The first and, in many ways, still the best crafts magazine
Table of Contents
You’ve seen them, heck, a lot of us have seen them and, at some point, probably used a pattern out of them. The ‘Workbasket Magazine’ started out as ‘Aunt Martha’s Workbasket, Home and Needlecraft for Pleasure and Profit’ in October of 1935. It was the brainchild of Clara and Jack Tillotson from Kansas City, MO. The Great Depression had the country in it’s grip and if people needed something, they made it for themselves. There was no money to buy anything and sometimes if you had the money, what you were looking for wasn’t on the shelves. A magazine that supplied people with the patterns to make things for themselves was just what was needed at that time.
The first publication was a 16 page issue and, at the time, they were
printed on newsprint, not the glossy stuff that is used now for
magazines. The original price for the magazine? 15 cents per copy or $
1.00 for a year’s subscription. That was a standard magazine
subscription price for that decade.
If you happen to see any
‘Workbasket magazines’ from 1935 thru 1944, do the author a favor and
contact her with any information of available copies. Due to the paper
drives during the 2nd World War most of these were recycled and
destroyed. But the publication stayed strong. Subscriptions continued to
increase and the Tillotson family published the Workbasket 12 times a
year from the Modern Handcraft publishing company that they had formed.
Each issue had advertisements in it of additional individual patterns
that could be ordered from Modern Handcraft. The Tillotson family had
formed the company to support themselves and they were determined to
succeed.
Format changes to the magazine were made several times over the years
and the digest size with a variety of craft patterns for each issue was
settled on early on in the publishing. They catered to all the crafts,
each month could have crochet, knitting, quilting, embroidery, tatting,
etc., patterns in it. That was one of the genius qualities of the
magazine, they diversified their content early so as new trends became
popular they could be included in the patterns offered. Just the same
with trends that had run their course. When the magazine first started
there were tatting and quilting patterns published on a regular basis. As time went
on and tatting fell out of favor those patterns disappeared from the
magazine. I don’t think there were any tatting patterns at all in the
80s decade of the magazine. When macrame became popular in the 70s,
those patterns appeared in the magazine. When macrame faded away, so did
the patterns.
In 1942, Aunt Martha had been dropped from the
title of the magazine. As the magazine expanded and went to color, more
changes were made to the impress. In 1960 everything was dropped from
the title except ‘The Workbasket’. They didn’t even have to put magazine
with it. By then if someone mentioned ‘Workbasket’, you knew they were
talking about the magazine. Other magazines such as ‘McCall’s’ and
‘Ladies Home Journal’ had some publications for crafts but ‘Workbasket’
was still leading the field.
As ‘Workbasket’ expanded their
subscription list, they also added to the articles offered in the
magazine; recipes sent in by readers, Junior Workbasket – crafts for the
kids, Women Who Make Cents – ideas for people to use at craft fairs, flower and garden tips for questions sent
in by the readers and instructions on the latest fad in crafts.They
listened to their readers and responded, which was part of their great
success. In my home, each issue was looked forward to eagerly each
month. The magazine, still digest sized, grew to over 80 pages for some issues with the addition of other advertisers and the new articles.
Browsing through the books in sequential order is a
trip into another world. The advertisements and articles show the
attitudes that were held in the 40s, 50s, 60s, etc. While at the time
there was nothing wrong with the way the ads were written, now they
would all be criticized for political incorrectness. Looking back on
them now can either give you the shudders or a good laugh depending upon
your attitude towards ‘a woman’s place’. These magazines were geared towards the woman staying in the home and supporting her family with good food, well made clothing and a comfortable home. Not quite the attitude we have today.
In the 90s Modern Handcraft publishing started to struggle. By now there were
several entries in the craft magazine area and even though ‘Workbasket’
continued to move with the times to offer the new crafts as they hit the
trend there were editorial decisions that didn’t keep them on the cutting edge. The perception of the magazine was that it was your granny’s or auntie’s craft magazine. All the decades of ‘a woman’s place was in the home’ articles had become synonymous with the magazine. In
April, 1991 instead of publishing every month, they went to a bi-monthly
schedule. They also started featuring current TV and Radio stars on the
cover in an effort to compete with the other craft magazines on the magazine stands. But, it didn’t
work, in 1996 after the Feb/Mar issue had been sent out, ‘Workbasket’
magazine was sold to the KC Publishing Inc. company. The next issue that
subscribers received was a ‘Flower and Garden Crafts’. There was no advance notification of this change to the subscribers.
After 671 issues of a
darn fine magazine, it just disappeared. You’ll find information on the
Net that tells you of the different incarnations that the magazine went
through after that and who owns it now after it’s been sold more than
once. But that’s not the ‘Workbasket’. The last ‘Workbasket’ issue was
published in March, 1996 and it still had the same quality craft
patterns in it that were there at the beginning in 1935. Not too many
companies can have a 61 year track record with that kind of quality.