Behind the Seams: Unpicking Nantucket’s Textile Legacy
This spring, the Nantucket Historical Association in Massachusetts, USA, opens the drawers of its textile archive to reveal a side of island life not always told in history books. Behind the Seams: Clothing and Textiles on Nantucket, running from May 23 to November 2, 2025, at the Nantucket Whaling Museum, offers a rare encounter with more than 150 garments, tools, and household textiles bearing the imprint of the people who made and wore them.
Flag with blue sperm whale, 1920s. Mary Augusta Wilson (1851-1925)
Organised around the themes of making, meaning, and sustainability, the exhibition charts the evolution of island fashion. It asks deeper questions: How does a community shape its identity through cloth? What can a hand-sewn seam or patched bedcover tell us about connection, resourcefulness, and change?
19th Century handmade quilt from Nantucket island. The back features playing cards, used as templates.
These aren’t just objects; they’re working textiles that have been worn, washed, altered, and passed down. “This exhibition presents some of the most compelling pieces in our collection - items that have always had a quiet power, but until now, haven’t had their moment,” says Michael Harrison, Chief Curator and Obed Macy Research Chair at the NHA.
Child’s top and romper with hand-painted Nantucket motifs, 1975. Edith Walley Mosher.
That moment has arrived thanks in part to a multi-year cataloging effort led by guest curator Jennifer Nieling, a costume and textile specialist who first collaborated with the NHA in 2015. Her work spans decades of collections management and deep local research, and has brought new clarity to the material culture of Nantucket’s past. The exhibition reflects this, bringing together stories from whaling-era wardrobes to post-war craft revivals and the emergence of island-made resort-wear.
Guest curator Jennifer Nieling mounting a wedding dress worn by Amelia Sanford in 1870.
Highlights include garments that reflect the movement of goods and ideas through Nantucket’s ports, sewing tools that once belonged to resourceful islanders, and contemporary work by makers who continue to reimagine waste as creative potential. The legacy of mending, repurposing, and material care runs throughout, showing that sustainability isn’t a modern trend on the island, but an ingrained practice with deep roots.
Woven silk madras trousers by 'Stinchfield Nantucket Edgartown Palm Beach'
Alongside the objects, the museum is launching a series of public programs that feel anything but static. Weaving demonstrations, children’s textile workshops, and a free lecture series invite visitors to engage with the themes of the show in real time. Programming at the 1800 House and across the island will extend the experience beyond museum walls, connecting past and present through practice.
Wilcox and Gibbs treadle sewing machine
Supported by Nantucket Looms and Murray’s Toggery Shop, Behind the Seams repositions the islands textiles as decorative or functional objects within a documentation of lived experience. These are the fibres through which Nantucket’s stories have always been told - quietly, intimately, and now, on full display.
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Image Credits:
All images courtesy of The Nantucket Historical Association