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Appendix 16: Amateur Woodworking - Hour Glass Analogy

Introduction [incomplete, partial draft] 6-22-07

My Credo 

Provide historical background and historical perspective: rigorously compare earlier and later time frames in amateur woodworking, to see the changes, that is, answer  the "who", "what", "how", "when" questions and, most important, seek to answer "why" questions about the changes. Not exactly rocket science, but certainly a concern for "before and after" scenarios.

Two Pivotal Decades: the 1920s and the 1950s

As the 21st century unfolds, it’s only natural to reminisce speculatively about the last century’s impact. Change in all areas abounds, especially during the two pivotal decades the 1920s and the 1950s.

Both decades followed the economic and social changes and industrial innovation generated by a major war, WW I and WW II. The two decades, were, each in their own right, periods of rapid social, economic, industrial change.

(What else? Definitely education and scholarship. While scholarship of the era is not entirely relevant to the topic at hand, a history of the amateur woodworking movement, in a way this scholarship is, if only because the 1920s saw the flowering of several disciplines, especially sociology, social and cultural history, that are so important today for revealing the formerly hidden aspects of the daily lives of Americans.

Below, for example, in arguing that a parallel exists between the function of the cookbook in the kitchen and the woodworker's manual in the woodshop, to build the case, I depend upon an existing scholarship on cookbooks. In turn, though, this scholarship of cookbooks itself is supported by decades of scholarship on America's cultures. About a decade ago, when writing about the background of subject-specific dictionaries as cultural artifacts, I needed to review the cultural function of common-place, "lexical" dictionaries:

... Since the invention of the printing press, text printed on paper is without question the most common medium for the transmission and preservation of discourse. Among printed materials, the book is the most common, and comprises numerous genres. Among genres of books, dictionaries, that is, both lexical and subject-specialized dictionaries, are perhaps the most ubiquitous. In the Western world (is it fair to speculate?) few households are without dictionaries. Why? Dictionaries are the “memory” of our language, the “authorities” for the meanings, including changes in meaning, of the words in the vocabulary by which human communication takes place. In a real sense, then, dictionaries are so “commonplace”, that we tend to take them for granted. Thus dictionaries are not arbitrary creations but spring from the assumptions, both explicit and implicit, of the age in which they are written, and since they incorporate an era's intellectual history, the comparison of dictionaries from different periods allows us to detect changes from one era to another... .
 

The 1920s saw electrification, radio and pop culture, automobiles, road building, the Red Scare, and the shift "from production to consumption.” (More on the the concept, "from production to consumption" below.)

About an "interpretation of my own experience," let me say several things:

First, from my academic background, I have acquired a respect for the body of knowledge generated by a group of scholars working together in a particular area. While, as a rule, they work competitively with one another, they also work in a cooperative setting. In other words, there is a tension in the community of scholars, often called discourse communities, but the tension is friendly, and definitely not violent. Furthermore, the results are impressive. Given this conviction, I will as a endeavor to unearth and weave into my narrative the work of other scholars. Again, though, not much scholarly research has been conducted in woodworking history.

Second, I want to single out at least two Websites, both essential for Tracing Woodworking History:

  • Directory of American Tools and Machinery Patents: Useful website, a virtual database dedicated to patents of power woodworking tools. Includes diagrams patentees needed to submit for obtaining patents. Use Internet Explorer Browser, and Broadband speed is nice.
     
  • Old Woodworking Machines: A remarkable website, dedicated to documenting vintage woodworker's power machinery. Lots of links, pictures of restored vintage power machinery, reproductions of old catalogs, discussion forum, 100s of members, many expert in the historical details of individual tools, just a virtual goldmine.

Third, as for experience at woodworking, for close to a half century, to a greater or lesser degree, I have personally "practiced" woodworking, with varying degrees of satisfaction and success. Over the years, I have built (at least) one piece(s) of furniture for my whole house, except a bed. I have built chairs, tables, book shelves, armoires, cradles, chests of drawers, and numerous other pieces, of which I have long forgotten. I have also built a few of my own tools (scroll down an look on the left for my reconstructed shaper table; not pictured are several tables for radial arm/compound miter saws, routers, and drill presses). And I have built many, many jigs. The following links lead to a few examples: 1. shop made bandsaw table and fence 2. Jig for creating pictures with compound miters 3. Jigs for creating and gluing up arts and crafts table legs. 4. (not yet uploaded).

(Jigs, for the woodworking cognoscente, are homemade tools, or adjuncts to manufacturers' tools, especially power tools, that help make these tools operate more efficiently, and/or more safely. Taken together, all items mentioned above, but especially the "jigs", strongly suggest that, perhaps more than any other profession, rather than from top down, woodworking has developed from the bottom up. (Chapter 2, when it's completed, features a discussion of the "evolution of multiple cutting knives". )

Fourth, my history of woodworking will be primary-source driven. As much as possible, this history will be told from the perspective of people and events contemporary to the period being discussed. Already, I have uploaded several primary sources on my website, and, to get better control of them, have listed and annotated them on a separate page. [link needed]

Fifth, Glossary of terms associated with woodworkers and woodworking. My glossary is under construction, and won't uploaded until this History nears completion.

(Choosing words for the preceding paragraphs was difficult. I had to think whether, as an amateur woodworker -- especially when you do it only on the weekend, as I did throughout my 40-year professional career in the academic world -- do you "Practice" woodworking? "Engage" in woodworking? Or "Do" woodworking? With my academic background, I know that it is common to specify engaging in research activities as "conducting research", but never have I heard the phrase, "conducting woodwork". Instead, "conducting woodwork" immediately strikes you as totally inappropriate, "over the top", as you often hear today as a way of characterizing something considered excessive.)

What is an amateur woodworker?

For professional woodworkers' satisfying clients is the "bottom line". For amateur woodworkers, the client is the "self". Thus, if the amateur woodworker has a degree of self-respect, he/she will not be satisfied with amateurish results. Indeed, it is not difficult to visualize that frequently amateur woodworking is equal -- not superior -- to professional results.

The periodical, Amateur Work, Vol 1, 1902, p. 64, says this about defining what is "amateur work". Amateur Work's motivation for this discussion of the meaning of amateur in that magazine was generated by the unexpected accolade that it received in an issue of the professional trade periodical, Modern Machinery. In the review of Amateur Work published in the December 1901 issue of Modern Machinery, the article's anonymous author defines as amateur "a lover of any art or science, though not a professor of it."

Let me say this about "amateur" in my online book's title. Think  about a book, simply called The History of Baseball, or The History of  Basketball, or The History of Hockey? Ask yourself, what would the  content cover? (I suspect that unless amateur was specified in the  titles, the gist would be professional players.) Now, think about an  America where the work-week was 60-hours plus, like at 1900, then ask yourself where are the amateur woodworkers? Look at the hourglass below. Yes, today, amateur woodworkers out-number "professional"  woodworkers, but, historically, this was not always true. Now do you  see why maybe "the history of the amateur woodworking movement" may be an appropriate title

Amateur woodworker: Those who love the material and the work of their craft more than anything else about it. (Krenov, 1977, page 6) 

What is an amateur woodworker? For professional woodworkers' satisfying clients is the "bottom line". For amateur woodworkers, the client is the "self". Thus, if the amateur woodworker has a degree of self-respect, he/she will not be satisfied with amateurish results. Indeed, it is not difficult to visualize that frequently amateur woodworking is equal -- not superior -- to professional results. 

The periodical, Amateur Work, Vol 1, 1902, p. 64, says this about defining what is "amateur work". Amateur Work's motivation for this discussion of the meaning of amateur in that magazine was generated by the unexpected accolade that it received in an issue of the professional trade periodical, Modern Machinery. In the review of Amateur Work published in the December 1901 issue of Modern Machinery, the article's anonymous author defines as amateur "a lover of any art or science, though not a professor of it." 

See discussion in later issue of HC 1939, for an account of formation of professional woodworkers and annual show, starting in 1938. Shortly thereafter, in January, 1940 a letter from a Maine professional woodworker, L. H. E. lamented that, while in the account of the Connecticut Craftsmen, professional groups at New Hampshire, New York, Vermont and Massachusetts were mentioned, Maine was not. L H E continues: 

 

In Maine about a year ago the Dept. of Education appointed a man to head the Maine craftsmen and later they formed what is known as the "Maine Craft Guild". A fine building was opened on No. 1 trail called "State of Maine Industries, Inc." A grading and pricing committee meets here to inspect and price the merchandise placed on sale by any member. 

Sometime within a few months they are going to have a showing of merchandise of the craft members so that the owners of gift shops can see what is being made here in Maine and to place their orders for products. During the holidays they had a display in several places and some of my merchandise was in both displays. This past summer have had articles on sale in four different parts of the state. One was a large order for cash, the others on consignment. 

I bought my first power tools in May, 1936 and have been adding to them since. My shop is in the basement 23 feet long, 13 feet wide with a board floor, sheathed walls, three full size windows to the south and a full-size window and door to the east. 

A year ago last spring my son wanted me to build him a boat and he sent for plans of Horizon. Completed it looks just like the picture in your magazine. ...

 

 

Ostensibly, a person who engages in woodworking purely for pleasure, as a hobby. Nonetheless, defining what is an "amateur" among woodworkers is tricky. When, for example, does an amateur become a "professional", that is, earn enough from woodworking to be eliminated from being considered an amateur? Because, in selling his projects, he earns money? However, if a woodworker cannot sustain he and his family on the earnings -- say it was $1200 per year -- would that still make him a professional woodworker? And what about somebody, say like Wallace Kunkel, a teacher of woodworking techniques, who made the odd piece for himself? Is he a professional? 

A commanding figure among amateur woodworkers during the 1970s, James Krenov defines amateurs as "those who love the material and the work of their craft more than anything else about it." (Krenov, 1977, page 6) 

[Where does this sentence fit? Because of its allusions to a condition of the past, its gist contributes to the discussion, but where should it be injected?] A master craftsman, a product of years of self-indentured training under as an apprentice under an earlier generation of "masters", was of course a "professional" woodworker, but not -- in my opinion at least, in the same sense as a professional today.

[Back to Document 1]

(I believe that in this context "professor" refers to the act of "professing" something, such as professing woodworking, and not to "professor", as in university professor. Editors at Amateur Work took exception "to the limitations placed upon the word 'amateur'. )

Amateur Work, say the editors,

is for those who engage in work for the love of it, or the pleasure derived from it, that [this magazine] is published, and while most of the topics will be treated in an elemental way, the scope of the magazine is not restricted to this class.

My personal woodworking experience

Here's where I think that my experience -- both as an amateur woodworker and as a journeyman researcher/writer -- counts.

Ex: I have many back issues of woodworking journals, collected from the beginning (i.e., 1976, when woodworking magazines first began to appear). For background on woodworking in the latter half of the 20th century, I have (slowly) paged through them, issue by issue, noting things possible to included in my text. There are many!

Some early comments by the original editors of the magazines are fascinating, especially today, in retrospect, when so much has changed since the beginnings in the 1970s. Before 1976, the founding year of Fine Woodworking, no magazine existed that was dedicated solely to woodworking. Today, there are many, not only in America, but Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, as well as other areas.

 

What conditions, i.e., social, political, economic, technological, aesthetic, were needed before amateur woodworking took off?

But woodworking, including amateur woodworking -- including amateur woodworking -- has a very, very long history. Nonetheless, although amateur woodworking always existed, the practice of woodworking as a leisure activity before or at the beginning of the 20th century was, of necessity, conducted under much different conditions then compared with today, or even in the mid-century. Read for example, the article that I've posted on my history of woodworking website as: Document no. 2: Chicago-based journalist, Phil Creden's "America Rediscovers Its Hands" (1953), and contrast it with the Document no. 1, by the New Yorker, A L Hall, "My Workshop at Home" (1908).

The point is that several factors, outside the purview of amateur woodworking, needed to be in place in America, before amateur woodworking became an matter of interest for men to considr it as a leisure time activity. Among these factors are :

  • sufficient disposable income for potential woodworkers to purchase hand and power tools;
  • the luxury of sufficient leisure time to actually engage in woodworking as a hobby;
  • home electrification;
  • the development of an economic fractional horsepower motor,
  • the availabilty on the market of hand and power tools of a scale appropriate for use in home workshops.

All these matters and more are things needed to be in placee before amateur woodworking, as a movement, could take off.

Each of these issue will be dealt with, first, in very brief discussion, in these introductory paragraphs, but later -- appropriately, chapter by chapter -- in greater detail. (Chapter contents are listed on the table of contents page.)

What is my approach to this History?

[needs more editing] As the successive chapters of my history of amateur woodworking are completed and uploaded on the Web, readers will discover that I have "scoured the literature", "done my homework", as they say, in my efforts to uncover what, without exaggeration, is a "virtually secret history of woodworking", at least as this history relates amateur woodworking, in this century.

However, in my attempt to expose this human activity, much to my satisfaction, much information can be uncovered. The chemistry, i.e., the "chemistry" involved in human affairs, is complex, and I continue to search for the broader explanations

[Need to work in Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz, "The Origins of Technology-Skill Complementarity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 113, No. 3. (Aug., 1998), pp. 693-732, in with G Leslie Oliver, "Fractional Horse Power Motor and Its Impact on Canadian Society and Culture," Material History Review 43 spring 1996 Pages: 55-67. Also Harry Jerome, 1934, "Mechanization in Industry. NY: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1934, pp 174-175]

Much less evident in the literature are the results of research into the implications of specific, small and unobtrusive technologies, especially those that enter the home (often by the back door). Oliver's point is that the appearance fractional horse power electric motor set in motion a series of changes in living that had a major impact upon behavior, values, and the like, but these shifts occurred without the responsibility being recognized [change phrasing], Further, Oliver adds,

There is little to help us to understand better what the[se technologies] are, what they do, how they work and their intended, unintended, as well as their unanticipated and unplanned for consequences - those now increasingly evident as the twentieth century draws to a close.

What schema of understanding am I bringing to the History project?

Yes, I have a “schema”, but to explain what the schema is, I need to introduce three principles that have guided me in the past, all of them are related to teaching students how to conduct research.

(Before I retired, working in the academic world, when I spent 4 decades as both an academic reference librarian and a classroom instructor -- I found out quickly that, when conducting their research, i.e., searching for materials in a library, my students typically had a misconception about the nature of inquiry, or as inquiry is more broadly called, research.)

First, in my experience, in the library, students look for and expect to find "the answer to the question", instead of "the evidence to be examined".

In place of looking for the answer to the question, I attempted instead to direct students think about what "evidence" they needed to gather for their research topic.

Second, frequently, when setting themselves up to carry out this operation, it meant "going beyond the information given".

(In the research that I've conducted on the history of amateur woodworking, over a period of roughly 18 months, often I have recalled that I am myself am doing just what I told my students to do, "go beyond the information given". Definitely, the research path is not clearly marked; there is no existing body of knowledge.)

Third, I also introduced my students to the principle that makes so much sense for all of us engaged in telling a story, i.e., roughly what I believe writing a history is, "telling a story". That principle is "To Teach is to Learn Twice". This concept is attributed to the Frenchman, Joseph Joubert (1754-1824).

(Lately, when working on this history project, quite often, I have remembered that I am myself doing what, years ago, I told my students to do, "To Teach is to Learn Twice.")

That said, I want now to show you a powerful schema that I use to keep me on a research track for this project: I call it the hourglass analogy. I am indebted to Tom Caspar, an editor at American Woodworker, for the suggestion about the hourglass configuration of woodworking, and of the claim about shift "from production to consumption of woodworking", a theme that I develop more fully directly below.