Craft magazine from past was published in Augusta

Who knew? Augusta was once a hotbed of magazine publishing. From 1869 to 1942, according to information supplied by Phyllis vonHerrlich at the Women’s History Trail Web site, more than 17 titles were published, and nationwide circulation of these magazines reached 3 million or more.

The magazines were geared toward women. One of those magazines was Needlecraft, produced monthly by Needlecraft Publishing and edited by Margaret Barton Manning.

I might never have known about this wonderful vintage magazine had I not found www.antiquepatternlibrary.org, where Needlecraft and other needlework books and magazines are scanned in their entirety and posted at the site. Be warned, however, that these are huge files, and if you don’t have the right stuff in terms of computer equipment, you can’t access them. I certainly couldn’t. However, Laurie Labar, textile curator at the Maine State Museum in Augusta, did have the right equipment. She kindly downloaded and printed a copy of the October 1918 issue of Needlecraft for me.

Clearly, Needlecraft found readers throughout the United States. Tips from needleworkers arrived from coast to coast, Connecticut to California. “When binding off ribbed knitting, purl the purled stitches,” advised Mrs. H.T.M. of New York, a tip she sent to the magazine.

Turn a few pages and the reader is treated to instructions for a filet crochet edging and a filet crochet Rebekah lodge motif pattern.

For knitters, the magazine offered a nine-patch block for a bedspread and lace edging to match.

Those who favored embroidery could order transfer patterns for 10 cents or the pattern already stamped on linen for 20 cents. The butterfly design featured on the magazine cover, however, cost 15 cents and the stamped linen, 75 cents.

In October 1918, the world was still a month away from the Armistice that would end World War I, and the magazine reflects that fact.

In the Gift-Box section of the magazine are directions for making a trench mirror, which consisted of an unbreakable mirror tucked into a sturdy handmade case. Whether a soldier living in the hell and filth of the trenches actually used such an item is open to question, but it is easy to imagine loving hands making it to send to beloved husbands, brothers and fathers at the front.

One way Needlecraft magazine publishers found new subscribers was to enlist readers to sell subscriptions to others through “club-raisers.” Buy the subscription this way and you’d pay 35 cents for the year, a savings of 15 cents. And for your efforts, you’d earn premiums. Get new subscribers and you might choose a stereo-opticon and your choice of one set of 25 views. The sets of views offered were described: “War views showing the heroic struggle of the British; French and their loyal allies on the western battlefronts of France and Belgium; War views showing our soldier boys in France; and Navy views showing the most powerful and recently built ships of the United States Navy. Mighty leviathans, grim destroyers and giant guardians of our country.”

Other war-related premiums were “the brooch of the Allies, and the silver service-pin.”

Readers also could order directions for the filet crochet Soldier Boy or U.S. flag motifs.

Because it was wartime, flour was, apparently, in short supply, or rationed. To remedy that situation, Needlecraft published a menu of wheat-free or nearly wheat-free recipes for bread, cake and pastry. The recipes called for barley flour.

Clothing patterns were available through the magazine at a cost of 10 cents each. I was quite taken by dress pattern 8973 “accentuated by a row of large buttons which extend down to the skirt section.”

The days of the Augusta publishing industry, vonHerrlich writes, did more than provide needlework patterns and inspiration to those who read the magazines. It provided employment. Forty-seven percent of workers in the industry were women. Their average daily pay was $1 in 1887.

Other magazines published in Augusta included Happy Hours, Hearth and Home, American Woman, Comfort, Peoples Illustrated Journal and Practical Housekeeper.

To learn more about the history of the publishing industry in Augusta, visit http://dll.umaine.edu/historytrail/site14.html.

Librarian Christy Coombs of Bangor Public Library conducted a search of library holdings nationwide in hopes of finding editions of Needlework magazine. She did not find the magazine in any of the databases she searched. It is quite possible, she said, that Needlecraft magazine is not numbered among library holdings anywhere.

What a loss to needlework historians and those of us who ply the needle.

Call Ardeana Hamlin at 990-8153, or e-mail ahamlin@bangordailynews.net.