Hello Carolyn,
there is another aspect. The men inventing these machines with wich it
was possible to make first only the net and later laces of different
types, were proud about their intlectual work. And those group of
people no able to buy more laces than before admired it. By the way
first those machine made laces weren't socheap. Also the falling down
of "those cloths regulations" the becoming more self-assurance/
confidence of the bourgeoisie all those things together changed the
things. It was ctastrofical for the lacemakers but it help the mankind
to become free. There are always two sides ot a medallion.
Lacemaking is social history.
And if you ever see the machine made laces in the museum in Le Puy and
don't could believe that machines (the inventing brain of men) were
able to do so. Than you can't help you find it fascinating.
Ilske
Am 22. Mai 2008 um 18:58 schrieb Carolyn Hastings:
Her sentiments do her credit, but the irony is that the machine lace
(and
fabrics) that replaced the hand industries didn't improve the lot of
the
workers. If anything, it made it worse. The factories were
dangerous in
many ways, and the labor was brutal and constant. And I'm reminded of
William Cobbett's description of the decimation of the lacemaking
villages
of England, after the introduction of the machines. The livelihood
of many
was ruined by the machines.
Not sure in the end that machinery was any improvement in any way --
except
perhaps that a wider range of socio-economic classes could have
access to
lace after the machines became the norm.
Just my 2 cents worth, thank you for the interesting quote, Su.
Carolyn
Carolyn Hastings
Stow, MA USA
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf
Of Su Carter
Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2008 6:53 PM
To: Lace Arachne
Subject:
Hi all,
I chanced upon a lovely comment about lace by Fanny Kemble that I
thought you'd enjoy.
I was much interested by the lace-works at Brussels and
Mechlin, and very painfully so. It is beginning to be
time, I think, in Christian countries, for manufactures of
mere luxury to be done away with, when proficiency in
the merest mechanical drudgery involved in them demands
a lifetime, and the sight and health of women,
who begin this twilight work at five and six years old, are
often sacrificed long before their natural term to this
costly and unhealthy industry.
I hope to see all such manufactures done away with,
for they are bad things, and a whole moral and intelligent
being, turned into ten fingers' ends for such purposes, is
a sad spectacle. I (a lace-worshipper, if ever woman was)
say this advisedly; I am sorry there is still Mechlin and
Brussels lace made, and glad there is no more India
muslin, and rejoice in the disuse of every minute manual
labor which tends to make a mere machine of God's
likeness. But oh, for all that, how incomparably inferior
is the finest, faultless, machine-made lace and muslin to
the exquisite irregularity of the human fabric!...
Frances Ann Kemble, 1841
Su Carter, enjoying a lovely day in
Williamsburg, VA, USA
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