author
Grace Rogers Cooper
1924–2004
A Smithsonian curator who turned close looking into lively history, she wrote with authority about textiles, sewing machines, and early American flags. Her work helped readers and collectors separate genuine artifacts from clever reproductions.
2 Audiobooks
The Invention of the Sewing Machine
by Grace Rogers Cooper
The Scholfield Wool-Carding Machines
by Grace Rogers Cooper
About the author
Grace Rogers Cooper (November 22, 1924–November 25, 2004) was an American textile historian, curator, and vexillologist best known for her long career at the Smithsonian Institution. Reliable sources describe her as a curator of textiles at the National Museum of History and Technology and note that she became the first woman to serve as president of the North American Vexillological Association.
Her writing focused on the material history of everyday objects and national symbols. She is especially remembered for Thirteen-Star Flags: Keys to Identification (1973), a book noted for showing that many supposed antique flags were actually modern replicas. She also wrote The Invention of the Sewing Machine and later The Sewing Machine: Its Invention and Development, works that drew on Smithsonian collections to explain how the technology evolved.
Cooper’s books are valued for being clear, practical, and grounded in object-based research. Even when dealing with specialized subjects, she had a gift for making careful scholarship useful to museum readers, collectors, and anyone curious about how American material culture is studied.