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Future Exhibits
at the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum
Threads of Feeling
Discover the stories told by simple scraps of fabric - tokens left to identify the babies at London's Foundling Hospital.
When mothers left babies at London’s Foundling Hospital in the mid-18th century, the Hospital often retained a small token as a means of identification, usually a piece of fabric. Each scrap of material reflects the life of a single infant and that of its absent parent.
Organized by the Foundling Museum and curated by John Styles, this will be the only American venue for this exhibition.
The token-filled billet books are owned and lent by leading UK children’s charity Coram, which began as the Foundling Hospital, with the assistance of the City of London, London Metropolitan Archives.
The Colonial Williamsburg exhibition of Threads of Feeling is supported in part by a grant from Mary and Clint Gilliland of Menlo Park, California, through the Turner-Gilliland Family Fund of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. May 25, 2013 through May 26, 2014
Learn more about the Symposium: Threads of Feeling Unraveled: The London Foundling Hospital's Textile Tokens, October 20-22.
