Apr 12, 2018 - Sale 2473

Sale 2473 - Lot 139

Price Realized: $ 2,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 500 - $ 750
(MASSACHUSETTS.) Manual for sewing lace by a Cape Cod girl, with samples attached. [141] manuscript pages with 45 small lace samples affixed. 4to, 1/2 calf, quite worn with boards detached; a few leaves detached or missing, offsetting from samples, otherwise only moderate wear to contents; a short poem titled "On The Beach" by the same author dated 1883 laid in. West Barnstable, MA, 1882 and later

Additional Details

The author, Bertha Bangs Baker (1868-1908), spent her whole life in or near Barnstable on Cape Cod. Her father was a mariner who died when she was six years old, and she never married or left her widowed mother's home, so lace-making would have been a good trade to help support the family from an early age. This volume was begun at age 14, and apparently continued for years afterward. Each entry describes the intricate knitting technique for a different pattern of lace, often with an inch or two of the actual lace stitched over the description on a slip of pink paper.