Knitting, autonomy and identity: The role of hand-knitting in the construction of women's sense of self in an island community, Shetland, c. 1850-2000

Textile History

Volumn 37, Issue 2, 2006, Pages 149-165

  Abrams, Lynn ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY; ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT; GENDER IDENTITY; HAND KNITTING; HANDICRAFT; HISTORY; WOMENS EMPLOYMENT;

EID: 33750142341     PISSN: 00404969     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1179/004049606X132078     Document Type: Article

References (67)

1. Shetland Archives (SA), D/135: The Scotsman (undated, c. 1990), advertisement for Robert Maule & Son, Edinburgh. This kind of sentiment was common. For example, "The work is mostly done at times when the knitters would otherwise be idle, such as in the long winter evenings, or at odd times in the ordinary routine of a crofter-fisherman's house';
2. SA, D1/135: Chambers's Journal, 31 July 1897.
3. For a full exegesis of this argument, see Lynn Abrams, Myth and Materiality in a Woman's World: Shetland 1800-2000 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005).
4. Linda G. Fryer, Knitting by the Fireside and on the Hillside: a History of the Shetland "and Knitting Industry c. 1600-1950 (Lerwick: Shetland Times Ltd, 1995), pp. 139-144 for a discussion of the trade mark.
5. See, for example, A. Douglas ed., How Might We Revalue Traditional Ways of Making? A Research Project Revaluing Shetland Knitting - The Maakin Lab (CD Rom, Aberdeen: The Robert Gordon University in collaboration with Performing Arts Laboratories, 2005).
6. See also www.ontheedgeresearch.org and www.maakin.org.
7. In 2002-2003 75 per cent of the market for Shetland hand-knitted hosiery was in Asia; Shetland in Statistics (Lerwick, 2003).
8. There are numerous independent producers on the islands making both innovative and 'traditional' garments. Shetland Handknits, for example, advertises a 'range of traditional Shetland and Fair Isle knitwear which has been handknitted by women in their own homes'. They boast handspun and hand-knitted 'heirloom' garments; www.shetland-handknits.co.uk. The Textiles Department at Shetland College states that it plays 'a pivotal role in sustaining traditional skills as well as developing new forms of production. We take a proactive approach to exploring sustainable alternatives that address both creativity and viable economic outcomes'. Quoted in Douglas ed., Traditional Ways of Making?
9. Elizabeth White quoted in Douglas ed., Traditional Ways of Making?
10. Anthony P. Cohen, Whalsay: Symbol, Segment and Boundary in a Shetland Island Community (Manchester: (Manchester University Press, 1987), pp. 115-116.
11. The average for Scotland was III females to every too males. Even in Dundee, a so-called 'woman's town', the ratio was 130:100.
12. "Census, 1881. For further details on sex ratios, marriage rates and household structures, see Abrams, Myth and Materiality, pp. 65-80.
13. See P. Sharpe, 'Literally Spinsters: a New Interpretation of Local Economy and Demography in Colyton in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries', Economic History Review, XLIV, no. 1 (1991), pp. 46-65, here p. 55.
14. See Fryer, Knitting by the Fireside for a more detailed description of the various processes and elements of hosiery production, pp. 24-37. For most of the nineteenth century most fishermen were engaged to fish for their landlords on a barter-truck basis, the catch being delivered to the merchant in payment of rent and in lieu of consumption goods advanced by the merchant to the fisherman's family.
15. S. O. Rose, 'Gender Segregation in the Transition to the Factory: the English Hosiery Industry, 1850-1910', Feminist Studies, 13 (1987), pp. 164-184, here 165-166.
16. See S. O. Rose, Limited Livelihoods: Gender and Class in Nineteenth Century England (London: Routledge, 1992), pp. 4-6.
17. I. D. Whyte, 'Proto-industrialisation in Scotland', in P. Hudson ed., Regions and Industries: a Perspective on the Industrial Revolution in Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 248;
18. M. Berg, The Age of Manufactures 700-1820 (Fontana: London, 1985), p. 128.
19. See H. Harden Chanut, 'The Gendering of Skill as Historical Process: the Case of French Knitters in Industrial Troyes, 1880-1939', in L. L. Frader and S. O. Rose eds, Gender and Class in Modern Europe (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996), pp. 77-107;
20. and Rose, 'Gender Segregation', pp. 167-168.
21. P. Hudson, 'Proto-industrialisation: the Case of the West Riding Wool Textile Industry in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries', History Workshop Journal, 12 (1982.), pp. 34-61, here p. 37;
22. Deborah Simonton, A History of European Women's Work, 1700 to the Present (London: Routledge, 1998), pp. 37-47.
23. Fryer, Knitting by the Fireside, pp. 156-157.
24. O. Hufton, 'Women and the Family Economy in Eighteenth Century France', French Historical Studies, 9 (1975), pp. 1-22;
25. Simonton, History of European Women's Work, p. 42.
26. Berg, Age of Manufactures, pp. 139-153
27. SA, D1/135: Dundee Advertiser, 9 September 1898.
28. In the 1891 census, of 6255 'occupied' females, 45 per cent were classified in the thread, hosiery and textile industries, 34 per cent in agriculture, 7 per cent in domestic service. Just 3 per cent can be identified as working in the professions and white collar work.
29. See Katrina Honeyman, Women, Gender and Industrialisation in England, 1700-1870 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000), pp. 73-76, 91-92.
30. See E. Higgs, 'Women, Occupations and Work in the Nineteenth Century Censuses', History Workshop Journal, 23 (1987), pp. 59-80.
31. See also B. Hill, 'Women, Work and the Census: a Problem for Historians of Women', History Workshop Journal, 35 (1993), pp. 78-94.
32. The term 'economy of makeshift' was coined by Olwen Hufton to refer to a culture of poverty whereby the poor would turn to any work opportunity to survive. Olwen Hufton, The Poor of Eighteenth-Century France 1750-1789 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974), pp. 69-127.
33. For example, Sharpe, 'Literally Spinsters';
34. Bernard Capp, When Gossips Meet: Women, Family and Neighbourbood in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003);
35. Laura Gowing, Domestic Dangers: Women, Words and Sex in Early Modern London (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).
36. Elizabeth Sanderson, Women and Work in Eighteenth-century Edinburgh (London: Macmillan Press, 1996).
37. Genuine Shetland hosiery was only ever made from wool from the Shetland breed of sheep and is said to be softer and finer than wool from other breeds.
38. British Parliamentary Papers, C (1st series) 5551: Commission to Inquire into the Truck System, Second Report (Shetland Evidence), 1872 (hereafter Truck, 1872), line 247.
39. Truck 1872, line 1762.
40. Truck 1872, line 1435.
41. Truck, 1872, lines 1881-1881.
42. Truck 1872, line 318.
43. Truck, 1872, line 11,535
44. Truck 1872, line 11, 605.
45. Truck 1872, lines 236-244.
46. Truck 1872, lines 257-300.
47. SA, D1/134: 'The Shetland hosiery trade', unattributed c. 1890.
48. The oral histories cited here were mostly undertaken in the I970s and 1980s as part of a Manpower Services Commission project. Others were part of the 'Family Life and Work Experience before 1918' project undertaken by Paul Thompson at Essex University.
49. SA, 3/2/10/1: Jeanie Hardie. The transcription in this and other extracts have been 'translated' from dialect into standard English.
50. Rose, Limited Livelihoods, pp. 82-88.
51. Simonton, History of European Women's Work, pp. 148-155.
52. A. J. Albert, 'Fit Work for Women: Sweated Home-workers in Glasgow, c. 1875-1914', in E. Gordon and E. Breitenbach eds, The World is III Divided: Women's Work in Scotland in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1990), pp. 158-177, here p. 162.
53. SA, CO 6/7/23: General Register of Poor belonging to Lerwick Parish, 1865-1872; CO 6/5/14: Record of Applications for Parochial Relief, Parish of Dunrossness 1892-1906.
54. SA, SC 12/6/1803/43: Petition anent defamation, 16 Nov. 1803
55. SA, database containing records of all cases heard in Lerwick sheriff court, 1837-1878.
56. SA, AD 22/2/1/29: Precognition - Robina and Ann Johnson, Mid Yell; theft, June 1853.
57. Truck 1872, line 357.
58. SA, SC 12/6/1871/63: theft and reset, 24 Nov. 1871;
59. AD 22/2/12./18: precognition of Charlotte Robertson, 12. Aug. 1871.
60. SA 3/2/19/2: Joan Williamson.
61. See Sally Cole, Women of the Praia: Work and Lives in a Portuguese Coastal Community (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1991).
62. Caroline Brettell, Men Who Migrate, Women Who Wait: Population and History in a Portuguese Parish (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986).
63. See Fryer, Knitting by the Fireside, pp. 49-64, for an examination of the continuing operation of truck after 1887.
64. SA 3/2/109/2: Katherine Bairnson.
65. Quoted in Douglas ed., Traditional Ways of Making?
66. Scottish Census Results 2001 online, www.scrol.gov.uk: Table KS09c Economic Activity - Females.
67. Scottish Census Results 2001 online, www.scrol.gov.uk: Table KS11c Industry of Employment - Females.