1897

The proposed Hopkins Center will when completed become an important step in support of the fine arts in the College, including music, painting, stage and crafts and many other functions of extra-curricular activities. Tying these together will develop much interest.

My own interest is largely in the crafts as I had an opportunity to stimulate craft work for very great help to a fairly large group of men, women and young people during the great depression.

The branches which we found most successful were the home spinning and weaving of wool and flax for suitings, hangings and tapestries. In this work we used many of the well-known vegetable dyes. Some recipes were found in old notebooks and often on the covers of old cook books. These colors were very important in stamping our wool and linen woven fabrics as genuine "home spuns."

A full description of the three elements of this activity is on file at the Dartmouth Library in three typewritten notebooks with many photographs. These three notebooks are available at the Library and may be copied for use. Color photographs of the yarn and cloth samples have been made and are fairly near the originals. The directions are complete enough to give a would-be craftsman detailed information to start from scratch and to make worth-while saleable products of the loom. I am very sure that our success was very largely due to the use of vegetable dyes.

In this same period of the great depression we found that hand-wrought iron and copper hand-craft products made in the small home shops would sell. Our most successful iron worker used his high ceilinged basement for several years. He started this craft work with a hammer and an anvil only. He had lost everything else because of a dishonest partner. He saved his home and paid off the heavy mortgage. He taught his sons to become iron craftsmen. His success was largely due to the use of a very valuable set of three books of Early American Wrought Iron by Albert H. Sonn which were given to him by a rich man who came in contact with him through his help in building a church in the Italian settlement where he lived. These books are out of print now but probably can be found in book shops. There is a two-volume edition now in Baker Library. I feel sure these excellent drawings made it possible for this iron craftsman to build up a prosperous business in a period of depression. His fine products interested men and women of wealth who got a thrill out of visiting his shop. It was like turning back the calendar 150 years.

In this same period a wood craftsman was able to build up a very successful business by turning to craft work making true copies of Early American home fine pieces like ladderback and baluster-back chairs, small tables, corner cupboards and many other true copies of fine old period furniture, most of which is now in museums.

The feeling that seems to me to be very important in a revival of crafts is to hunt out the best of our craft-made items and make true copies of them. I feel sure a boy can earn enough to pay a large part of college expenses in either of the branches of crafts which are outlined in this brief reference to these branches of wool and linen, iron and copper and wood crafts.

There are many other crafts like glass blowing, pewter ware products, and rugs, especially braided "rag rugs" using old garments dyed with vegetable dyes. Still another craft is basket weaving. There were many basket makers in my home town of Barrington, N. H., who worked with ash wood strips. These craftsmen used small straight ash tree trunks which were buried in swampy ground for a year before using. One of my tenants with the aid of a crippled husband paid her rent by making candy baskets.

Secretary, Treasurer and BequestChairman, 114 State St., Bridgeport 3, Conn.