No Idle Hands: The Social History of American Knitting

“Fascinating . . . What is remarkable about this book is that a history of knitting can function so well as a survey of the changes in women’s rolse over time.”—The New York Times Book Review

An historian and lifelong knitter, Anne Macdonald expertly guides readers on a revealing tour of the history of knitting in America. In No Idle Hands, Macdonald considers how the necessity—and the pleasure—of knitting has shaped women’s lives.

Here is the Colonial woman for whom idleness was a sin, a...