Domestic Crafts’ Education as a Pedagogical Object in Girls’ Schools in Independent Greece: National and Transnational Dimensions

In Greece, girls’ schooling in the countryside varied depending on regional specificities, time variants as well as gendered social biases. Women were given the basics in education if that was feasible. Urban girls were supplied with the type of knowledge that better qualified them as good spouses, caring mothers and good managers of household economy as society had assigned them this specific gendered role and task. The present chapter discusses domestic crafts’ education in Greek school curricula during the period 1800–1900 as well as the national dimensions and social entanglements pertaining to female literacy in the above country. It studies domestic crafts as a transnational and transcultural component in girls’ schools. Also, engagement in needlework as well as acquiring skills of other domestic crafts served as a tool of resistance to constraints of femininity, becoming universally symbolic and serving as cultural markers that identified women as protagonists in this field. Schools, both in Greece and abroad, emphasized on the utilitarian aspect of sewing and of practicing needlework as well as of tailoring, knitting and embroidering. The present chapter mainly draws from original sources such as school curricula, school archives and records as well as from the Minutes of the Board Meetings of the school ‘Arsakeion’ from which documentation in real facts is obtained. Likewise, secondary sources of literature such as books and article journals also serve as useful tools because fresh research data are provided on the above topic. Moreover, the present study uses the verses of Greek folklore songs because female characters and social entanglements are vividly described through them.