Work and Play? Work or Play? The Library of Work and Play
What is work and what is play? And who decides? This volume is part of a set of books published in the early 20th Century covering everything from electricity and its uses to housekeeping to outdoor sports and games. This volume also offered hundred of pages on everything from making raffia hats on a wire frame to embroidery and knitting. The entire volume is aimed at girls, things for them to wear like an apron, or their dolls to wear, or even a hood for baby sisters and brothers. None of the knitting or crochet offers charts, only written directions, some photos of techniques and of final products, so a good deal of spatial imagination was needed. I suspect even a little girl could have enough patience to make a small cape for a doll and then by learning the techniques she might make be more ambitious in the future and make things for herself.
Notice how the library put girls in the kitchen peeling apples and the boy doing carpentry, when the hand skills of one activity would surely help in learning the other. But never fear, the book on sports has some enthusiastic urging on of girls to join in outdoor camping and sports, if only they could get rid of their hampering skirts. See how the boy is in short pants while her skirt goes to the floor. He would switch to long pants in his later teens as a sign of his approaching maturity.
I found this volume from Effie Archer Archer (yep, that is the name) from the Ohio State University Library collection via Google digitization which I got via Hathitrust through my university’s library. What all that means is that the book is so old that it is out of copyright and they could scan it as a result. But I also saw original volumes for sale on the web which tells you they sold a fair number at the time. The DIY urge which is with us now was with us back then as well.
