WORK BAGS AND THEIR USES©

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knitting bag, sewing bag, workbag

Gentle readers, today’s post departs from gardening and cooking as sometimes happens.  I hope that some of you find it useful.

To research an 18th or 19th century lady’s collection of sewing implements it helps to know what the collection was called during that time. While one can research individual tools, the container that held them, always ready for easy availability, was most often called a work bag. References are found from articles and books published as early as the 1700’s.

It was important that every woman knew how to sew and embroidery. More well-to-do women and girls might have worked on more delicate garments and smaller fancy items such as handkerchiefs, doll clothes, or delicate underpinnings, but they were still expected to perfect their sewing skills. Most girls learned embroidery stitches by making samplers.

Work-bags ranged from strictly utilitarian to being knitted or made of satin and decorated with tassels, embroidery, and other embellishments and were often made to give as gifts to a friend or loved one. They were often made to sell at church bazaars.

Women commonly carried work-bags with them as they visited friends, sometimes working on their needlework as they carried on their conversations. Young girls often had their own workbags.

“. . . and brought, for each of the little girls, a present of a sattin [sic] work-bag ornamented with gold. There was in each bag a needle-book, and a piece of muslin, on which was drawn a pretty design”.

In addition to sewing tools a work bag was also used to carry everyday items as one might use a tote bag today. It might have contained items such as keys, a piece of jewelry, letters or notes, money, toothpick cases, books, sewing, knitting, or embroidery projects, gloves, handkerchief, etc. or it may, on occasion, have been used to gather nuts or flowers. A housewife (a sewn sewing kit of sorts used for holding pins, needles, buttons, etc.) was often part of the contents of a workbag. In 1841 an article was published about the early use of potatoes in which a woman of 45 years said the first potato they ever saw was kept in her mother’s work-bag to await the season for planting.

Reading material and calling cards were often kept in work-bags. “I did intend reading something to the children,” said their mother, as she drew a paper from her work-bag”. The work bags also held scissors, a bodkin, and needles.

Sewing is done by choice today but in times past clothes were made and mended and the tools to do the job were in constant use. A woman valued them because replacing them was a hardship. A poem [published 1831] entitled “Careless Matilda” addresses a young lady who haphazardly leaves her sewing tools scattered about, never knowing where anything is.

“Again, Matilda, is your work astray,
Your thimble gone! Your scissors, where are they?
Your needles, pins, your thread, and tapes all lost—
Your Housewife here, and there your work bag tost [tossed]”.

The following quote demonstrates the importance of carefully storing away a work-bag for the next time it was needed. “. . . then Lucy’s mother kissed her, and said to her, put your work into your work-bag, and put your work-bag into its place, and then come back to me.”

My workbag is made of toile after a pattern published in Godey’s Lady’s Book. It is a good size with pockets sewn around for keeping various items together. It has a drawstring closure. It has held everything documented above at one time or another. Researching workbags reminded me how much I need to reorganize mine and be as faithful about keeping my sewing implements together in it as my predecessors were. At my age one would hope to be better organized than I generally am.

ESTRANGED CHILDREN: New Epidemic or Old Problem?©

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estrangement of children

There are many reasons children become estranged from parents, many of which are selfish and misguided.  I’m no stranger to this phenomenon, nor are some of my friends and acquaintances.  A child that was abused naturally is unlikely to have a relationship with parents as an adult, but situations where a grown child becomes estranged from parents because a spouse wants to spend all their free time with his or her own parents or a divorced parent who spitefully turns a child against the other parent is selfish in the extreme.

Is this a new problem with this generation?  No.  That is a small consolation to those who are deprived of a relationship with grandchildren, however.

In 1856, Heinrich Thiersch addressed one cause of estrangement – that of parents who make it a life commitment to complain about some negative behavior on the part of the child instead of addressing it and then giving the child the opportunity to learn from the mistake and strive to live a good life.  A footnote stressed that his message was not admonishing parents to overlook bad behavior and allow it to continue, but not to continuously berate the child for past mistakes after the situation has been properly dealt with.

“Continuance of anger, repetition of reproaches, and the renewed reminding of children, without sufficient reason of that which is past, are the most usual causes of that disheartening and estrangement against which the Apostle warns us, as against the greatest evil; “Fathers provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged;” for if once the children be embittered against their father and mother, and have closed their hearts against them, and are without faith in the love and conscientiousness of their parents; what word can still find an entrance with them?  No man can step into the father’s place, for the estranged children will not have an ear for the fatherly word, but only for the mischievous tattle of false worldly friends.”

In past times relatives often lived with family and most of the time that was a positive experience for all, however, an 1888 article addressed the problem when a live-in relative possessed a vile temper and nasty disposition that disrupted the peace and harmony of the home.  “. . . the parents who know that such an unhealthful influence exists in their home, should endeavor to remove it, and prevent future trouble for themselves that may find maturity in estranged children and a ruined home”.

Our perception of the Gilded Age is one of more genteel times, but truthfully, divorce was already a ready escape for unhappy spouses.  My great grandmother claimed to be an orphan with no idea who her parents were; however, I’m a pretty decent researcher and in recent years found the divorce record of her parents which solidified my suspicions regarding her home life.  Her father was found on census records in more than one household with different “wives” and different sets of children whose birth dates overlapped those of my great grandmother and her siblings.  Recently I found my gg grandparents’ divorce records in which he was brought to task for his many infidelities against gg grandma who was his only legitimate wife.  She named names in court – both of the other women and of his illegitimate children with them.  He denied all, but I already knew from the census records that he had been a philanderer and apparently the judge agreed as he was ordered to pay her alimony for life.  She died less than ten years later.  His actions and the reactions of the community so embarrassed my great grandmother, however, that she died never revealing to her husband and children who her parents were or what her actual early home life was like.

Reviewing old books and court cases from the Victorian era shows that their situation and mine is no different from countless other families.  Estrangement occurred, for example, when one parent spitefully turned children against the other, grown children resented the remarriage of a divorced or widowed parent, a faithless spouse was considered too immoral for the court to allow a relationship with the children, children grew into reprehensible adults committing crimes that pious parents could not condone, a father could not resist the evils of drink and became estranged from his impoverished wife and children, etc.  Accounts were found of parents who felt alienated when an adult daughter or son chose to go into monastic life or a convent when their decision was actually made out of love of God, not a lack of love for earthly parents.

In 1894, “Good Housekeeping” published a piece on husbands and wives who refused to get along with their mothers and fathers-in-law resulting in the estrangement of child from parents.  Reasons cited included children recently married who suddenly viewed parents’ concern for their welfare as interference, jealousy of the close relationship the other spouse had with mother or father, resentment toward the mother of a deceased spouse who naturally felt drawn to care for an infant or small child, and a spouse resentful of care and support given to a widowed mother-in-law.

Regardless of time period, perhaps the greatest loss when estrangement occurs between parent and child is the resultant separation of grandchild and grandparent.  A child who is deprived of the grandparent’s love and life experience suffers as acutely as the grandparent who can’t help but love children they don’t even know but for whom they a feel a strong connection that can never be severed.  The latter is much like grieving the loss of the child over the course of a lifetime.

In closing let’s note the return of members to the Church, was frequently compared to an estranged child returning to parents in sermons from the early Victorian era.  “Like estranged children we are returning to union and reconciliation; we, through greater diligence and faithfulness in our high commission, to a deeper sense of our position, our office, and our sacraments. . .”

Since this article is of a material culture nature and not about food I will not leave you with my customary “Blissful Meals”, but will instead wish anyone experiencing these problems peace and reconciliation.