Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection
The mission of the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection is to further "the understanding of human beings within their material and social environments through the study of textiles of artistic, cultural, and historic significance." It is primarily a teaching collection serving the University of Wisconsin-Madison's School of Human Ecology's Design Studies Department. It includes 13,000 textiles and related objects spanning spanning various places, techniques, and time periods.
The Digital Collections database provides open access to images and cataloging information for almost 9,000 items in the HLATC. This unique trove is very useful for research and instruction in the study of textiles. The collection is especially strong in ethnographic textiles and costumes from all over the world, especially Latin American, African, South and Southeast Asian, and Turkish objects. It is also strong in 19th- and 20th-century American and European home furnishing and apparel fabrics. The database is fully searchable by keyword, title, subject, and geographic area. (Y. Cortes, Skidmore College for CHOICE)