Forty years ago, I was working in a textiles department and estranged from the church of my birth. My journeys from textiles to American Studies and from lapsed Lutheran to UU are surprisingly connected. In retrospect, I can see that my professional life, especially my work in the history and meaning of gendered clothing, has been both informed and driven by the people I have known at UUCSS and the values I learned from our interactions. Music by the UU Ukes.
(Jo is Professor Emerita of American Studies at the University of Maryland, and the author of the books “Pink and Blue” and “Sex and Unisex: Fashion, Feminism, and the Sexual Revolution.”)