Society Work Embroidery
Society Work Silk Embroidery
"Society Work" has become the nickname for silk embroidery that was rumoured to have been produced by the "society ladies," what we'd today call "the ladies who lunch." These women of wealth and leisure would get together in the afternoons (presumably when the "help" was doing the real work) and chitchat and embroider. It was a social phenomenom but there was a competetive edge to this as well. It dates from around 1900-1920s, though it occurs 20-30 years prior to this and 10-20 years after. The thread manufacturers offered the patterns as kits which were often of superb quality, including beautiful designs and colors. The company offered the hostess a free kit as an incentive if she got four guests to purchase kits.
The designs are usually fine silk floss on fine linen, and some are quite realistic... they resembling botanical drawings. They feature naturalistic flowers that are identifiable, ribbons that seem to flow, plump strawberries that look as though they could be picked up and eaten. The women competed to have the most accomplished and most beautiful pieces. Of course, there were many levels of accomplishment and many levels of quality. Some designs border on the wild and whimsical, some are simple and some were made by amateur embroiderers, but even these can have a lot of charm. Although it is usually silk floss on a good quality linen, this type of work was also embroidered on cotton with silk, mercerized cotton, wool, or plain cotton, threads.
Due to the materials and the fact that they were proudly displayed and used, they often have some wear and tear, but make are an interesting and relatively inexpensive series to collect.
Note: In June, 2004, I acquired an embroidered piece (shown just below) that is stamped in white with the words "No 5652, Royal Society Floss." This makes me wonder about the origin of the name for the naturalistic silk floss embroidery that has come to be called "society work." Tradition holds that it was called this because only wealthy society ladies had the time to produce such realistic and time-consuming work. Perhaps it was called that because the name of the company that produced the kits was the "Royal Society" company? We may never know. "Society Work" is charming, useful and sometimes astonishing.
Observations from an email friend:
There was an eBay auction (summer 2004) for a "Royal Society Floss Booklet." It had an explanation of what they offered in the description, including pre-stamped embroidery kits. Also, in my research, I have found that "Fancy Work" or "Artistic Needlework," as it was called back then, was extremely popular as early as 1890, and possibly before. I have an 1890 issue of Ladies Home Journal, and there is a huge focus on "Fancy Work" embroidery. The LHJ offered free "Stamping Outfits" to ladies who got a group of 3 or 4 other ladies to sign up for a year's subscription. (If you didn't want to do that, you could pay cash for the kit). There are 10 pages in the December 1890 issue alone with different stamping kits, including many patterns illustrated to choose from. They sold their own silk embroidery floss ~ it was actually marked Ladies Home Journal. They also had a column in each magazine issue called, "Stray Stitches," that detailed different forms of handwork in each edition, including crochet, sewing, and fancy work embroidery.
The "Stamping Outfits" in the December 1890 issue of LHJ sell for anywhere from .50 cents to $1.50 each. But they had a program where you gathered together a "club" of yearly subscribers to the magazine, and you sent in your $1.00 for the individual magazine subscriptions together, the person who sent in the club could choose a stamping outfit of her choice. They were free if you sent in a club of four subscribers. If you could only get 3 subscribers, you could still get the outfit but had to pay .25 cents. If you only had 2, you paid .50 cents. There are also embroidery silks that one would order. The prices of those are approx. .50 cents, and a really neat "Ladies' Spool Silk Casket," which is a little box with spools of silk. There are also different kinds of silks: Wash silk; Fast color silks in different varieties~ rope silk, English twisted heavy embroidery silk, etching or outline silk, Filo silk floss, Oriental embroidering silk, factory ends of embroidery silk, waste sewing silk, and knitting silks in skeins. You could send away for a Sample Color Card from the LHJ to choose your colors. There are kits for mantle lambrequins, tray or carving cloths, splashers, table or bureau scarves, Damask Doylies (They spelled Doylie with a Y in most of the issues!), pillow shams, and head-rests. There are patterns for embroidering monograms, names, flowers, pictures of children, fruit, birds, leaves, scrolls, knives and forks (for carving cloths), ribbons and more....the variety is amazing!
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