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.
