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Craft: An
American History
by Glenn Adamson
c.2021, Bloomsbury Publishing
$30.00 / $39.99 Canada
387 pages
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Truth Contributor
You are pretty handy.
That thing you made – you did it yourself, with a minimum of
help and it looks fabulous. It's almost a professional piece
and you have reason to be proud. Look what you made, just
look at it, then read Craft: An American History
by Glenn Adamson and see if your ancestors would
approve.
Tens of thousands of years ago, humans began crafting which,
by definition, means the act of a skilled individual
creating something by hand. For them, though, crafting was
less fun, more a means of survival.
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It was the same when Europeans came to America: though the
Pilgrims were said to be quite taken with baskets made by
Native weavers, craftsmen from back home were in demand to
make clothing, plow blades, horseshoes, and such that life
then required. Today, we tend to romanticize those craftsmen
but the truth is that the work was largely repetitive and
there was rarely any room for creativity.
Even so, the ability to utilize a valuable skill was, well,
handy. It ensured work immediately and for the next
generation, since tools and know-how were often passed down,
parent-to-child. For slaves, having a craft might offer an
edge on being kept, rather than sold away; freedmen, though
sometimes fired because of white protestations of job loss,
used their work to purchase freedom for family members. In
those cases, knowledge and skills of a craft gave Black
craftsmen and women opportunities that they mightn't have
had without one.
When items began to be mass-produced, the value of craftwork
shifted: suddenly, clothing could be made without a wait,
and factory-made kitchenware was less expensive. Elite
craftsmen were held in higher esteem, even though much of
their product was done by "outworkers" who did the actual
work. Women, at the same time, were taught homemaking skills
– some of which were, when you look at them now, crafts.
Today, says Adamson, "Relatively few of us actually perform
crafts anymore," although our definition of "crafts" seems
to be shifting once again...
Let's start here: this is not a craft manual. It has no
patterns, no instructions, and no ideas for you to alter
creatively. Instead, Craft: An American History leans
entirely on the last word in its subtitle, blending it with
several cultures in time.
The other difference between this and a craft manual is that
this book isn't as relaxing as is, say, sewing or
woodworking might be. Author Glenn Adamson leans deeply
into the background and meaning of craftsmaking, beginning
with a time before the Pilgrims and moving forward to "craft
breweries and tattoo parlors..." The focus is on the kinds
of crafts one might practice as a livelihood, while today's
conventional "crafts" as we know them – crochet, knitting,
metalwork, needlework, jewelry-making – are covered very
little, if at all.
That may make a historian happier with this book than a
cross-stitcher might be, but there's something for both
inside Craft: An American History. Just keep in mind
its depth so find it, but keep a bookmark handy.
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