Featuring 51 contemporary and vintage aprons, three dress and five apron try-ons, dating from the 1900s through present, this exhibition chronicles changing attitudes toward women and domestic work.
It surveys the wide range of design and craft techniques apron-makers have used to express themselves, while still working within creative venues traditionally available to women. Elaborately embroidered aprons of delicate cotton, for example, were worn by well-heeled women of the 1920s.
In contrast, the Depression and war years of the 1930s and 1940s-inspired sturdy, calico bib aprons. The post-war 1940s and 1950s — the June Cleaver era — stand out as the acknowledged heyday of the apron, when commercial and intricately hand-decorated aprons flourished as symbols of family and motherhood.