History of Women Stitching Ep.4: A Necessity or A Hobby?
Okay, I am not going to talk about the Medieval plagues in Europe that knocked out over 1/3 the population and created the middle class, which because of their wealth gave them some bargaining power with the royal nobility and the church, the two powers that really did not want to share until they had to. We are not going to talk about how the middle class-with their new money, newfound time and the desire to keep up with the “Jones” was the base of a new creation of leisure times or weekend pursuits. We are going to talk about the last of the the “estates- the commoners, the working class which through history has had the least power, the least money and the least time to pursue other interests or hobbies. But to explain how they fit in to all of this we are not going to talk about plagues, we are going to talk about Zombies.
And before anyone thinks I am being disrespectful, this is my own heritage, not Zombies, but being a commoner and proud of it. And if you have no idea what I am talking about go back to the first three episodes, mostly the second and the third to get the low down on the creation of the middle class and for this series go to my art website- www.moonflowerstudio.biz to find the links of books I bring up and see some wonderful stitching art through the ages.
Again I have to salute, just like when watching Hee Haw in the 1970s, eating popcorn on my grandmothers braided rag rug (made from my uncle’s tshirts) I have to salute my old Philosophy teacher, Professor Dare, who introduced me to the study of leisure time and yes, Zombie plaque have also been taught in colleges to teach medical students how to handle pandemics. But we are going to use Zombies to help understand survival verse leisure pursuits.
But first, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
Like the old food chart, it is a pyramid- physical needs like food, water, warmth and rest on the bottom and then safety and security, then relationships, self care, enjoyment and accomplishment at the top. I remember sending my first kid off to college and having to talk myself down from a ledge by the reassurance we had given her what she needed, a safe somewhat enclosed place to explore- a college campus with security 24/7 - a warm place to sleep in the dorm with a bed and bathroom, food to eat in the cafeteria, maybe not good food to her liking but food- i.e. Maslow’s basic needs. If she unwisely spent all her money, she would still be safe, not starve and have a bed to sleep in.
Maslow’s point of human needs is the the base and has to be in place to explore, enjoy or find “belong, love, feelings of accomplishments or pursue creative activities.” Finding safety, food and shelter has to come first. You don’t see a lot of concern for esteem building activities or frankly achieving one’s full potential in Mad Max, end of the world or Zombie horror movies or during the real terrible wars or the mass exoduses we have had in our history. Humanity is kind of kicked to the side for awhile when people are just trying to survive. No one thinks about their hobbies or the boat in their garage.
And Zombie movies illustrate this rather well…
The classic Pride, Prejudice and Zombies (2006), which I confess I think is a “hoot”, as a satire of Jane Austin’s great novel. Google trailer or go to my blog post on my artist page.
But another is The Crazies (2010)
starring Tim Olyphant known for the TV series Justified, which we will poetically come back to, but first the Zombies.
In The Crazies, Olyphant is a small town sheriff in the Heartland- meaning sweeping cinematic views of cornfields and distant silos, barns and clapboard farmhouses. His wife, played by Radha Mitchell is the town doctor, of course. The movie opens on the opening day of the local baseball season and the whole town is out at the ball field. Things go bad when the sheriff has to shoot one of the farmers who shows up, with a rifle, intent on using it, being the first victim of the Zombie infected virus. After a larger percentage of town folks turn zombie, the “government” swoops in to take away the uninfected before they purge the zombies in the county by dropping a big bomb in the center of it. But first there is a triage situation with the military in hazmat suits and a lot of white tents, basic protocol for in plaques but I promised I was not going to talk about plaques anymore, oops.
The problem when medically checked, the wife, the doctor, has a slight fever, which is the first indication of the Zombie infection. But she has a slight fever because she is pregnant, which is not an acceptable excuse to the authorities, so the rest of the movie is Olyphant and Mitchell going rogue, she as “bad ass” as he is, to get out of the county before it is destroyed and of course, time is running out. At the end of it all, the sheriff and doctor manage to find a drivable semi truck in what they think is an abandoned truck stop, of course it isn’t, so there is more zombies, more fighting , more gore… But they prevail again, momentarily at least.
Now comes one of my favorite scene in moviedom. The two of them, dirty, bloodied and wound, sitting in an dinette booth, like they are waiting for their dinner but with a flickering, broken neon sign swinging in the wind outside.
She says: Stop pretending everything is going to be okay.
And He says: Do you want to give up? Do you want to sit here and die and I will sit here and die with you?
Then she gives him a long look considering doing just that for a moment, but then remembers their baby growing inside her, reaches for him and after a passionate kiss tells him to go get the truck. Of course more zombies and bad guys are hiding and there are more battles before the end of the movie, but isn’t that a great scene- what a romantic line- What do you want to do. Do you want to sit here and die, I will sit here and die with you.
In that moment, they are not pondering how white their laundry is, the subject of my last podcast. They are not thinking of home improvements before the baby comes , or how to make sure their front yard looks better than their neighbors, or where to go on their next vacation. She did not grab her knitting bag from the house, running from the zombies. He did not think about saving the boat in the barn. No one is looking to better themselves in intellectual or creative pursuits or trying to get buff in their home gym or thinking of building a gym the whole neighborhood will envy when running from the zombies. You are thinking about survival, where to find food and where to sleep with out being attacked and killed.
We don’t have to imagine what we would hold on to with Zombies chasing us, or what we would carry with us escaping everything we knew because right now there are thousands of families that no longer have homes to go back to in Ukraine or Palestine- all that they have every known is gone.
No matter our stance on anything, we all think about Maslow’s needs, which are all our needs in crisis. A safe place to live, to sleep, to raise children, where to find food to eat. After the crisis, when safety, protection, food sources has been reestablished and warring is over, then we look at such things as art, writing, music, theater, even video games, working out, or surfing the internet for cat videos. When we are all starving and fear for our lives, leisure time is not so important.
But there is another condition that makes the attainment of basic needs difficult and has nothing to do with wars or zombies- it’s poverty. Last time we talked about the privilege and the extent of luxury that has always existed since we came out of Eden. Last podcast, I used the example of how we did our laundry and how obsessed some of the well to do were- sending their linens to bleaching greens in the other countries or on sailing ships to the Caribbeans to get the whites of whites for their collars and shirt cuffs, the whole trip taking upwards of 6 months and their ability, because of how rich they were, they could supply themselves with enough duplicates of shirts, chemise, collars, linens, etc. it was no bother to wait.
Now we are going to talk about the other side of the have and the have nots- not the privileged but the improvised.
Check out my art website for a beautiful pencil sketch by Van Gogh of the “common folk” men, women and children digging a sewer ditch. There has always been the “Haves” and there has always been the “Have Nots”The “have nots” live hand to mouth and a larger percentage of their time and energy is spent fulfilling the basic needs of food, shelter, security. Let me say it again- and a larger percentage of their time and energy is spent fulfilling the basic needs of food, shelter, security.
Now back to Olyphant, the actor who played the sheriff running from the zombies. Like I said he is better known for the TV series Justified, trailer at moonflowerstudio.biz…
Oddly the FX series that ran for six season kind of parallels Crazies. In Justified, Olyphant does not play a sheriff, but a US Marshal. He does not have a wife, but an x wife and towards the last season they are expecting their first child, and it get’s complicated. He does not deal with zombies, but the dark hallows of Appalachia’s population and drug trade where he grew up in Kentucky and which is why the US Marshals send him back down there, since he is a local boy and understands literally his law breaking “cousins” better than anyone else. Yes this is a sensationalized dark tv show about a certain region of America. But most would agree the Scots-Irish that settled along the Appalachian mountains and provided a buffer between the more prim and proper colonies and the wild “Indians” to the west- were and are pretty independent, tough, determined and hard core, thus the TV setting and the real setting of some on the fringe activity of the illicit kind set in the hallows of Kentucky.
But such characteristic came from a long heritage of cruelty from Europe- being “cleared” from their homelands- and finding ways to survive in the new world- Their pursuit of leisure time is different and they are and I am from my maternal grandfather- “thrifty” people. Defined as…
using money and other resources carefully and not wastefully.
Their culture is so different from the “privileged” but needs to be celebrated because it is so ingrained in the heritage of this country- the art, craft and cultural of the Appalachian region.
First the thrift-iest and probably one of the greatest contributions- music. To appreciate that more watch Songcatcher (2000)
starring Janet Mc Teer and Aidan Quinn focusing on the Old English Ballads sung through the hills and hallows that would be the bases for America’s own music. She is a Easterner coming to record the old songs and get swept away in more ways than one.
The character is loosely based on Olive Dame Campbell’s work with her husband John, who surveyed all aspects of Appalachian life, work and leisure time in the beginning of the 1900’s. After her husband’s death, Olive went on and founded the John C. Campbell Folk School offering education and instruction in “art, craft, music, dance, and nature studies” . I think the folk school’s motto say it all about the different between the “have” and the “have nots” leisure pursuits- it declares "I sing behind the plow"
The Penland School of Craft built in the 1920’s is located in North Carolina, was founded by Lucy Morgan’s desire to give women a way to help support their family by weaving. Classes in pottery, basket weaving and woodworking were soon being offered to train locals to supply “folk crafts” to sell.
Definitely a folk craft- and well illustrating my point or the John C. Campbell Folk Art School of “ singing behind the plow are the quilts from Gee’s Bend, next door to the Appalachia region, located in southeast Alabama and stitched by the descendants of former slaves not Scots -Irish immigrants.
Made from the still good parts of their shirts, dresses, pants and other linens. The pieceworked quilts had such artistry the Museum of Modern Art took notice of them. But their purpose was utilitarian, thrifty objects stitched to -as one of the quilters featured in the PBS series “Craft in America” delcares ”to keep the babies warm at night”- and that is the definition of utilitarian.
designed to be useful or practical rather than just attractive.
“Singin behind the plow” , making a quilt out of the good parts of worn clothes, making pottery, baskets wooden bowls from the woods and mud in the creek beds near your home is thrifty, which is probably the word that describes the difference of the art and the craft of the “have nots” which are no less beautiful and worthy- but do not taking a great amount of time to make and are not just for the sake of art, but items that are intended to be used- created during a little relaxation by the fire at night, when the season change and work can not be done outside. Or a little bit of pretty on a useful or utilitarian object and almost never, up until recently, not with store bought material or very few. Yes, I recognize most of us no longer raise shear, clean, card and weave wool, but the heritage is there. This is heritage, a sensibility that does not have silk threads from France and linens for England, this is thick crewel worked yarns and home spun cloth and wool.
This is not the world of Jane Austen’s samplers and stitching away the afternoon in the parlors with your mother and sisters while other women tend to the children, the laundry, the dinner and the household chores. This is not the world where candles can burn down with no concern, fabric and thread can be bought for the pleasure of stitching with no regard for cost.
You might be wondering why I am trying to make this points. Well, I stitch a lot listening to I confess you tube- and there is a trend of you tube to share your crafts, thousands of ladies, like me, listening to other ladies, share what they are working on, what they are stitching, #flosstube if you are interested. But on more then one occasion I have listened, me and my dog, sitting and stitching, to another lady share some kind of stitchwork on expensive imported linen, hand dyed, with imported silk floss and pondered her great grandmother stitching such a project in her log cabin….
No, if your grandmother stitched anything on imported linens with silk threads 200 years ago, 100 years ago- your grandmother was privileged. In the centuries proceeding this one- women who were privileged, were usually the mothers, wives and daughters of the men who held the positions putting them in the middle or upper classes. These women could be the managers of the household, while not the one to do the shopping, cooking and cleaning. Those chores could be taken on by a “hired girl” like my grandmother who cooked for Mrs. Juergensen in the 1930s during the depression. Or women in the middle class might oversee the care of their children but possibly not do all the childcare themselves like the two families I worked for as a nanny for in college- one a wonderful mother and one not so much. Because of their lighter responsibilities women in the upper and middle classes have always had time for crafts inside and charity work outside the home, the expected pursuits of their class.
I am going to pause here and say, I do recognize that I am over simplifying things to make my point and not talking much about women working out of home out of necessity. I will say two things about that, married women working outside the home is a relatively new thing and up to recently was often saw as am embarrassment to the husband not being able to provide enough. So up until recently a wife and mother not having to work would have been considered a respectable mark of the middle and upper class leaving them to do charity work in such organizations as ladies groups. I would also say, to be explored further on another podcast. A somewhat bored wife with not that much to do is a sign of privilege. Housewives of certain tv shows today?
Of course, now more women, privileged or not have more time to work outside the home or explore our own interest because of modern inventions and convinces like washing machines and vacuums hitting the market. Goodbye Wringer washers and rinse tubs….
Not really on the subject, other than how long such chores could take, apparently according to my mom, my grandpa and the other men who were farming in Southern Minnesota in the early 1950’s had the habit of knocking the ash from their cigarettes into the large folded cuff at the bottom of their work overalls pantlegs. So it was very important on wash day to shake those work clothes out before putting them in the wash and when one forgot it was not a good day. Any one else know about something like that?
But back to topic-
Quilting, no matter how expensive or involved it has become- started out of necessity. Such traditions, even if now are being expressed by cutting up perfectly good fabric, come from an era in our history of “necessity” and served utilitarian needs- blankets for beds and re-piecing clothing for younger children , mending to get more use out of items- Like Dolly Parton’s coat of many colors. I have a patch work quilt my great grandmother made from my great grandfathers shirts, carefully cutting and saving the still good fabric and the inside is a warn wool blanket that has seen it’s better days.
Quilting has a wonderful tradition in the African American culture with communities like Geez Bend where the grandmothers, mothers and daughters have been piecing together quilts from saved bits of fabric. Some historians even wonder if the African American tradition of mixing of bold colors comes from having to put together whatever they could find from their “masters” rag bags.
The stitching for pleasure privileged women have been doing is very different. Ma Ingalls did not stitch samplers. Ma and Laura Ingalls spent their days, hand stitching everything they need to keep a home.
Saying this, there are times in a woman’s life that she does more stitching than at other times. If you are a Laura Ingalls Wilder aficinato then you will remember in These Happy Golden Years…
after Almanzo asked her to marry him and then they had to move the date up because his sister was pushing for a bigger wedding, Ma and Laura had to quickly get through her trousseau. Which is French word for what the bride will need to keep a house and the fact that Ma got her first foot powered sewing machine (circa. 1885) saved the day!
Here is Laura’s listing of her needed items they got ready- out of my very own well worn copy of These Happy Golden Years, paid for from Laura’s teaching job…
bought bleached muslin for new underwear, chemises and drawers, petticoats and nightgowns; two each
bought stronger bleached muslin for two pairs of sheets and two pairs of pillow cases
ten yards of delicate pink lawn with small flowers and pale green leaves for Laura’s summer dress
bought cream colored straw hat to go with dress
When Ma and Laura got to sewing the pillow cases and her chemises and bloomers she got out the yards and yards of white thread lace she had crocheted and knitted. Then on Ma’s insistence they set to work on a black dress because every lady need s a black dress. Laure never did sew a wedding dress with the need to move the wedding up, so she was married in black. The day before the wedding Laura packed up her new linens and dress in her trunk, her new hat in the hat box and Ma tied up in an old sheet Laura’s dove in a window quilt she had stitched when she was a little girl and also tied up two pillows containing the feathers Laura and her had collected from the geese Pa had shot on Silver Lake.
That is how it was done, young girls next to their mothers making quilts for their future homes. My grandmother had a time she tatted, another form of lace making, but did not continue it as a women keeping a house. Elderly women might return to stitching, quilt making, knitting, crocheting when they have “served their time” and the daughters are the ones “keeping house”.
Other things dictated how women stitched, one of the most overlooked is light. Many a novel of Victorian era has reprimands for being wasteful with candles. But not so much with the privileged. Of course that changed at the dawn of electric lights which we will talk about in a second. But with global expansion store bought goods, imported fabrics and threads were coming from all over the globe, who could afford to buy them? Not everyone.
So often when when I am thinking and writing these podcast/blogs the universe starts giving me material and here is another one I have been adsorbed in…
the documentary series Britain’s Most Historic Towns, hosted by Dr. Alice Roberts highlights the different eras of history- Viking, Edwardian, Roman, by highlighting a different British town and covered Belfast for the Victorian episode, which could not be more perfect for me! Available on Amazon Prime right now…
Robert does a wonderful job showing the changes that occurred during Queen Victoria reign from 1837-1901 with the forced migration of the working classes from rural life with family run weaving production to urban Oliver Twist squaller where sometime 20 people living in three room and a bucket for a toilet and child labor that resulted in loss of limbs. These mothers were not taking out their stitching to relax in their lazy afternoons or could afford candles to enjoy a leisure evening stitching, after their day job of working in the world famous Balfast linen mills. They could not even afford the fabric they were risking their health and lives to weave.
But by the end of the 1800’s improvements in water systems, housing and labor laws the working class did start to have free time and coin in their pockets and pursued leisure activities like a beer at the dance hall or a day at a seaside resort because they could now hop on and off a train to get there…
Just like Laura, they could afford a little bit of lace at the collar of the dresses. But a few extra coins, electric lights and a Saturday off did not come close to the wealth and statis that the middle class had access to. Which brings me to the story of not my family but my husband's, which deserves it own podcast or novel but for now we are going to highlight just a bit of it.
Both our family immigrated here in the late 1800’s. Both tried to farm. But where mine stayed in one county in Minnesota, his, like many Scots Irish, moved around quite a bit, his grandfather remember traveling to Deadwood South Dakota in the back of a wagon and his father working a team of horses to lay train tracks for a summer.
My husband’s grandfather did not want that life and literally ran from the farm to end up in Chicago and work for the Spiegel Company selling furniture. He got married and had one son, my husbands father and “Grandpa”, who was born in 1925 has told many stories that frankly do not add up, like going to fancy restaurant and having a fondness for mint sauce on lamb chops. We have our theories about their improved quality of life when others were barely making it, but this is a podcast in itself.
Where as I have shared I have a quilt from my great grandmother stitched from remnants of my great grandfather worn shirts, with a tattered woolen blanket providing the warms, 2 hand stitched quilts have been passed down to us from my husbands family. Both with the tiniest of stitches from store bought fabrics and I wonder, who was doing the cooking and the cleaning, the shopping and the laundry when those quilts were made. Grandpa in one of his stories over diner did share they had to “ let the maid go” when asked how his family survived the Great Depression. My family, being farmers, grew they own food and made due with repurposing clothes for the younger children and cutting the good fabric for piecing quilts and enjoying county dances and ladies groups and pursed leisure time in line with the motto of the John C Campbell “…behind the plow”. My husband’s grandfather did confess to him that he did have to do things to improve his families status, more on that later.
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