NORTH SHORE BREEZE 
Che Arts and Crafts Movement 
(Paper read before the Manchester Woman’s Club, Dec. 
Historical Setting, 
- Asremotely in history as we have any 
traces either mythical or authentic, men 
and women have shaped with their hands 
the things they wanted. At first they 
made utensils for use in the home and 
at work, and implements of warfare. 
Gradually, as the immediate wants were 
satished, they began to make things of. 
beauty as well as use, and decorated the 
utensils and implements, and today in 
our museums we marvel at the beauty 
they wrought. ~ aoe 
In medieval times this handwork was 
brought to what Ithink we may call its 
height. The crafts were very carefully 
taught and their secrets guarded. An 
apprentice was bound to his master for a 
period of seven years, usually, and was 
required to perfect himself in his craft. 
After his term of apprenticeship had 
been served, he was a craftsman and re- 
leased from his bondage. But he must 
yet work years more before he could 
- hope to be a master at the craft and able 
to teach apprentices. Each craft had its 
guild and this was a secret society of 
workers who guarded the secrets of their 
craft very jealously, and punished, some- 
times with death, any member who dared 
reveal one of thosesecrets. We see in 
the skilled workers who in our own day 
come from the old world, the result of 
this system of training, as in many of its 
essentials it is the same now as in medi- 
eval times. “The workman knows his 
‘craft, and does not have to guess at 
things 
In our own country, in the days of our 
grandfathers, men learned their trade in 
much the same way and first served a 
long apprenticeship before they were 
deemed competent workers. 
Our own cabinet shops here in Man- 
chester serve as afine example. In the 
height of their prosperity they employed 
many skilled workers who gained their 
skill by years of work under a master. 
The work they sent out was work to be 
proud of, and not so much machine 
made furniture to sell as cheaply as possi- 
ble The grandmothers had their share 
in hand work also. The wool and flax 
must be spun and woven at home, and 
“then the garments made from the fabric 
they had produced. When time would 
“permit the needle beautified garments and 
hangings with embroidery. 
If thread or 
fabric of other than the natural color was 
~- desired, the women had to get roots and 
“dye-stuffs from the ground and learn the 
~ secrets of dyeing with these materials. 
_. They produced some beautiful soft tones 
“which in many cases have stood the 
wear and tear of years of service. 
The 
By Carotyn E. ALLEN 
light to sew by at night must be made at 
home and this meant treating the fats 
and then either moulding or dipping a 
season’s candles. And into all these 
intimate things of the home and the 
woman’s making, there needs must enter 
the woman’s skill, good taste and indiv- 
iduality. 
Decadance. 
But with the invention of labor saving 
machinery and factories, these industries 
were lost from the home and they and 
the crafts suffered at the hands of un 
skilled workers, who simply ran a ma- 
chine and used only sufficient brains to 
do that, without thought for the product. 
Of course none of us would care to go 
back to the time when we should have 
to make everything we owned with our 
own hands, but I think we all can see 
how making athing on a machine, by 
the hundreds and thousands, and not 
knowing or caring where any of them 
were to go, must of necessity take from 
the joy of the work and thus from its 
value as a piece of craftsmanship. In 
England, especially, the craftman and his 
work were gradually pushed aside and 
the people bought for use the thing which 
could be purchased most cheaply. 
Renaissance. 
To such a degree had art as applied to 
the everyday, useful things, become de- 
graded during the period of the 1860's 
and 70’s, that a group of English crafts- 
men, together with men who desired 
that true beauty and good _ work- 
manship should once more be joined, 
gathered about William Morris in Eng- 
land and worked toward such an end. 
And about thirty years ago they held an 
exhibition which included work in wood, 
leather, glass, metal and any material 
adapted to artistic expression, as well as 
what had before been termed art pro- 
ducts, such as paintings, sketches and 
the like. 
To emphasize the thought they were 
trying to advance, they coined the phrase 
**Arts and Crafts,’’ as a name for the 
exhibit. ‘“The term stood for a pro- 
test against the accepted limitation of the 
word art; against the tawdryness, sham 
and ugliness of the industrial product of 
the day, and against the conditions which 
those products represented.’? These 
men felt that art must come into the 
homes and be felt there as well as in the 
art galleries. Wm. Morris, himself, 
was both designer and craftsman and his 
influence was great for that union of de- 
sign and workmanship which finally re- 
sulted in the Arts and Crafts movement. 
Morris said that ‘“‘real art is man’s ex- 
pression of pleasure in labor. Art ap- 
21, 1909.) 
plied to the crafts; thought and design 
expressed in good hand work are the 
elementary principles underlying the 
whole movement. The spirit of the 
movement spread to America and grew 
there, and on the death of Morris about 
twenty years ago, when everyone was 
hearing of his life and work, received 
fresh impetus. From then on it has de- 
veloped rapidly, till at present we have 
many evidences of it all over the country. 
Present Status and Types. 
Perhaps one of the most interesting 
forms of the movement to the casual ob- 
server, is that represented by the Village 
Industries. The best known of these is 
beyond all doubt, Old Deerfield. Ly- 
ing between the Connecticut and the 
Deerfield rivers, it was, in colonial times, 
the scene of wild battles and massacres. 
But in spite of the hardships and terrors, 
the village women of those olden days 
did exquisite work with their needles, 
embroidered counterpanes and hangings, 
wove rugs and baskets for the beautify- 
ing of their homes. 
In 1896 two ladies, Miss Whiting and 
Miss Miller, hunted up these old em- 
broideries and copying the quaint old — 
figures, made new designs and worked 
them out in the old time colors,—blue 
thread on white linen. Soon a group of 
needlewomen gathered about them, and 
the Blue and White Needlework Society 
was established. One woman under- 
took the dyeing of the linen thread. For 
this only the best Bengal indigo was used 
and the secrets of the grandmothers 
hunted up and the ‘“‘blue pot’’ started. 
This is said.to be a very careful process 
and the ‘‘yeast’’ as they call it, used to 
be passed along from one to the other. 
The two promoters designed, hunting 
out all the oldfigures, and the needlewo- 
men wrought in the old stitches. This 
society flourished and furnished impetus 
for other groups to start. One group 
makes baskets of the palm leaf and corn 
husks, such as some of them made when 
they were young girls. Another group 
weaves baskets of reed and rafha, while 
still another group weaves the rag rugs 
in the old fashioned hand looms. All 
the materials are dyed by the same wo- 
man, and very soft, beautiful colors are 
produced, which are very durable. 
It seems odd to the stranger to go into 
Memorial Hall, where their old time 
relics are on exhibition, and see one of 
the women caretakers setting in a rock- 
ing chair, sewing and winding balls of 
rags for the weavers to make into rugs. 
Art is certainly applied to all the work 
here, and only articles of true worth and 
beauty are made. All the groups are 
