Fascination with Fiber: Michigan's Handweaving Heritage by Marie A. Gile, Marion T. Marzolf (review)

Book Reviews 171 within the rigid social structure of the Greek community, we personally experience the complexity of living in two separate but integrated worlds. Issues of social justice and consciousness also find a central role in My Detroit. Although at times Georgakas's tangential polemics on social inequity appear to have less to do with being Greek than with his own leftist political agenda, his concerns are sincere and an intimate part of the author's own identity and self-awareness. Georgakas intuitively concludes that the Greek community's inability to deal with and effectively address social inequity within the city, and its failure to organize politically, led to the community's ultimate demise in the late 1960s. Although Georgakas presents his work as a revisionist history, his conclusions are only implied and fail to indicate how his memoir works to redefine a misinterpreted past. Apart from occasional pronouncements that identify Greeks as unique among the new immigrants because of their exuberant xenophiha toward other immigrant groups and their racial sympathy for African Americans, Georgakas neglects to provide any substantial corrective to the historiographie record regarding mid-century urban ethnic hfe, community formation, and adaptation. Despite this lack, the real value of Georgakas's work is that he has successfully recreated a lost world where we as readers are able to experience what hfe may have been hke growing up Greek and American in theMotor City. Dejan Kralj Loyola University Chicago Marie A. Gile and Marion T. Marzolf. Fascination with Fiber. Michigan's Handweaving Heritage. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006. Pp. 184. Bibliography. IUustrations. Notes. Paper, $24.95. This slim, well-illustrated volume by Marie A. Gile and Marion T. Marzolf interprets one state's enduring handweaving tradition. A foreword ably written by Sigrid Wortmann Weltge, professor em?rita, Philadelphia University, provides a clear statement of the work's goals: to present an inclusive account of Michigan's handloom weavers and weaving as well as the story of the lasting and progressive quality of Michigan's fiber-arts tradition. These aims are further supported by awell organized text and clear writing. In addition to the stated goals, Gile and Marzolf also show how weaving inMichigan communities and across the 172 Michigan Historical Review state gready influenced the persistence and development of handloom weaving throughout the nation. In the preface C. Kurt Dewhurst, the director of theMichigan State University Museum, places this work within the context of other studies of handloom weavers by pointing out that it is the first comprehensive study of Michigan weavers. Initiated in response to an exhibit of Michigan handweaving from the past through the present, Fascination with Fiber also succeeds as a stand-alone text and could serve as a model any state's handweavers might follow in documenting handweaving's history, perpetuation, and modernization. What makes the study of Michigan so important is that its community and statewide organizations included extremely significant and gifted master craftspeople whose influences were felt nationwide. The writers describe how Michigan's handweavers contributed to revitahzing the craft while bringing weaving into the present. A real pleasure for readers is seeing the names of artists such as Mary Meigs Atwater, Mary Black, Peter Colhngwood, Jack Lenor Larson, Harriet Tidball, and other Michigan craftspeople, who honed their skills, wrote articles, developed weave designs, documented traditional and ethnic weave patterns, estabhshed workshops and guilds, and influenced local colleges and universities to develop educational programs in handweaving. An afterword about the Michigan League of Handweavers and a hst of objects displayed in the "Fascination with Fiber" exhibit completes the text. The exhibit included textiles dating from 1816 through the present. Although half the works were historic, a strong showing of contemporary artistry complements the history and attests to the strength of Michigan's modern fiber artists. The authors selected examples of the historic and modern items on exhibit to illustrate points within each chapter. The closing segment also identifies guilds included in the Michigan League of Handweavers today, their location, and a way to contact them via email. Although Fascination with Fiber is a short book, the text and illustrations are invaluable; other states with strong handweaving traditions might consider...