Another crafty thought

 One thing I realized, thinking about those "Woodstock Craftsman's Manuals" and similar craft books of the 70s -one of the interesting things about them is that you get the sense that the knowledge the people write about is something they think might be "lost," or something where cultural transmission has been broken. And so, they are trying to introduce a new generation of young people - these would be, I guess, the younger Baby Boomers - to it.

And I wonder: was the knowledge at risk of being "lost," or were there just subsets of the population who didn't use it or didn't think highly of it? I know in the 60s and 70s my mom crocheted and sewed - I've SEEN the dresses she made herself (Stylish in the sense of of someone who dresses slightly conservatively for their time, but attractive and well made - there's one green cocktail dress she made herself that, oh, I wish I had been small enough to fit into when I was a teen because it was SO COOL. I'm not sure what became of it but she MIGHT have donated it to some school's theater department). She also crocheted and knitted. So the knowledge was there. But then again: my mom is Silent Generation, and the kid of a couple so old I don't think they were naming generations back there (Grandma was born in 1897, and Grandpa in 1880). And they were rural working-class people, in an era where making stuff at home was vastly cheaper than buying it ready-made (no Chinese or Vietnamese sweatshops back then - though I guess sweatshops existed, the Triangle Shirtwaist fire was in 1911). So she learned all those skills. 

And she passed them on to me. I was that kid who, up until a shockingly late age (pre teen, really) wanted to do what her mom was doing - she was easily able to press me into service in helping clean house as a kid, because I *liked* dusting and running the vacuum. I think it was because it seemed "grown up" to me? Or maybe it was doing something that was useful?

So I learned how to crochet, and then when I was to be trusted with sewing shears and needles, to handsew and embroider. (In fact - she showed me how to transfer some of my drawings to tissue paper, which we then pinned to cloth, and I embroidered the designs over the tissue, which was then carefully torn away). And later, to knit, and eventually, to run a sewing machine. 

When my paternal grandmother passed away in 1982, I inherited her machine (which had previously been my mom's- it was a Singer from the late 50s or early 60s, a good workhorse machine). I sewed some of my own clothes in highschool. (I later acquired a portable Kenmore, the machine I use now, by bartering with a friend of the family - she wanted two big teddy bears for her young grandsons, I liked making teddy bears and had a pattern that was the size she wanted, so she offered a swap). 

But all of this, I learned it through cultural transmission - my mom did all those things, a lot of her friends did all those things. (She also taught my brother to sew and I think at one time he knew how to crochet. The sewing on the grounds of "of course men also have clothes that need to be mended and they may not have a wife or girlfriend who wants to do it for them" and that makes sense to me - everyone should learn all the necessary little tasks like that regardless of gender. Ability is maybe a different issue - my brother could not make a quilt top, but he can put a button back on or repair minor tears. And similarly, our dad taught us basic plumbing - though knowing how to change the washer in a faucet is pretty much an obsolete piece of knowledge now - and how to change our own oil and how to change a tire). We also learned to cook, and to bake (which are different skill sets! You have to be more precise in baking; with cooking you can improvise and much of the time it works out even without precise measurements). And to me, growing up, this was all expected: you learned these skills from the older adults in your life. (Just like how my mom taught me how to print when I wanted to learn to write my name when I was like five, just like how she taught me long division the summer before I got it in school).

I guess, though, maybe there WAS  a break in the transmission. Maybe people who lived in more urbanized areas didn't "do" as much for themselves. Or people who were wealthier and could do things like hire out clothing repair or alterations - or had access to places that did that. (I don't know, for example, if there's a place here that does clothing repair; I just do my own mending). Or maybe mothers who HATED doing those things and didn't want their daughters saddled with it (Heh, an early version of the "lib meetings" that I alluded to in the earlier post?) didn't bother to teach them - and ironically, some of those girls grew up and realized they wanted to learn those things as a form of artistic expression  (or to save money, or to "seize the means of production" as I see some of the more radical makers claiming) 

But anyway. I can't quite imagine books like these being written today; for one thing, the internet - even with Google search pretty much borked by SEO - offers you the possibility to find either videos, or written descriptions, or pictorials of many techniques. Or you can order books from many of the online booksellers. Or arrange to travel to take classes (and I BET there are some teachers who do Zoom classes, now). 

But, as I said, the Woodstock Craftsmans Manuals are an interesting window into how things maybe once were - or at least how a subset of the Me Generation thought they were.