Dorothy K. Burnham

[1] In 1939, she became the museum's first curator of textiles, taking responsibility for a growing international collection begun by founding director Charles Trick Currelly.Inspired by a donation of a Canadian coverlet, the couple in 1947 launched a research project on the history of Canadian handweaving, traveling to interview weavers and study looms and collections, first throughout Ontario, and then in all the eastern provinces, leading to the 1971 exhibition and publication Keep Me Warm One Night: Early Handweaving in Eastern Canada (1972).These include studies of the painted caribou-skin coats of the Montagnais-Naskapi tribe of the Quebec-Labrador area and of the textile traditions of the Doukhobors.In 1984, she was made a Member of the Order of Canada and in 1990 she was named an Honorary Doctor of Laws, Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario.Burnham’s work at the ROM and throughout her career has made her a seminal figure in Canadian and international textile studies, informing generations of subsequent scholarship.
TorontoRoyal Ontario MuseumcuratorCharles Trick CurrellyCranbrook Academy of ArtBanff School of Fine ArtstextilesNiagara PeninsulaNational Gallery of CanadaProvincial Museum of AlbertaCanadian Museum of CivilizationDoukhoborsOrder of CanadaTrent University