In the first of two episodes on

Morgan's dissertationwe introduce the topic of women and textile production in the RomanEmpire. Scholars have often viewed the domestic and commercial dividein textile production along gendered lines, associating domesticproduction with women in the context of the ideal of feminine virtueand commercial production with men working in centralized productioncenters. Here we use the cottage industry model to contextualize therole of women’s labor in the Roman textile industry, exploring thelinks between domestic production and commercial distribution.

Links:

• Morgan's dissertation

• Episode 26: Dr. Morgan Lemmer-Webber, an academic journey

  talks about the process of getting a PhD (from Morgan's personal
  experiences, your mileage may vary)

• Episode 3: Textile production and a nostalgic past

  discusses Augustan propaganda and textile production and gives a
  summary of the stages of textile production from sheep to sweater.

• The two Augustan versions of the Lucretia myth by

  Ovid, Fasti 2.722-751
  and Livy, History of Rome 1.57.9
  (Content Warning: rape, suicide, revolution)

• Another instance of a woman's labor from Ovid, this time a more

  modest country woman who must weave cloaks etc before winter to
  protect her family from the cold:
  Ovid, Fasti 4.687-714.

• Hitchner, Robert Bruce. 2012. "Olive Production and the Roman

  Economy: The Case for Intensive Growth in the Roman Empire." In
  The Ancient Economy, Taylor and Francis. Partial text available
  on Google Scholar.

• Barber, Elizabeth. 1994. Women’s Work: the First 20,000 Years:

  Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times. New York : Norton.

• Lena Larsson Lovén

  has written extensively on both the iconography of textile
  production and the performative relationships between women and
  wool work in the Roman Empire.