Introduction
Art serves as a powerful tool for conserving and influencing culture. Like language, some artistic works are specific to particular regions and persons, thus providing a crucial way of learning about different cultures. Anthropologists utilize artifacts to comprehend previous and present civilizations’ ways of living. It is not rare finding a piece of art or artistic movement shared by people among different communities.
Knitting is an example of an artifact with deep meaning across the world. The art has a specific origin, utilization, movements, and promoters. As a predominantly feminine thing, knitting offers an excellent opportunity to link particular female figures with definite civilizations. Consequently, the present work covers the subject of women, art, and western culture based on the knitting relic. The work utilizes Molly Rinker and Phyllis Latour as critical female characters and influencers in knitting history. The two women’s creative use of knitting skills and products in areas where no one imagined before their time and today’s knitting for activism facet significantly depicts connection between women, art, and western evolution.
Knitting and Activism: Important Female Figures
Knitting is a feminine hobby mostly taught to young women by their parents and grandparents to pass the time. The artifact’s perspective has been changing since its conception in the Middle East (Zimmer, 2013). For example, Molly Rinker and Phyllis Latour applied knitting in the eighteen and twentieth centuries for different purposes, instead of spending leisure (Melton & Wallace, 2021). These two women did not live during the same period but dominate a crucial place in the knitting history and its application in the western philosophy.
Molly Rinker
Molly Rinker lived during the eighteenth century and served as a barmaid and innkeeper in Philadelphia, one of the thirteen colonies in America. Information about the lady’s birthplace and age are never available, possibly due to society’s little recognition of women’s role in social issues during her time. Nonetheless, Molly was an England migrant living in the U.S. during the American Revolution. She was married and operated the family business (bar) together with her husband before the emergence of the British army.
The foreign soldiers fighting General Washington’s group in Philadelphia chose Molly’s inn for accommodation and forced the husband away. However, the army commander demanded that Molly remains to serve the soldiers, an opportunity she utilized to spy for the American side. Melton and Wallace (2021) argue that Molly Rinker’s meek and non-aggressive personality depicted her innocence, luring the British soldiers to trust her physical innocence. The soldiers carelessly discussed their plans and attack missions, allowing Molly to hear them (Melton & Wallace, 2021). As an English descendant, Molly exhibited knitting skills, which she utilized for the espionage mission. The lady spent sleepless nights listening to the drunk British militia, writing notes concerning their plans on pieces of paper. She then rolled the notes around small pieces of stones and utilized her knitting abilities to form large balls of yarn on a rock next to a cliff.
Molly secretly rolled the knitted balls down the cliff to reach Washington’s troops. A member of the American forces passed via the route often to collect the message, which helped them counter attacks by the British armies, especially in Philadelphia. Melton and Wallace (2021) describe the first American soldiers’ accounts concerning the central role played by Molly through her knitting talents. The authors cheer the spy’s creativity and boldness to use a hobby’s skills to serve her nation when women’s position mainly remained domestic. Arguably, Molly’s actions come from her wish to participate in the nation’s struggle for freedom.
Molly also knitted socks for the American troops for warmth during winter, revealing women’s place in nation-building and war times. Hopkins-Benton (2020) reports that showing connections with the American fighters during Molly’s time amounted to treason, punishable through hanging. Nonetheless, Mrs. Rinker applied her above suspicion knitting skills to make pairs of socks for the American militia while using the opportunity to spy and help deliver America from the British despotism. Consequently, Molly Rinker’s employment of knitting talents for risky public missions forms the first application of the artifact for activism, a common culture in the western world today.
Phyllis Latour Doyle
Phyllis Doyle is a renowned WWII spy who applied knitting gears and ingenuity to conceal clandestine encryptions leading to America’s triumph over German soldiers in Normandy. Doyle was born a South African in April 1921 (Napoleoni, 2020). Her father was a French physician, and the mother a British citizen. Phyllis lost her father months after birth through tribal clashes in South Africa, after which the mother remarried years later. However, Phyllis’ mom died in a racing car accident, forcing the lad to live with the foster father’s cousin’s family. Latour moved to Europe in 1939 to further her studies, allowing her to specialize in flight mechanics. The training background indorsed Phyllis to join the British Women’s Auxiliary Air Force in 1941, aged twenty years (Napoleoni, 2020). The SOE (British Special Operations Executive) identified Phyllis’ potential and acquired her in the union.
The SOE’s uncertainties towards Phyllis’ ability made the officials somehow hesitant, giving the young lady three days to decide whether to join the force or not. Nonetheless, Phyllis’s drive and determination immediately led her to accept the role. Napoleoni (2020) purports that the young lady’s quick decision came from her desire to revenge her godmother’s dad’s murder by the German soldiers. As an orphan, Phyllis depended significantly on the patroness, who committed suicide after being arrested and imprisoned by the Nazi group.
Consequently, the brilliant lady viewed SOE’s opportunity as the best way to make Germany pay for the loss and pain caused by their atrocities. Knitting was a feminine hobby in England during the 1920s, with several schools teaching the knowledge (Napoleoni, 2020). Phyllis studied the skills after migrating to Britain to further studies, an ability she would later apply to cause a global impact. As a novice under the SOE, Phyllis cultured combat know-how, including building scaling, using Sten guns, and repairing wireless sets.
Nevertheless, none of the skills acquired as the SOE officer helped Doyle in the same way as the knitting knowledge during the risky task in Normandy. Phyllis participated in her mission of life in May 1944, aged 23 years (Napoleoni, 2020). She dropped into Germany-controlled Normandy for an undercover mission that previously led to the deaths of multiple American and British soldiers. Latour invented a teenage French girl’s personality and started supplying soap to the German combatants, thus tracking their position and movements (Napoleoni, 2020).
Employing silk fiber, the lad knitted materials bearing secret Morse codes and used radio sets to transfer the message to London (Napoleoni, 2020). Doyle notes that she wrapped the silk piece with the utilized cryptograph around a knitting spike, put it in a shoelace, and then used it to tie her hair to secure and transport confidential information (Napoleoni, 2020). Accordingly, not even a female German soldier managed to decode Phyllis’s tactics despite subjecting her to searches severally.
Phyllis used knitting as a noble act for a poor innocent French girl to prove her soap business’s innocence, while the needles and the knitted material concealed the ciphers. The spy’s brilliance in using knitting skills allowed sending 135 codes to the British and American soldiers, leading to a successful takeover during the D-Day attack (Napoleoni, 2020). The lady’s actions show knitting’s role and centrality in delivering Normandy and granting success and a sense of accomplishment to the western world. Therefore, Phyllis’ mission and application of the skills significantly merge women, knitting, and western civilization, just like Molly’s case. Doyle now resides in New Zealand, and she is a proud owner of the “Chevalier of the Legion of Honor”, French’s premier honor, bestowed to her in 2014 (Napoleoni, 2020). Doyle is also a principal figure in knitting history and significantly informs the present-day western culture of steganography and social activism through knitting.
Knitting History and Creative Process
Many people do not appreciate knitting as art due to the past cultures’ disregard towards the skills. However, the artifact has a significantly remarkable history that makes life meaningful, especially considering human’s application of the same over the years. According to Zimmer (2013), knitting constitutes many people’s preferred pastime activity due to its harmony and ability to create lovely attire for the family using one’s hands. Despite its attractiveness, the art’s origin is not very clear. However, investigations link the craft’s roots to the ancient Egyptian cultures, which spread the skills and products to the Middle East (Harkison, 2019). Arabs then modified the knitting designs and distributed them to various parts of the world through trade routes.
The link between knitting origin and communities living around the Mediterranean Sea comes from the latter’s potential to invent the art while creating fishing nets. Egypt provides the oldest acknowledged knitted material in the form of socks from the eleventh-century CE (Harkison, 2019). The classy knitting from the pharaoh’s tombs exhibits complex designs with the purl stitch and comprehensive colorwork. Ou et al. (2019) confirm Egypt as the origin of knitting and provides the period between 500 and 1200 AD as the appropriate time for the invention. The argument relies on the scientific dating system that utilizes the same tombs’ socks and other knitted fragments.
Knitting in Europe
Knitting activities in Europe started later than in the Middle East and Africa. Ou et al. (2019) provide the thirteenth-century AD as the earliest time for the continent to experience hand knitting. The early products belonged to the Spanish royal Christian families and exhibited Islam designs. Such material includes high-quality gloves and cushion covers, retrieved from the Spanish Monastery tombs, such as that of Prince Fernando (Harkison, 2019). Spanish archives containing Catholic fabrics also feature many knitted objects belonging to the thirteenth century, all bearing Muslim designs from the Middle East. Ancient trade routes extending from the Arab kingdom to Spain reached the U.K. in the fourteenth century, based on scientific investigations on the U.K.’s Madonna knitting on the Virgin Mary sculpts.
Knitting became a popular thing in the U.K. during the fourteenth century. Close (2018) describes archeological findings showing trade on knitted goods on tax lists across Europe to prove the products’ dominance in the continent during the century. However, the knitting design from Egypt significantly changed on reaching the U.K. and other parts of Europe. As well, the art also acquired its name “knitting” in Europe in the sixteenth century from the term “knot” (Harkison, 2019). Zimmer (2013) associates Queen Elizabeth I’s reign to the significant growth in demand for smooth knitted silk stockings. The monarch particularly cherished the material’s softness, attractiveness, and durability. Under her rulership, the U.K. established several knitting schools, with the artifact becoming a significant source of income for the impoverished families.
The queen’s move also made knitting skills necessary among British women, especially those from lower socioeconomic classes. Knitting then moved from Britain to the U.S. in the seventeenth century, where prolific personalities, such as George Washington’s wife, embraced and significantly supported the craft industry (Close, 2018).
Europe took the knitting culture a notch higher between the sixteenth and eighteen centuries by forming knitting guilds for men. Individuals interested in joining such professional crafting groups underwent six years of training, the first three years involving real learning, while the last three involved traveling around the world to research new styles (Harkison, 2019). Apprentices coming from research work tackled a thirteen weeks assessment to measure their mastery of skills and innovativeness (Harkison, 2019). Knitting a carpet constituted the bulk of such final test, with those excelling joining the associations.
Knitting and the Industrial Revolution
Knitting experienced significant transformation through the industrial revolution in Europe. According to Ou et al. (2019), the U.K. established the first crafting machine in the 1580s and upgraded it over time. Nottingham became the center for the machine knitted objects during the industrialization age, with the city reaping highly from the portable crafting machines’ invention. Similarly, knitting also grew in the U.S. during the civil war as citizens participated in keeping their soldiers warm.
Nonetheless, no nation invented the factory machine for bulk knitting until the mid-nineteenth century when the American engineers adopted the large steam-powered device for large volume production (Ou et al., 2019). The transition into machine-based knitting made hand knitting less attractive, leading to a slow death of the hand-crafting sector and converting knitting into a popular hobby. Accordingly, knitting activities became a sporting and leisure endeavor in the U.S. in the 1920s (Ou et al., 2019). The demand for hand-crafted sweaters for children, women, and men also rose during the period, leading to the famous thriving twenties fashion aspect.
High fashion entities’ support for the knitted material and the emergence of WWI also contributed significantly to the crafting activities’ boom. The American and British soldiers wanted socks and other uniform material, leading the government to encourage women to learn the skills and support the troops by knitting the necessities. WWII also increased the materials’ demand, forcing companies to increase their needles and wool productivity. For example, Britain’s “knits for victory” campaign required individuals with knitting skills to make socks, gloves, sweaters, balaclavas, and scarves for the soldiers to protect them against coldness (Close, 2018). The war also forced specific characters to use their crafting knowledge for espionage activities, such as Phyllis Latour Doyle, further reintegrating knitting into western societies. Russia’s losing troops during the World Wars bolted to China, where they shared the knitting skills with the Chinese convoys.
Inventions such as the zip and synthetic yarn further transformed knitting art. Other crucial events affecting the artifact’s growth worldwide include the Great Depression, where knitting formed the only way of getting a new cloth (Napoleoni, 2020). Women entered the sector through women’s magazines’ support that published new designs to the populace. Handcrafting became a profitable part-time job during the depression as companies closed due to unfavorable economic times.
The 1950 and 1960s’ haute couture movement in Britain gave knitting activities a significant boost before the industry’s downturn between the 1980s and 1990s (Ou et al., 2019). However, the art exhibits a comeback with new styles and applications emerging during the twenty-first century. Emerging cultures and generations also embrace the crafted stuff they use for various purposes (Close, 2018). A major point of interest among the current American generation concerns the use of knitting for activism, with the “Yarn Mission” and “hurt for peace” movements following Molly and Phyllis routes.
Western Civilization
Western civilization refers to the social, economic, political, and cultural enlightenment experienced in modern societies due to the ideas evolving from the eastern Mediterranean region afore the Common Era. The Greeks’ philosophies play a chief role in the emancipatory process and western advancement. Looking at the relationship between women and art implies the tangible link between the past females and cultural transformation. For example, Molly and Phyllis’ utilization of knitting skills during the eighteenth and twentieth centuries meaningfully influence the previous and present European and American cultures. The two characters’ role in the contemporary knitting objects’ utilization in activism is undeniable.
Molly crafted yarn balls with a specific pattern to pass the message to Washington’s troops. The American soldiers collecting the knitted material understood their meaning, which was to hide a confidential note inside informing American fighters about the British army’s plans. Accordingly, Molly’s knitting implied no sense to the British soldiers who observed her craft the yarn innocently seated on a rock.
Arguably, Molly’s 1770s actions make her part of the inventors of the steganography movement, which uses noble artistic styles to hide meaning in standard features. Belgian knitters also utilized this style during the World Wars to report German’s train movement, where two close lines indicated the passage of a train with ammunition to the interpreters. The Belgians crafted the material on the windows while watching the railway lines and encoding the message (Close, 2018). Such shows Molly’s influence on culture and artistic movement regarding knitting practices and their ability to conceal confidential messages to groups with a similar understanding.
Molly’s use of knitting skills for espionage purposes also paved the way for contemporary societies to use civilians and women in war. Harkison (2019) insists that many ancient cultures viewed domestic settings as the only place for women. Such is the same mentality among the British soldiers chasing Molly’s husband while forcing her to remain behind to serve them. Perhaps, it is also possible that Washington and his army expected nothing from Molly because she was a woman. However, the character’s intelligence and courage surprise the then-American fighters, who must rely on a woman for spy missions.
Subsequently, Phyllis’ boldness and successful participation in French liberation from Nazi fighters and America’s victory during WWII reiterates this aspect. Napoleoni (2020) reports that all the male soldiers sent to the Normandy mission before Phyllis died in the hands of the Nazi people. However, the female soldier’s utilization of knitting knowledge to conceal her codes and appear poor and innocent paved the way for Britain and its allies to win the battle.
Phyllis once removed a loaded shoelace from her hair and shook her head to satisfy a female German soldier that she was innocent. According to Napoleoni (2020), the Nazi officer viewed the lace as a meaningless object while it contained Doyle’s encoded silk. The facet makes Molly and Doyle pioneers of steganography, which forms the basis of the hippie movements’ communication in contemporary societies (Hopkins-Benton, 2020). Molly’s achievements significantly influence modern societies’ call for civilians to offer specialized services to national militants during wars. On the other hand, Doyle’s success paves the way for women’s equal considerations for the army job in modern-day cultures.
Doyle’s knitting knowledge and accomplishment as a young lady eliminate the misconception about females’ choice on a military career. Many ancient societies viewed military jobs as masculine professionals, thus encouraging women to avoid them. Such traditionalists least expected a woman’s innate talent would allow her to realize a rare honor and survive a situation in which men fail. However, Doyle’s triumph breaks the odds, motivating more young females into the armies. Consequently, counties such as the U.S. have female militants serving in critical positions during missions. The ladies employ intelligence and instincts to overcome typical challenges that overwhelm male peers. Wibben (2018) reports that the number of female soldiers and spies in the U.S. almost parallels males. Arguably, the case would be different, but for the success of pioneers such as Phyllis Doyle, whose courage and creativity offered her the highest French honor.
Lastly, Molly and Phyllis’ usage of knitting skills to communicate, deliver essential services, and protect people they care about significantly informs the twenty-first “handmade revolution.” War times usually feature constrained economies such as those faced during the present pandemic. Undertaking some activities during such times takes one considerable sacrifice. Parents, especially mothers, further intend to keep their family members safe and warm during such times. Molly and Phyllis’s knitting of socks and other warm clothes, at times using wool from unpicked old knitted objects, meaningfully motivates the current rise in handmade attire. Due to price-driven inflation, the global economy is underperforming, forcing many people to go the past legends’ way.
Matthews (2020) says that learning other people’s proven ways of handling situations motivates followers to act. Accordingly, Molly’s knitting promoted meditation and possibly allowed her to manage stress concerning the British troops’ forceful inhabitation of her house and sending away of her husband. Therefore, a significant population joins the artifact world to handle pressure, especially from family issues, making knitting normal for the many single mothers rearing children alone with fixed budgets.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the above work links women, art, and cultural and artistic transformation among modern-day societies. Molly Rinker and Phyllis Latour are the two female characters discussed in this work. The two exhibit a significant connection with the knitting history due to their utilization of the aspect for espionage purposes. Molly Rinker and Phyllis Latour are pioneers of the steganography style of art, common in the knitting world.
The facet forms contemporary espionage tactics, with Phyllis’ ability to employ Morse codes making her endeavors more impacting. Other modern-day influences from the two characters include the present-day governments’ invitation of civilians to participate in wars by providing necessary resources and females’ desire to take up military roles, unlike before. Moreover, the world’s hippie movements apply Molly and Phyllis’ steganography to relate, while the two individuals’ survival tactics during war significantly influenced the COVID-19 era handmade revolution.
References
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