I first began to travel at age 40, 40 years ago.  After Switzerland (everyone should go there at least once), I took embroidery tours of the UK.  What impressed me in the small villages, especially in the Cotswolds, was the community buildings available to residents.  These usually resembled 19th and early 20th C. one-room schoolhouses in the U.S.  About the same size, vestibule, windows on both sides that let in plenty of light, and a stage up at center front.  I suppose the stage was for performances and meetings.   The buildings I visited in England were used for craft and flower shows.  I got the impression these sites were used by many women who had lost sweethearts and husbands in the two World Wars and needed a social life with others, and also by war veterans.  I thought them quite wonderful, and wished every town in America had similar.  (In the 19th and early 20th centuries in America there were Grange halls in many rural communities.  One still standing - about 4 miles from my home - is still being used for craft fairs, antique shows, and local performances.)  I think that after WWII people had few resources and had to be highly taxed so war debts could be repaid and their nations rebuilt.  What is being written makes a lot of sense to me.  Women who could marry and raise a family after 1945 probably had too much to do as home makers.  Gawthorpe opened to the public about  twenty years after the end of WWII, at a time when women would finally have time to make lace.  Dianne Derbyshire, an Arachne member, works there as a volunteer.  She can probably comment on what I've written, if there are questions.  Gawthorpe, in England at  http://www.gawthorpetextiles.org.uk/  became what it is after 2 generations of men in Rachel Kay-Shuttleworth's family lost their lives in the two wars.  Two died in 1917; two died in 1940.  Kay-Shuttleworth, 1949 MBE, lived from 1886-1967.  She was the last family member to live at Gawthorpe; she never married.  War losses are very apparent in the family tree published in a book about Shuttleworth's sister, Angela James.  The family tree is a form of validation of the problem of more women than men in some countries that were at war in the 20th C.  Today, Gawthorpe is a National Trust property, used for the study of material arts - lace, embroidery, ceramics, etc. Â
Devon, you will learn much at the web site given. Â It is a great place to get ideas for museum activities and guild programs. Â Jeri Ames in Maine USA Lace and Embroidery Resource Center - To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [email protected]. For help, write to [email protected]. Photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/
