Lace industry

“ No existing Irish lace industry is as old as the appliqué lace which has been made in the neighbourhood of Carrickmacross since the year 1820. The process of its manufacture is simple enough, for the pattern is cut from cambric and applied to net with point stitches. ”

“ The lace industry continued to increase in value till the beginning of the present century. The year 1801 may be considered its culminating point. At that period the number of peasants employed in Tönder and its neighbourhood alone was 20,000. Even little boys were taught to make lace till strong enough to work in the fields, and there was scarcely a house without a lace-maker, who would sit before her {276}cottage door, working from sunrise till midnight, singing the ballads handed down from their Brabant teachers. ”

“ They also made what was termed "dentelles de menage" with the coarse thread they used for weaving their cloth. They edged their linen with it, and both bleached together in the wearing.
The lace region of Central France, of which Le Puy is the centre, is considered to be the most ancient and considerable in France. It is distributed over the four departments, [649] and employs from 125,000 to 130,000 women. It forms the sole industry of the Haute-Loire, in which department alone are 70,000 lace-makers.
The lace industry of Le Puy, like all others, has experienced various changes ”

“ In 1855 the number of workers employed numbered 1,500. In 1869 there were less than 500. In 1869 Mrs. Palliser writes of the tambour lace industry: "The existing depression of the trade has been partly caused by the emigration of girls to America and the colonies, while glove-making and army clothing employ the rest; and indeed the manufacture aiming only at cheapness had produced a lace of inferior quality, without either novelty or beauty of design, from which cause Limerick lace has fallen into disrepute." ”

“ One of the most interesting developments of the lace industry has been the gradual evolution from the work of the hand toilers to the utilization of complex machinery. In addition to the Leavers machine, which is referred to elsewhere in extenso, the embroidery machine plays a very important part in the making of laces. From 1870 to 1880, various efforts had been made to produce lace on the embroidery machine, and it was during this decade that the first success was achieved in the making of Oriental or net laces in Plauen. ”

“ In some cases, however, in the lace counties, the County Council Technical Education Committee have supplemented private efforts with grants for classes to teach the lace industry.
The wages of a lace-worker average a shilling a day; under press of business, caused by the demand for some fashionable article, they sometimes rise to one shilling and sixpence. ”

“ After much advice from persons already versed in industrial work, also after several generous givers had furnished the money, with the Arts and Crafts Society to influence it, Mrs. Weber to introduce it, and the Women's Residence of the South End to house it, the first lace industry in this country was begun February 18, 1901, with one pupil. Miss Elizabeth Feely. Her progress was watched with interest, and in the first week was begun a simple, narrow insertion of English thread lace, that was salable at sixty cents a yard. ”

“ Cantu, a small town near Lake Como, is one of the greatest lace-producing centres in Italy. The lace industry was planted there in the sixteenth century by the nuns of the Benedictine order, and until fifty years ago was confined to simple and rude designs. During the latter half of the nineteenth century, however, the industry has been revived and the designs improved. Thousands of women throughout the province work at it and dispose of their lace independently to travelling merchants, or work under the direction of the Cantuese lace-merchants. ”

“ Of course, we know that great efforts have been made to help the real lace industry already, but it is evident that it is not a thing that everyone could afford, so that the machine laces must be used ”

“ The paralysis of the industry had hit more than the women of Le Velay. It had affected the colporteurs who brought to the market of Le Puy the linen thread out of which the lace was made. It is remarkable that at a time when roads were execrable, and means of communication faulty, the lacemakers were dependent on Holland for the material with which they worked. The linen of the district was too coarse to serve, and all that was used by them was derived from the Low Countries.
Lacemaking continues to be the main industry of the country. ”

“ Jens Wulff, an eminent lace-dealer, Knight of the Danebrog, who has made great exertions to revive the lace industry in Denmark.
[740]
Tönder lace was celebrated for its durability, the best flax or silk thread only being used.
[741]
"A lace-maker earns from 31⁄2d. to 41⁄2d. per day of sixteen hours."—Rawert's Report. 1848.
[742]
The Tönder lace-traders enjoy the privilege of offering their wares for sale all over Denmark without a license (concession) , a privilege extended to no other industry. ”

“ At Beer, where fishing is the staple industry, in bad fish seasons the women can earn more than the men; and at Honiton in the hard winter of 1895 the lace-makers kept themselves and their families, and were spared applying for relief—all honour to their skill and self-helpfulness. ”

“ I obtained gold medals for my work at the Exhibitions of 1894 at Antwerp and 1900 at Paris, besides others at Lisbon."—Letter from Dona Maria Bordallo Pinheiro, head of the Lace Industry Department at Lisbon, 1901.
[316]
"There are now seven families employed in the fabrication of Maltese lace, which is made almost entirely by men; the women occupy themselves in the open-work embroidery of muslin" (1869) . ”

“ The same pattern, with the same material, whether executed in Belgium, Saxony, Lille, Arras, Mirecourt, or Le Puy, will always bear the stamp of the place where it is made. It has never been possible to transfer any kind of manufacture from one city to another without there being a marked difference between the productions."—Aubry.
"After the French Revolution, when so many lace-makers fled to Belgium, Alost, Ypres, Bruges, Ghent, Menin, and Courtrai became the centres of this industry, and the lace produced in each town has a distinctive feature in the ground. ”

“ Old lace-makers will tell stories of the cruel severities practised on the children in the dame schools of their day—of the length of time they sat without daring to move from the pillow, of prolonged punishments imposed on idle apprentices, and other barbarities, but these are now tales of the past. [1167]
Ever since the Great Exhibition of 1851 drew attention to the industry, different persons have been trying to encourage both better design and better manufacture, but {416}the majority of the people have sought a livelihood by meeting the extensive demand for cheap laces. ”

“ Defoe, however, who visited each county in detail, quotes "Ouldney as possessing a considerable manufacture of bone lace"; {379}while a letter from the poet Cowper to the Rev. John Newton, in 1780, enclosing a petition to Lord Dartmouth in favour of the lace-makers, declares that "hundreds in this little town are upon the point of starving, and that the most unremitting industry is barely sufficient to keep them from it." A distress caused, we may infer, by some caprice of fashion. ”

“ There is also a needle-point lace made of rather coarse thread, and used exclusively in Ireland and England. The manufacture of laces in Ireland is carried on by the cottagers, by the nuns in the convents, and in several industrial schools founded for that purpose. It has only become a popular industry within the last twenty-five years, as the costumes of the people in earlier times did not require lace ornamentation, and there was a widespread and deep-rooted aversion to the adoption of English fashions in clothing so long as certain sumptuary laws were unrepealed. ”

“ The pattern is surrounded by a heavy thread, and composed of a close stitch worked between the meshes of a coarse net ground. This lace somewhat resembles Dalecarlian lace. In the eighteenth century fine pillow lace was also made in these provinces. The celebrated industry of Offida in the Marche has sunk into artistic degradation. ”

“ Lace-making was introduced in 1536 by merchants from Italy and Venice. Many women, seeing a means of livelihood in such work, quickly learned it, and reproduced lace with great skill. They first copied old patterns, but soon were enabled to invent new ones of great beauty. The industry spread itself about the country, and was carried to great perfection: it was found to be one specially suitable for women, and brought in good profits. In the beginning these laces were used solely for trimming chemises and shirts ”

“ In 1561, having procured aid from Flanders, she set up a work-shop in Annaburg for lace-making. This branch of industry spread beyond Bavaria, giving employment to thirty thousand persons, and producing a revenue of one million thalers.
Italy and Flanders dispute the invention of lace, but it was probably introduced into both countries about the same time. The Emperor Charles V. commanded lace-making to be taught in schools and convents. A specimen of the manufacture of his day may be seen in his cap, now preserved in the museum at Hôtel Cluny, Paris. ”

“ Steel Lace.—A new branch of industry is going to revolutionize the lace trade. A New York dealer in laces is exhibiting a specimen of lace of an extremely delicate pattern, and so light that it can almost be blown away by a breath of air. ”

“ The produce of this industry was smuggled {270}back into France, the goods conveyed across the Jura over passes known only to the bearers, by which they avoided the custom-house duties of Valence. "Every day," writes Jambonneau, himself a manufacturer, "they tell my wife what lace they want, and she takes their orders." Louis XIV. was furious. [726]
Though lace-making employed many women in various parts of the country, who made a common description while tending their flocks in the mountains, Neufchâtel has always been the chef-lieu of the trade. ”

“ In a pamphlet published 1702, entitled, An Accompt carried between England and Scotland, alluding to the encouragement of the yarn trade, the author says: "This great improvement can be attested by the industry of many young gentlewomen that have little or no portion, by spinning one pound of fine lint, and then breaking it into fine flax and whitening it. One gentlewoman told me herself that, by making an ounce or two of it into fine bone lace, it was worth, or she got, twenty pounds Scots for that part of it ”

“ It is a fact that for many years the town of Alençon subsists only by means of these small works of lace: that the same people make and sell, and in years of scarcity they subsist only by this little industry, and that wishing to {190}take away their liberty, they were so incensed I had great difficulty in pacifying them. ”

“ About twenty years later we read, "The lace manufacture, which is very ancient, has much diminished since the points, embroidered muslins, and gauzes have gained the preference; yet good workers earn sufficient to live comfortably; but those who have not the requisite dexterity would do well to seek some other trade, as inferior lace-workers are unable to earn sufficient for a maintenance." ”

“ Courtrai and the nearby villages where the lace is actually made, still stand, tho many buildings have been destroyed, but while her people were not forced to become refugees, lace-making was seriously interrupted; workers were evicted from their homes and their schools. And they suffered further because there was scarcely any thread left, the dealers often asking as much as 20 cents for 3⁄4 of a yard of lace thread, about the previous value of the same length in finished lace. ”

“ Making lace, during the war, had been one of the most lucrative employments. But home-made lace could only be tolerated, when no other could be procured; and as soon as importation become easy, it sunk into total disuse. Spinning, weaving, and braiding straw were by turns tried. But all afforded her only a scanty subsistence. ”

“ They are all sold separate, and you will see a very pretty sprig, for which the worker only gets twelve sous. The masters who have all these people employed give them the thread to make them; this they do according to a pattern, and give them out to be grounded; after this they give them to a third hand, who 'hearts' all the flowers with the open work. That is what makes this lace so much dearer than the Mechlin, which is wrought all at once. ”

“ When they were gone, the proprietor turned to me: "You see," he said, "the public is still uncultivated; we are forced to keep rubbish in our trade to satisfy those whose taste does not rise above rubbish." Now it is the same with regard to lace. There is badly designed lace as well as that which is as good as anything drawn by a great master in the past. ”

“ It was made on the pillow. Much was exported to Spain and the Indies. How those exiled workmen were received by the Protestant princes of Europe, and allowed to establish themselves in their dominions, to the loss of France and the enrichment of the lands of their adoption, will be told in due time, when we touch on the lace manufactures of Holland and Germany. (Plate LVIII.)
Since 1784, little lace has been made in Paris itself, but a large number of lace-makers are employed in applying the flowers of Binche and Mirecourt upon the bobbin-net grounds. ”