tim Tiebout offered his expertise as I struggled with my own photographs of the textiles.
Susan Bean not only gave me access to the many objects and images at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, that helped me understand the range of material I was mulling, but read drafts, offered astute comments at conference panels, and popped images to me via email from her own fieldtrips. Rosemary
