It's interesting that a technology (crocheting) used in fishing communities for millennia and a pattern ("granny squares") used in furniture making for centuries can be traced back to American pioneers after the commercial revolution.
I have no doubt it's true that granny squares made out of commercial yarn only developed in the 19th century after commercial yarn became available, and patterns only became published after mass-market magazines became widely available. I'm more skeptical that the technique of crocheting, a technology used to make and mend fish nets, was not in use by the distaff side of a household long before that and the the relatively obvious way of making piecework using homespun yarn and hooking through the holes of a previous row was not common among groups of otherwise-idle hands. Techniques and patterns have long been passed on orally.
Unfortunately history of textiles and domestic arts is pretty much entirely unrecorded and unstudied because it doesn't tend to leave much hardware lying around. There are 25000-year-old spindle whorls sitting beside rough-knapped stone axes, shure, but a wooden crochet hook? Rotted away. Sheep-wool granny squares? Eaten by moths. Oral history? Unheard.
The article is clear that there are related technologies, but they are not the same:
> “I’m not aware of a single verified example of European or American crochet in the 17th or 18th century,” Jay Templin said. Crochet-type hooks were used for lacemaking, but not for what we now know as crochet. Blankets in this era were strictly made of woven fabric. “We don’t see any knit or crocheted blankets in the colonies at all; they show up in the U.S. in the middle 19th century,”
The Wikipedia entry adds:
> Knitted textiles survive from as early as the 11th century CE, but the first substantive evidence of crocheted fabric emerges in Europe during the 19th century.[5] Earlier work identified as crochet was commonly made by nålebinding, a different looped yarn technique.
I can find no mention of how crocheting came directly out of making or mending fishing nets. Looking at descriptions of how to make fishing nets (eg, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8gQ8MR-bb0) they don't look similar.
Indeed, quoting the nålebinding entry in WP:
> the technique is distinct from crochet in that it involves passing the full length of the working thread through each loop, unlike crochet where the work is formed only of loops, never involving the free end.
while that fishing net example shows passing the rest of the line ("the free end") through the net.
I don't believe crocheting was ever used for fishing nets. It really doesn't make a lot of sense for that use. A big problem with crochet is that it's made with a single strand of yarn and if you pull the end, it will unravel. There's a lot of useful knots for mending nets. I'd really need to see a reference to believe crochet has ever been a preferred method.
I googled granny squares in reference to furniture and can't find anything about that either. I can't pretend to know anything about furniture making though.
It's funny they were surprised to find crocheting tips in a farming magazine. They must have forgotten this was when crochet was part of real life rather than a lifestyle hobby for middle class people
I had a rather different interpretation. They write the "modern edition is strictly limited to farming". I think the surprise is that an 1880 farmer version contains non-farming content.
No. Oh my! And with some casual classism and racism to boot:
> The love of exciting tales is characteristic of all uncultivated nations, and the only difference between our children and servants, and other people pouring over their stories, and the Indians on the plains, or the nomadic Arabs seated in the desert and listening with eyes and ears intent, is that the latter are compelled to satisfy this passion in moderation.
So damn casual about it. They don't intend for it to be offensive at all. Lower classes are unintelligent and frivolous and Arabs are noble savages. That's just the writer's reality. It's crazy how far we've come.
What an interesting link! I really enjoyed the story titled "Helps for Homely Women" about the dangers of mouth-breathing/breathing exercises for corset wearers and the blurb about the etymology of the word "doily". Although I can't seem to find anything to corroborate the doily tale...
I thought it was most interesting to see how clearly crocheting was “generation-skipping” with the 40-year periods between peaks in popularity:
1890s->1930s->1970s->2010s
Maybe the latest peak is pushing out due to having kids later in life (i.e., grandparents now 50-60 years older than grandkids, rather than 40-50)
The way I read it was that granny squares saw a cycle of popularity, rather than crochet in general. 40 years would be a pretty normal length of time for something to be cool, then dated, then cool again.
Personally, I learned granny squares and mile a minute afghans from my mother. Until the last 5 years or so though, I definitely saw them as old-fashioned and out of date. Now they're coming popular again with different color combos and I'm coming back around.
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[ 1152 ms ] story [ 492 ms ] threadI have no doubt it's true that granny squares made out of commercial yarn only developed in the 19th century after commercial yarn became available, and patterns only became published after mass-market magazines became widely available. I'm more skeptical that the technique of crocheting, a technology used to make and mend fish nets, was not in use by the distaff side of a household long before that and the the relatively obvious way of making piecework using homespun yarn and hooking through the holes of a previous row was not common among groups of otherwise-idle hands. Techniques and patterns have long been passed on orally.
Unfortunately history of textiles and domestic arts is pretty much entirely unrecorded and unstudied because it doesn't tend to leave much hardware lying around. There are 25000-year-old spindle whorls sitting beside rough-knapped stone axes, shure, but a wooden crochet hook? Rotted away. Sheep-wool granny squares? Eaten by moths. Oral history? Unheard.
> “I’m not aware of a single verified example of European or American crochet in the 17th or 18th century,” Jay Templin said. Crochet-type hooks were used for lacemaking, but not for what we now know as crochet. Blankets in this era were strictly made of woven fabric. “We don’t see any knit or crocheted blankets in the colonies at all; they show up in the U.S. in the middle 19th century,”
The Wikipedia entry adds:
> Knitted textiles survive from as early as the 11th century CE, but the first substantive evidence of crocheted fabric emerges in Europe during the 19th century.[5] Earlier work identified as crochet was commonly made by nålebinding, a different looped yarn technique.
I can find no mention of how crocheting came directly out of making or mending fishing nets. Looking at descriptions of how to make fishing nets (eg, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8gQ8MR-bb0) they don't look similar.
Indeed, quoting the nålebinding entry in WP:
> the technique is distinct from crochet in that it involves passing the full length of the working thread through each loop, unlike crochet where the work is formed only of loops, never involving the free end.
while that fishing net example shows passing the rest of the line ("the free end") through the net.
I googled granny squares in reference to furniture and can't find anything about that either. I can't pretend to know anything about furniture making though.
Out of curiosity, I pulled up a copy of Dorcas from 1885 - https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hxitid&view=1up&s... .
I get the feeling it was a lifestyle hobby for middle class women in the 1880s as well.
> The love of exciting tales is characteristic of all uncultivated nations, and the only difference between our children and servants, and other people pouring over their stories, and the Indians on the plains, or the nomadic Arabs seated in the desert and listening with eyes and ears intent, is that the latter are compelled to satisfy this passion in moderation.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/doily says "supposedly from Doiley, surname of a noted late 17c.-early 18c. dry-goods dealer on London's Strand."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doily#Etymology gives a similar description
If I read https://apgalton.wordpress.com/2014/06/ correctly, both are indirectly sourcing the Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology.
Maybe the latest peak is pushing out due to having kids later in life (i.e., grandparents now 50-60 years older than grandkids, rather than 40-50)
Personally, I learned granny squares and mile a minute afghans from my mother. Until the last 5 years or so though, I definitely saw them as old-fashioned and out of date. Now they're coming popular again with different color combos and I'm coming back around.