When I was about 12, my mum came into my bedroom with a box of Woman’s Weekly magazines from the 1920s-1950s and said, “I think you might enjoy these.” A friend had given them to her when she was pregnant with me. I became completely obsessed; my friends would come around to drink cups of tea and read these magazines in my bedroom. They were such a fascinating window into life at that time.

I’m a very enthusiastic knitter myself – I’ve knitted my whole life – and find the history of knitting really interesting. When I went back to university in my late 20s, I had a course on interwar literature, and the lecturer suggested I write my dissertation on these old magazines. And so I did! I now research domestic women’s magazines from the first half of the 20th century, and specifically the status and role of knitting in Woman’s Weekly magazine. I’m interested in what the magazine can tell us about the lives of ordinary women, and how knitting contributed to the identities of the women who bought and read it.

Knitting in fashion

In the early 20th century, there was an explosion in the popularity of knitting, and it became more than a utilitarian handicraft. This was largely due to an article of clothing
introduced in the 1910s called the ‘sports coat’ (see above) – a big, chunky cardigan that certain women would wear on the golf course. It was warm, but also very flexible, and became the first item of women’s knitwear to enter mainstream fashion. A lot of the domestic magazines published their own versions of the pattern.

Going into the 1920s, women’s lifestyles started to change. They had more freedoms – including socially – and their clothing began to reflect that. During the 20s there was the ‘sweater craze’ in America and the UK. Jumpers became very comfortable and fairly simple in construction – very like the straight up and down ‘flapper’ look – but they were really stunning and made it easier to move around. Understandably they became very popular.

After that knitting just continued to become more fashionable. In line with the fashion at the time, jumpers from the 30s became more shaped, accentuating the curves. Jumpers had more exaggerated neck- and shoulder lines, nipped-in waists; even big bows at the top to exaggerate the bust. At the same time, patterns became a lot more sophisticated, including features like lovely colourwork, cabling, open work and lace. Knitwear was absolutely at the forefront of women’s fashion, plus was something that a lot of people really enjoyed doing.

Knitting for the men folk

Of course, because of the two World Wars, knitting had an increasingly important practical role to play. When the First World War broke out, everyone wanted to ‘do their bit’, and one way to do that was to knit for the armed forces. Girls’ Own Paper encouraged their readers to knit socks, balaclavas and chest warmers for servicemen. At the beginning of the war, when men first volunteered to join the army and separation allowances were quite meagre, families in low income groups were left virtually destitute, and several charities were established to help provide clothing for the men’s wives and children.

"Women’s magazines encouraged knitters to contribute to wartime appeals"

Sadly, as the war continued there was also more need for hospital and surgical equipment, such as bandages, bed jackets, handkerchiefs and other practical things that could be used in a ward. This was something needle workers could help with too. Men would arrive from the front line with nothing apart from the clothes they were injured in, and so they would need new pyjamas and socks. People also knitted surgical stockings for them, which were put on over a leg splint. Women’s magazines played a big part in encouraging knitters to contribute to these appeals.

Knitting in magazines

Woman’s Weekly was famed for its knitting, particularly During the 1960s and 1970s – though it had been one of the magazine’s key selling points for some time; by the end of the 1930s, almost every issue of Woman’s Weekly has at least one knitting pattern in it. The knitting patterns were advertised on the front cover, too, and helped readers identify the magazines on the shelf.

Before the First World War, magazines often had knitting and crochet tutorials – the equivalent of YouTube videos nowadays! – black and white close-up shots with very detailed instructions about how to cast on and off, how to do cabling and so on. From the 1930s onwards, magazines guided readers even further, and factors like tension, needle size and yarn brand become more important. They also got very into publishing supplements of extra patterns – something that those of us who can’t get enough of knitting can relate to! By the time we get to the 1950s, Woman’s Weekly had three or four patterns per issue, and they assumed a higher level of expertise than previously.

As patterns became more elaborate, the market for yarn, needles and paraphernalia or knitting equipment expanded considerably. From the 1920s – when magazines would simply say “cast on with wool” – to the 1930s, there was a huge increase in the number of yarn brands advertised magazines. Magazines even started to suggest particular brands of needles.

Knitting for pleasure

I’ve discovered a few memorable patterns in my research. My favourite was one for ‘polishing slippers’ from the 1940s – a pair of cloth overshoes that you wear to skate around the room polishing your floors. The patterns suggested doing this while getting dressed, or while also dusting a shelf. Perhaps their readers were supposed to be Olympic gymnasts! During the 1910s there were quite a few patterns for crocheted hot-air balloon harnesses to go around lightbulbs. People would crochet a little basket to go underneath to hold matches, and then presumably hang them from the ceiling or a piece of furniture. They weren’t particularly useful, but they were often incredibly beautiful and intricately, skilfully made, suggesting a shift from creating practical items to knitting for pure enjoyment. It’s also interesting because during the 1910s, the women these magazines targeted were unlikely to have lived in homes wired for electricity. So where did they get these electric lightbulbs? It’s almost like a status symbol, one of modern life and modernity.

Knitting for normality

During my research, one of the things that has struck me is the purpose of knitting and the role it plays or was intended to play in magazine readers’ lives. What’s really interesting is during the First and Second World War, even though there were national drives to get people to knit for the armed forces, the vast majority of patterns in domestic magazines are just for ordinary cardigans, or ‘socks for your baby’. During WWII, for example, there was a pattern for a ‘country cottage’ tea cosy. Can you imagine a woman in the middle of London, with so many concerns and anxieties and surrounded by blitzed buildings, knitting a tea cosy?! It must have been a thread back to normality, reminding her of being in an environment that isn’t a literal bomb site.

There’s a wartime movie called Mrs. Miniver, about an ordinary middle-class housewife and her experience of the Second World War. There’s a scene when she and her husband are chatting over their after-dinner coffee in the air raid shelter, and she’s knitting. It shows really clearly that knitting can take readers out of the everyday and connect us to ‘normal’ life.

This is something we can still relate to now. In the last two years, when we’ve all been living with COVID, knitting has been so good for people’s mental health, for stress relief and ‘keeping calm’. Knitting has really helped people cope.

All images are kindly supplied from the Knitting & Crochet Guild’s Collection

THE KNITTING AND CROCHET GUILD

I did my research project with the help of the Knitting and Crochet Guild, a fantastic volunteer-run educational charity based in the UK. The guild has the UK’s largest collection of objects to do with knitting and crochet – including over 400 domestic magazines from between 1900 and 1960, freely accessible to members. One of the loveliest things about the patterns is that a lot have writing on them, so you can see where people worked out the stitches or tension!

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#Wool in Wartime

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