Knitting America: A Glorious Heritage from Warm Socks to High Art by Susan M. Strawn
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Book Reviews of Knitting America: A Glorious Heritage from Warm Socks to High Art
Book Review: a tad dry, but interesting nonetheless
Summary: 3 Stars
A lovely book for the lover of history and knitting. It combines the two in a rather dry way, but the photos and patterns are captivating.Book Review: Knitting America
Summary: 5 Stars
In addition to being an alternative look at the history of our country, this book has become an enjoyable coffee table book - for everyone. Excellent writing and the pictures alone are worth the purchase. Thank you!Book Review: Disappointing
Summary: 2 Stars
I had such high hopes for this book. There are not that many books that look at knitting from a historical perspective, and this one promised to do so with lots of illustrations. Unfortunately, the writer's credibility as a serious historian is lost on the first page when she states that the English settlement at Jamestown, Virginia did not last and moves on to Massachusetts as the locale of the first permanent English settlement in America. Any child in elementary school in America would recognize that this is just wrong. Jamestown was indeed the first permanent English settlement in America and continued to thrive for many years after its establishment. I was left baffled--did she confuse Jamestown with the Roanoke Island, North Carolina colony from the 16th Century that did not survive--and how could her editors not catch this glaring error on the first page of text? Notwithstanding this serious and very basic historical error, I decided to muscle on through the book. The remainder of the book, while written in serviceable prose, could never be described as engaging and certainly not entertaining. And I can't say much for her scholarship, which seems to consist mostly of having looked at a lot of commercially published pattern books through the 20th Century and deducing what she thinks knitting was all about from those. Most of the illustrations come from these commercial pattern books as well. Finally, this book has no serious chops as a pattern book--it doesn't include any pattern after WWII and, as another reviewer has indicated, provides no insight to a modern reader or knitter on how to interpret the early 20th century patterns, which are written very differently than modern patterns. All in all a disappointment--not a good history book, not a good overview of knitting as a cultural, historical or social phenomenon, not a very good coffee table book and certainly not a very good pattern book.Book Review: So very interesting
Summary: 5 Stars
Knitting America: A Glorious Heritage from Warm Socks to High Art celebrates the craft and its history in America within a context from the colonial period to the present.
Knitters are often curious about knitters and, in the past, little information has been available on knitting in America. Susan Strawn provides a fully detailed answer, exploring knitting from historical, cultural and artistic viewpoints. As Melanie Falick states in her introduction; "...Susan has placed the history of knitting within the context of American history, so we can clearly see how knitting is intertwined with such subjects as geography, migration, politics, economics, female emancipation, and evolving social mores."
The earliest knitters in America were probably taught by the Spanish who introduced desert "churra" sheep to the New World. By early 1600s, other European (knitting) nations had arrived along the Atlantic seaboard and by the early 1700s girls were recorded working on their spinning and knitting. The first half of Knitting America covers knitting from colonial times to the end of the 19th century. The second half looks at knitting from the beginning of the 20th century to modern times. Interspersed throughout are 20 historical knitting patterns including: an 1850s "necktie" scarf; fancy silk mittens from 1880s; an 1890s Victorian miser's purse; Civil War era Union Army socks; and a World War II U.S. Navy Iceland sweater.
Lavishly illustrated with more than 300 historical photographs, illustrations, advertisements, vintage pattern booklets and vintage garments selected from museum collections, Strawn has created a truly fascinating volume. This is the perfect coffee table book for lovers of fiber arts, as well as anyone interested in women's history in the United States of America.
Armchair Interviews says: Interesting march back to understand knitting's history.
Book Review: A book to make you want to grab your needles and start knitting!
Summary: 5 Stars
It was a fun read but also very informative. As a collector of vintage knitting pattern books, it also helped me put my small collection into a broader historical context. It really did make me want to grab my needles and start knitting something, not because of the patterns included with every chapter, but because of the feeling that I was part of a much bigger American phenomenon. It was that feeling of community with other knitters past and present that seemed to permeate the book that intrigued me the most. My twenty-something daughter and one of her friends read the book right after I did and were also fascinated with it, so you could say that it is an intergenerational treat, suitable for every knitter you know-- and those who may be just about to become knitters!