About

Academic Biography: Rebecca J. Keyel is a Design and Textile Historian and a Folklorist. She holds a PhD in Human Ecology (Design Studies) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She holds an MS in Human Ecology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a BA from Wellesley College. Her research interests include material culture, textile and knitting history, folklore, and home craft. Her research focuses on ordinary people making things for a higher cause, and the way making satisfies a personal need to create. Her dissertation examined American women’s hand knitting for servicemen during the First and Second World Wars and its relationship with labor, patriotism, and the zeitgeist of the homefront through archival research and reconstruction knitting.

Less Academic Biography: Rebecca is a knitter and spinner, a technology and media geek, a design and textile historian, and a hobby photographer.