One of the nice parts about using a blog to present the results of ongoing historical research, is the ease with which a report of “the earliest evidence [of whatever] that has yet come to light” can be amended when even older evidence is uncovered. Since such work constantly strives to extend the resulting timeline, every new success paradoxically risks invalidating a previous one. The corresponding revision of the broader narrative may entail nothing more than noting that something is a few years older than previously believed. However, things such as the radiocarbon dating of a questioned fragment of fabric can necessitate a fundamental re-contextualization of previous documentation. This in turn can effect a major change in our understanding of, say, the origin of a given mode of looped fabric production.
I tacitly tweak posts on this blog to reflect subsequent insight without calling attention to such revision. However, there have been a few stop-press situations where the retroactive editing has been paired with a new post about the details of the more recently uncovered material. The last such case (reported here) arose from my having overlooked the first attested mention of Tunisian crochet — in a Swedish publication that I had in fact examined. It appeared one year earlier than the German source I had cited.
The present post is about a similar oversight with the first English-language reference to “slipping a stitch” in knitting, both in its ordinary form and in what is now called slip stitch crochet, but was then also regarded as a type of knitting. In this case, the date needs to be pushed back by all of two years and the locus moved across an ocean. However, the newly noted source has significant additional ramifications.
Lydia Maria Child (1802–1880) was a native-born monumental figure in the US American equal rights movements of her day, addressing sensitive core issues in several of her many widely read publications. She also wrote a series on domestic topics, including The Girl’s Own Book, published in New York City in 1833. What is labeled a ninth edition but has the preface of the second edition, was printed in London in 1837, explicitly for simultaneous distribution via all booksellers there and in Glasgow and Dublin. Where the US edition makes reference to “American little girls” the British one does to “all little girls” and it seems clear from the credits on its title page that it was authorized. It is similarly apparent from the US editions of the other works in Child’s domestic series that she paid attention to the British press and credited the references she made to it.
Both editions of The Girl’s Own Book include an identically worded chapter headed “Knitting” that begins by placing it in an unexpectedly marginal context.
