Hooking the Masses: Industrial Advancements and Wartime Crochet
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution played a huge role in the popularity of crochet moving into the 20th century. Not only did the mass production of textiles free women up to create by hand for leisure, it also meant more accessible and affordable tools and materials.
Before mass production, hooks would need to be made, typically out of bone or wood. Approaching the late 19th century, there is a shift to the use of metal crochet hooks, which rapidly became standard. They allowed for more uniform sizes, as well as using more delicate yarns or fibers, than bone, ivory, or wooden hand-carved hooks could. In the modern day, most crochet hooks are made of aluminum or plastic.
To learn more about the Industrial Revolution, and Crochet Hooks, click here.
Wartime Revival
While knitting was a much more popular craft during the World Wars, to create quality layers to send to soldiers at war, crochet also saw a distinctly wartime twist. Most war-effort crochet projects were made to stay at the home front, like these filet crochet tapestry patterns designed by Mary Card, a popular crochet and lace pattern maker at the time.
Some of the items that would be made for overseas were limited to a few different varieties of hats and gloves, as at the time crochet sweaters were seen as inferior to knit sweaters and were not approved to be sent to United States soldiers, although other armies did not have these limitations. It is suspected that the true source of the bias towards knitting over crochet is that knit garments are faster to make and take less yarn than crochet.