Everyone, Of course the 2-volume set by Ricci is on the Arizona site. They are my books, and sharing is fun. These were especially needed in remote locations. Nice letters of thanks came from Australian lacemakers, for example. The Charlotte Kellogg book "Bobbins of Belgium" was a gift from Tess to me much earlier, and it went back to her to be scanned for the Arizona project when she began it. If you want to learn more about the very necessary effort to supply food to starving Belgians, the name of the effort, headed by Herbert Hoover in London, was "The Commission for Relief in Belgium". It was not one person, but many people, who made the effort to save the civilian population of Belgium. There were complex negotiations with the Germans for bringing in food, clothing, etc. - and for bringing in threads for the making of lace (the finished lace was weighed, to verify that no thread was stolen for private use). The lace was then sent out to raise money. If I remember correctly from my research, part of this Commission's mission provided the foundation (idea) for The Marshall Plan connected with the second World War. Kellogg's books are easy reading, and enjoyable -- not the usual war books. If you like "Bobbins of Belgium", you should know there is a second book by Charlotte Kellogg -- "Women of Belgium, Turning Tragedy to Triumph", published in 1917 by Funk & Wagnalls Company, with an introduction by Herbert C. Hoover. Kellogg was the only American woman member of the Commission, and went into Belgium to do her book research and prepare reports when there were still German soldiers retreating. It was quite difficult, for all the roads in Belgium had turned to mud, and she had one of the very few motor vehicles available. She went into small villages where peasants had never seen a motor vehicle! It tells of how they distributed food, clothing, etc. *If you are currently a volunteer working on providing food to the needy, I think you might be enlightened by reading this second book. Ask your librarian to get it from Interlibrary Loan.* Since so much was destroyed in Belgium at this time, you can begin to understand what happened to the lace flax crops. After the war, the women went to work in factories that paid more than lacemaking. The entire country had to be rebuilt; they needed everything. I wrote quite a bit about this period several times before - on Arachne. There is a Herbert Hoover Presidential Library that you can Google. You can search for it and look at all the exhibits and read the history there. The section about Mrs. Hoover is very interesting -- you will marvel at her accomplishments. You can also search our Arachne archives: _http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/index.html_ (http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/index.html) Type "Hoover" in the Search box. Jeri Ames in Maine USA Lace and Embroidery Resource Center
In a message dated 4/23/2012 12:41:11 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [email protected] writes: The whole 2 volume set is online, hosted at the University of Arizona's website. Here's the link: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~spok/metabook/oilace.html Volume 1 has more to do with the needle laces, with Volume 2 concentrating more on bobbin laces. It's fascinating to read, and tons of pretty pictures (although all in black and white). - To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [email protected]. For help, write to [email protected]. Photo site: http://community.webshots.com/user/arachne2003/albums/most-recent
