This Day in History: 1934-05-18
The Home Department of the Mahwah Women’s Club devoted itself to what they described as a “truly feminine topic” lace-making. The speaker was the unfeminine Stephen M. Biddle, whose family lace-making business had been founded in England many years before. He gave a history of lace-making from Egyptian times and displayed samples of handmade and machine-made lace from several countries and times. The oldest piece he showed was a part of a lace flounce worn in Versailles at the Court of Louis XIV. Members brought pieces of old lace with them to the meeting to display and compare them. All agreed that lace was a fascinating topic about which their mothers knew much more than they did. (Bristow)