Unsung History: A podcast about people and events in American history you may not know much about. Yet.
Upcoming Events
Luncheon Keynote, American Quilt Study Group Seminar, September 8, Tarrytown, New York
Lecturer, QuiltCon, “Scrap Quilts, Craftivism, and Quilting for Hire: The New Deal Origins of Twenty-First Century Trends,” February 2025, Phoenix, Arizona
Past Events and Publicity
Lecturer, Chester County History Center, Aug 20, remote
Lecturer, Arizona Quilt Study Group, Aug 3, remote
Speaker, Roosevelt Reading Festival, June 22, FDR Library, Hyde Park, New York
QuiltCon, February 22-24, Raleigh, NC
Hanging at the Quilt Alliance booth, with a microphone to record you on Running Stitch, signed books available for purchase.
Tatter, Book Talk, virtual over Zoom.
Thursday, February 29, 2024, 3 – 4:30pm EST
Full details and registration here. Read Tatter’s blog post on The Fold.
Living New Deal, Women & the New Deal, webinar over Zoom
Thursday, February 29, 8-9 pm EST
Lansdowne Public Library, Book Talk
Lansdowne, Pennsylvania
April 14, 1-3 pm
“Quilts Embody the New Deal, Practically and Symbolically,” The Fireside, Living New Deal, Jan 31, 2024.
Janneken Smucker in conversation with Eleanor Shevlin, West Chester University Library Special Collections, November 2, 2023, 2-3 pm, .
Mennonite Heritage Center, Harleysville, PA, Book talk and signing, featuring exhibition of period quilts from the Center’s collection, November 16, 2023.
Guest, Know-it-Alls, “The OG Quilt Know-It-Alls: Home Economists,
FSA Supervisors, & Demonstration Agents,” Episode 21, “The Roosevelt Years.”
Smucker, Janneken. “Quilts, Social Engineering, and Black Power in the Tennessee Valley.” Southern Cultures, Spring 2022, 25–39.
Keynote, “Home Economics & History: How Understanding the Past Can Inform the Future,” International Federation of Home Economists World Congress, September 2022, Atlanta.
Lecture, “High Style Folk Art and New Deal Values: Quilts in the Index of American Design,” American Folk Art Museum, Objects of Inquiry: New Perspectives on American Folk Art, May 22, 2022. Stream here.
Lecture, “TVA Quilts and Black Power in the Segregated South,” Project Threadways Symposium, Florence, Alabama, April 22, 2022.
“A New Deal for Quilts,” Daughters of the American Revolution Museum, “A Piece of Her Mind: Culture and Technology in American Quilts,” symposium. November 15, 2019.
Reviews
Nancy Adair, The Literate Quilter, Feb 8, 2024: “I learned so much from this book.”
Joe Cunningham, A New Deal Book Review, Jan 17, 2024: “My review of my favorite recent book on quilts…”
Scott Borchert, “Book Review: A New Deal for Quilts,” April 23, 2024, Living New Deal: “Smucker’s clear prose and expert knowledge, combined with the book’s sumptuous visual design—featuring many striking black and white photographs from the 1930s alongside full color images of the quilts themselves—make this an exceptional contribution to the study of the New Deal.”