Customer Reviews

Useful Work for Unskilled Women: A Unique Milwaukee WPA Project

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This is a great story, illustrated with 130 historic black-&-white pictures and drawings and 34 color photographs. Mary Kellogg Rice has written a first-person account of her experiences guiding a remarkable Works Progress Administration (WPA) project for unskilled women in Milwaukee during the Great Depression. She was the project's art director and was involved from the 1935 inception of the Handicrafts Project. African American women worked side-by-side with white women, there were black as well as white dolls, and Ms. Rice insisted that the articles to be made be well designed, no matter how simple the article or how inexpensive the materials. These unique characteristics set the Handicrafts Project apart from many other WPA projects.

Ms. Rice recounts her visit to a stark, colorless county home for children and the desperate need for beauty and color in that harsh environment. She personally approved every design prior to production. The unskilled workers, under the supervision of designer-forepersons from the art department of the Milwaukee State Treachers College, manufactured toys, draperies, furniture, book bindings, Braille books, woven fabrics, block printed textiles, and dolls with clothes children could button and shoes they could tie. The manufactured articles were used in schools, hospitals, and public institutions (which only paid for materials) throughout the United States.

First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt visited the project in 1936 and wrote one of her "My Day" syndicated columns about the workers and the high quality of the articles. The Handicrafts Project employed more than 5,000 workers during its eight year lifespan. Ms. Rice, who is now in her 90's, gives us a model for employing persons who aren't highly skilled in the production of simple, elegant, useful articles. This model, which is not being followed in 2003 government work programs, not only trains workers but also gives them pride in the fruits of their labors. Society benefits from such inspired programs. Would that there were more such programs today, under the direction of leaders with the vision of Ms. Rice.

This book was sent very fast and and I have enjoyed it a lot.
The history of the WPA projects in Milwaukee are very interesting and have begun a journey for me, as a doll designer, to create similar dolls and to work with the Museum in Milwaukee to see about recreating some of them from the original patterns.
SIncerely
Judi Ward