Department of Textiles, Fashion Merchandising and Design

Linda Welters, Ph.D., University of Minnesota, 1981.
Quinn 303, (401) 874-4525. lwelters@uri.edu

Linda chaired the TMD Department from 1989-2001, and in 2004 took up the reins once more. She directs the department’s Graduate Program. She regularly teaches TMD 240 (Development of 20th Century Fashion) and TMD 510 (Research Methods). The Senior Seminar, TMD 402, is another course she often teaches as well as TMD 103 (Textile Products).

She received URI's annual award for research excellence in 2005.  Her research interests include European folk dress, Rhode Island quilts and New England archaeological textiles. She has contributed to and edited the book Down by the Old Mill Stream: Quilts in Rhode Island (with Margaret Ordonez). She is Editor-in-Chief of Dress, the Journal of the Costume Society of America and serves on the Board of the Rhode Island Committee for the Humanities. In 2002, she was named Distinguished Scholar by the International Textile and Apparel Association, and in 2004 the Costume Society of America honored her as a CSA Fellow. The University of Minnesota's College of Human Ecology gave her a Legacy Society Award in 2005.

Recent Publications:

• Cunningham, P. and . Welters. Fashioning America. Westport, CT (under contract for 2008 delivery).
• Welters, L. “The Fashion of Sustainability.” In Sustainable Fashion, Why Now? ed. by Janet Hethorn and Connie Ulasewicz. New York: Fairchild, 2008.
• Welters, L. and A. Lillethun, eds.  A Fashion Reader. Oxford: Berg, 2007.

• Welters, L. “Sight and Sound in Greek Village Dress.” In Dress Sense: Emotional and Sensory Experiences of the Body and Clothes, ed. by D. C. Johnson and H. B. Foster. Oxford: Berg. 2007: 7-15.

• Welters, Linda and Patricia Cunningham, eds. Twentieth-Century American Fashion. Oxford, UK: Berg Publishers, 2005.
• Welters, Linda. "Folk Dress, E. Europe," Folk Dress, W. Europe," and "Folklore Look." In Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion, vol. 2. Edited by Valerie Steele (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2005): 93-104.
• Ordoñez, Margaret and Linda Welters. "Textiles and Leather in Southeastern New England Archaeological Sites." New York State Museum Bulletin 500 (2004): 169-84.
• Welters, Linda and Margaret Ordoñez. "Blue Roots and Fuzzy Dirt: Archaeological Textiles from Native American Burials." New York State Museum Bulletin 500 (2004): 185-96.
• Welters, Linda. Review of The Silk Weavers of Kyoto: Family and Work in a Changing Traditional Industry by Tamara K. Hareven. In Journal of Family and Economic Issues Vol. 24:3 (2003): 321-23.
• Welters, Linda. "The Rhode Island Quilt Documentation Project" (Award Winner Spotlight).  History News 57, No. 4 (Autumn 2002): 28-29.
• Welters, Linda. "Fashion." In New England, Vol. 1 of American Regional Cultures. (Westport, Ct.: Greenwood Press 2004 pp131-164).
• Welters, Linda, and Ordonez, Margaret. "Blue Roots and Fuzzy Dirt: Archaeological Textiles from New England Burials." New York State Museum Bulletin (forthcoming).
• M. Ordoñez and L. Welters. "Textiles and Leather in Southeastern New England Archaeological Sites." New York State Museum Bulletin (forthcoming).
• Smucker, Jannaken,  Crews, Patricia, and Welters, Linda. Amish Crib Quilts From the Midwest: The Sara Miller Collection. Intercourse, Pa: Good Books, 2003.
• Welters, Linda and Ordoñez, Margaret. "Early Calico Printing in Rhode Island." Uncovering 22, 2001, 65-86.
• Welters, Linda. "Early Power Loom Fabrics in Rhode Island Quilts." The Chronicle of the Early American Industries Association, vol. 54, no. 2 (June 2001): 67-74.
• Welters, Linda. "Dress." In Encyclopedia of Greece and the Hellenic Tradition, vol. 1, ed. by Graham Speake (London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 2000) 516-19.
• Welters, Linda. "Textiles." In Encyclopedia of Greece and the Hellenic Tradition, vol. 2, ed. by Graham Speake (London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 2000) 1607-09.
• Welters, Linda, ed. Folk Dress in Europe and Anatolia: Beliefs About Protection and Fertility, New York and Oxford: Berg, 1999.

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