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Allen, Helen Louise (1902-1968)
Helen Louise Allen's love of textiles and travel shaped her life and inspired her teaching. From Allen's early childhood, the women of her family taught her the skills of needlework and weaving and nurtured her talents, which were further developed through her education--a BA at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (1923), a BA.Ed at the University of Michigan (1924), an MA at the University of Chicago (1927), and additional study at New York University. She was appointed to the Department of Related Art at the University of Wisconsin in 1927, where she taught classes in weaving and the history of interiors, furniture and textiles, in addition to short courses on creative stitching and embroidery. She was widely published on the subjects of historical and ethnic textiles and on weaving. Her 1935 book American and European Handweaving was revised in 1939. Allen remained on the faculty until her death in 1968. In addition to her university teaching, Allen was active in the Madison Weavers Guild and the Embroiderers Guild, where the students in her classes learned that weaving could both produce functional objects for the home and augment their incomes. Several students from these classes worked with Allen in the early 1950s to weave a tapestry for the Frank Lloyd Wright designed Unitarian Meeting House in Madison. It is the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection that is probably Allen's most enduring contribution to the School and to textile studies. Upon her death in 1968, Allen bequeathed to the University her extensive textile collection, a collection that she had developed over years of travel and integrated into her teaching. Her students and admirers have added to it over the years and it has grown from the initial 4,000 pieces to an over 12,000-piece nationally renowned collection. |
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