The Bluest Hands: A Social and Economic History of Women Dyers in Abeokuta (Nigeria), 1890-1940
By the second decade of the twentieth century in Abeokuta, a Yoruba town in southwestern Nigeria, most dyers were producing adire cloth, which featured a variety of patterns created by resist dyeing with indigo onto a primarily European manufactured cloth. The author highlights the dynamic way in which these women engaged with the colonial economy, taking full advantage of its infrastructure and credit, as well as the new technologies and the availability of imported European cloth. Reveals...
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These women offer a rich tapestry of events and personalities that illustrate how colonialism transformed their lives and livelihood.
IllustrationsAbbreviationsPrefaceIntroduction1Dress and Textile Production in Nineteenth-Century Abeokuta12"The King of England Was Their Wall": State and Society During the Early Colonial Period433Artisans and Empire: The Structure and Organization of Adire Production874Innovation and Conflict in the Adire Industry1265Does Father Know Best? Confronting the Alake1576The Collapse of the Adire Industry, 1937-1939190Conclusion219Bibliography231Index255
