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Show The experience of all craftsmen in pioneer Utah was similar to that of the furniture makers, potters, blacksmiths, and tinsmiths, amounting to a kind of epilogue to the centuries-old crafts tradition. Many craftsmen, trained according to the traditional apprentice system, displayed ingenuity in adapting to a hard, new environment. They showed a sense of pride in their work, and their utilitarian products were characterized by a simple beauty. Although it adapted popular forms and styles, the pioneer interpretation in native materials was distinctive and fresh. In this sense the pioneer craftsmen were very successful. Clever though they were, the pioneer craftsmen could not perform economic miracles. In spite of their initial success in providing needed goods, their eventual failure was unavoidable. Individually, they struggled merely to support themselves and their large families; as a group, they were unable to produce wares efficiently enough to compete even on the local market with the factory-made goods brought in with the railroad. And in the 1880s and 1890s, enforcement of antipolygamy legislation resulted in the imprisonment of numerous polygamous Church members and leaders and brought on widespread economic depression. The most basic reason for their failure, however, was the inexorable movement of history. Throughout the course of the nineteenth century the progress of industrialization spread out from the large cities of England and the eastern United States, overwhelming individual craftsmen everywhere and rendering their handcrafts obsolete. Because of Utah's isolation, the market for home-manufactured products continued here longer than elsewhere. The crafts tradition thus persisted beyond its time, but at best for only another generation. The pioneers brought a traditional craft society to the Great Basin; but their children, for their opportunities, looked to industries of the future. Yet the spirit of handcrafts was not entirely lost. Pioneer women, motivated by necessity as well as a desire to create and to beautify, became expert at spinning and weaving; at braiding rag rugs and straw hats; at making patchwork pillows #nd quilts, decorative hair wreaths, and artificial flowers; at crocheting lace curtains and innumerable antimacassars; and at needlework, Berlin work, and beadwork. In the 1870s the women's Relief Societies ran cooperative stores as outlets for articles made at home by the women. The most talented were awarded prizes at the annual fairs sponsored by the Deseret Agricultural and Manufacturing Society (Fig. 84). The impressive displays of handwork seen annually at the Utah State Fair, the successor of this society's fairs, demonstrate the extent to which the skills of the pioneer women have been kept alive by their granddaughters in the twentieth century. 80 |