The Deerfield Society of Blue and White Needlework

The Deerfield Society of Blue and White Needlework Another Model for American Economic Entrepreneurship

Andrew Carnegie • By 1890 Andrew Carnegie had take risks during the economic depression of 1873 and built the biggest steel production facility in the world at Homestead, a mill town outside of Pittsburgh.

In this first business model called vertical integration, • Carnegie grew his business by soon owning all of the necessary means of production including raw materials, • Purchasing the methods of transportation such as railroads and shipping, • And becoming one of his own customers by creating his own markets for his manufactured goods.

JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER • In Cleveland, John D. Rockefeller had used many questionable tactics to monopolize over 90% of the oil refining business in the world. He too had taken many risks and created his own business model for success.

This business model, called horizontal integration, • Depends on one type of business removing all of its competitors, regardless of the consequences or damage to the competitors. • This monopolistic pattern is often called a trust and it can harm consumers.

At the same time in Deerfield, Massachusetts, a town even smaller than Grove City, the economic depression of 1893 hit very hard. • The members of the town had previously found success through fattening cattle for market in Boston in an industry known as stall-fed cattle. • The second major nonagricultural business had been broom making.

But, as we say, TIMES CHANGE. • By 1890 both previous money-making enterprises were failing. • New sources of food from the west were competing with little Deerfield for the lucrative Boston market. • Mass-produced brooms were putting many from Deerfield out of work. • This was the situation in this small town and in many parts of the country.

Imagine yourself living in a small town, a kind of bubble town. (I know it’s a stretch, but try). • How would you cope with this job and money crisis? • How would you encourage economic stability in town? • Who would you expect to solve these problems?

Now imagine that you are locked into this situation in several ways. • Your skills are very limited. • You have few job options open to you. • You are married and can’t move away from your family. • You are female and can’t move away from your family. (it is 1890, you recall) • You are not wealthy enough to begin a factory or an oil refinery (and Carnegie and Rockefeller have saturated the market anyway. )

WHAT DO YOU DO? Turn to the person beside you and make a quick drawing of two or three legal ways to earn enough money to solve your money problems. ( Keep in mind the skills that you do have and try to use them. )

Did you draw something that looked like this? • This is the inspiration from 1760 that changed the town of Deerfield. • This is a child’s dress of linen. Each design is embroidered by hand with indigo-dyed linen thread. • Women of the town took this and other samples of 140 year old embroidery and from them created an extremely successful third business model. • (Historic Deerfield, Flynt Museum)

They created the Deerfield Society of Blue and White Needlework. • In their homes they stitched new pieces of needlework based on authentic patterns they had gathered from all of the country and beyond. • They kept the quality high and organized their business with great precision. • (Photo by the Allen Sisters, courtesy of the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association)

• The four women who began this enterprise were highly educated. • Ellen Miller and Margaret Whiting had studied art at the New York Academy of Design. • Margaret Miller had studied wood engraving at Cooper Union in New York City. • Julia Whiting was a trained journalist on the staff of the Springfield Republican.

INSPIRATION **PRESERVATION OF OLD PIECES • Margaret Whiting and Ellen Miller saw the condition of the beautiful pieces of antique needlework in the Memorial Hall Museum of the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association. • Soon they had decided to create one exact copy of each piece before the work of earlier women was totally lost.

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT **STITCHES • The founders of the Blue and White Society had to teach themselves the 9 basic stitches by examining the traditional pieces and even taking some of them apart. • The variety of the pieces depended on the multitude of variations of those 9 basic stitches- outline, buttonhole, herringbone, chain, feather, honeycomb, lattice, knots, and, most frequently, “laid stitch. ” • Then, as they brought additional women into the Society they had to maintain quality control by teaching each new member the same skills. (Pattern from Margery Burnham Howe’s Deerfield Embroidery)

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT **COLLECTION OF EARLY PATTERNS IN TRAVELS AROUND COUNTY • They often paid $5 or $10 to copy the pattern of an old piece of needlework and created an exceptional library of the old styles. (Pattern from Deerfield Embroidery by Margery Burnham Howe)

The founders were familiar with the Englishman John Ruskin and his popular ideas about an ideal society. • According to Ruskin, he envisioned a Utopian society where each person would get a small piece of land, work with others cooperatively, and learn a manual skill. • The employers would never have huge factories since that would not be beneficial to the workers. • The founders knew of Ruskin’s Ideal and they tried to make conditions as tolerable as possible for the women working in their homes. They paid them a fair wage and providing them with quality materials and clear directions.

COST OF BUSINESS (COB) **LABOR POOL • In a small town of several hundred people, the Society had many women in 1896 who had to support themselves or aid their families. The membership of the Society usually numbered 20 to 30 local women at any one time. • Because many men had died in the Civil War, left for the West, or no longer farmed, women in towns like Deerfield could no longer depend on the land or their spouse to be the total support for the family.

COST OF BUSINESS (COB) **RAW MATERIALS • While the Society did not weave its own linen, it did control the quality quite carefully and even dyed its own threads to match the materials. • Ellen Miller became the dye specialist. • The women carefully purchased high quality materials that would not deteriorate or get motheaten. --Linen thread from Scotland --Fabric from Mc. Cutcheons in New York and Berea College in Kentucky

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT **NEW DESIGNS • This is a Blue and White Society design blending the traditional patterns and stitches with a bit of Chinese influence from an old mandarin coat Margaret Whiting owned. • This new pattern was always worked in shades of madder, a color of rose that went from light gray to very deep rose to light rose in some parts.

Bed Headcloth • Members of the society created this as part of a complete set of bed hangings for a four poster bed in 1900 -1915. • It demonstrates part of the town’s colonial heritage as well as shows modern Art Noveau themes. • (Historic Deerfield display, Flynt Museum)

This is one of the new pieces that the Deerfield Society of Blue and White Needlework created, It now hangs in the Memorial Hall Museum. Notice that as the designs became more artistic, the color-filled name fits the kind of work the women do less well. This has a strong Japanese influence.

QUALITY CONTROL **CIRCULAR D TRADEMARK • The “D” inside the circular wheel on which the parrot is perched is the distinctive Deerfield Society of Blue and White Needlework trademark.

This is a table scarf draped over a stand. Notice the parts that look like wheels under the trailing branches. They contain the trademark “D” that marked their work. (Historic Deerfield, Flynt Museum)

WHAT DO YOU DO? THIS IS WHAT THEY DID. • The women of Deerfield created a name brand, The Deerfield Society of Blue and White Needlework. • They marketed the work by selling their exceptional pieces out of their “old” homes in a personal space. • They appealed to the love of tradition, authenticity and history. • They appealed to the desire for handmade items in a time of mass production. • They used each person in the position that maximized her best abilities. • They invented new, more artistic items when some of the more traditional designs lost their appeal. • They kept extraordinarily precise records and did time and motion studies on their work. • They supported each other to get the goods created. • They moved from handcrafts for personal use into a new business model, one based in the homes of small town women.

HOW DOES THE BUSINESS CONTINUE TO SHAPE THE TOWN 100 YEARS LATER? • THE ART OF THE DEERFIELD SOCIETY OF BLUE AND WHITE NEEDLEWORK CONTINUES TO BE PRESERVED, VALUED, AND COPIED BY HISTORIANS, ARTISTS, AND NEEDLEWORKERS.

CRAFT FAIRS CELEBRATE THE ARTISTIC TRADITION TWICE YEARLY.

TODAY MUCH OF THE TOWN HAS BEEN PRESERVED AND RENAMED HISTORIC DEERFIELD.

HISTORIC DEERFIELD HAS BECOME A MAJOR STUDY AREA FOR LIFE IN THE PAST. IT IS A CENTER OF HISTORIC PRESERVATION, DOCUMENTATION, AND SCHOLARSHIP OF NEW ENGLAND LIFE.

HISTORIC DEERFIELD IS THE SETTING FOR THE PRESTIGIOUS DEERFIELD ACADEMY. (Photo by Amanda Merullo of the Stebbins House, Historic Deerfield. )

DEERFIELD IS A TOURIST DESTINATION.

The Deerfield Society of Blue and White Needlework was active from 1896 until 1926. • But its influence, as you can see, lives long after the actual stitching has ended.

HOW DOES THIS MODEL CONTRAST WITH CARNEGIE’S AND ROCKEFELLER’S? • Draw a Venn Diagram in your notebook. Label one circle “factory-based businesses” and the other “home-based businesses. ” • Work with the person sitting next to you to find the differences and similarities in the types of businesses.

Bibliography • American Arts and Antiques, September-October 1979. • Higgins, Gladys Damon. “The Blue and White Society. ” Henry Flynt Library (Call number 746. 44 H 636 b. ) 39 -44. • Howe, Margery Burnham. Deerfield Embroidery. Deerfield, Massachusetts, Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, 1976 (Call number 746. 44 H 857 d). • _____. “Early American Embroideries in Deerfield, Massachusetts. ” Henry Flynt Library (Call number 746. 44 H 857 e).