Episode 53: How Knitting Helps Everyone

Let's go back about 85 years. It's November, 1941, and America is about to enter World War II, when once again we will discover that we are a cold-footed, sockless nation. We have been here before. Think Revolutionary War, then the Civil War, and then World War I. But coming out of the Depression when there was not much money, we have evolved. We are now a nation of knitters--10 million knitters strong according to estimates from the National Dry Goods Association. So when the men pick up their guns, women pick up their needles once again, according to Anne Macdonald in No Idle Hands: The Social History of American Knitting. What's different? This time we have more music to knit by, like Glenn Miller's "Knit One, Purl Two" (you can ask Alexa to play it for you). Emily Post also decides on some rules of etiquette for knitting in public like "Do not wave long or shiny needles about in the air" (Macdonald, p. 304), so if you are doing that, stop it. But more than anything, accounts of knitting at the time speak to how it keeps us calm and connected, and in that way, it's good for everybody, knitters and wearers alike. Handknit garments helped the men at the front because they were

"visible evidence that someone at home has been thinking about him--a lot. ... Nothing warms the hearts of the boys away from home like articles knitted by the loving hands of those they hold near and dear."

Quoted in Anne L. Macdonald's No Idle Hands: The Social History of American Knitting (New York: Ballantine Books, 1988), p. 294.

Knitting also helped the knitter, as writer Jane Cobb explained: Knitters "get satisfaction from the orderly row of stitches falling into patterns of accomplishment. In times like these there are few occupations that have that sort of effect. It is quite possible that women in wartime knit as much for the knitting as for what their knitting accomplished" (quoted in Macdonald, p. 298).

We mentioned Bob and Ray--a brilliant radio comedy duo whose career spanned five decades from the 1940's until the 1980's. One of our family favorites growing up with the iodine interview where they interview Fred Falby who makes his own iodine:

We mentioned some of the wonderful songs that were meant to inspire knitters contributing to the war effort during World War 2. Bootie discovered that Melanie Gall has a whole album of them called, "Sweeter in a Sweater" including the Glenn Miller favorite, "Knit one, Purl two." (the link is to the original version).

So as we enter the season of thanks and perhaps some panic knitting for holiday gifts, stop waving your needles, ask Alexa to play "Knit One, Purl Two," and then take a breath and a moment to enjoy the "orderly row of stitches falling into patterns of accomplishment." Then make our Pecan Pie, and we have no doubt that many hearts will be warmed.