Bibliographies

they came before hyperlinks...more of my Craft Genealogy project

Before there were hyperlinks, there were bibliographies. I’ve been spending some time in a few endeavors that have me thinking a lot about books. One is helping someone we know who’s downsizing - and that includes sorting books. As we did it, I thought, boy, I’d hate to do this... Yesterday I watched a video Chris Schwarz and Megan Fitzpatrick posted of Chris giving a short tour of some woodworking history books. It was a nice run through the ages - there were several I knew nothing about. And the other factor is the work I’m doing researching and writing the book I refer to as Craft Genealogy. That book starts with me at my old job in front of the public, answering the question “How did you learn this?”

forgot Henry Mercer’s book

And my first teachers were books. The first big-impact books for me were by Jennie Alexander and Drew Langsner. The bibliographies in these two books have some overlap and some distinctions. Some of these books I went chasing after - which then involved going into the bookstore and filling out a form - and a lot of waiting. None of this clicking a button and having the books show up on the doorstep in 2 days. 

In JA’s bibliography several books were what I might call shop-and-workbench based - like W.L. Goodman’s History of Woodworking Tools and Charles Hummel’s With Hammer in Hand. But several were more like “green woodworking” sort of things - some of Eaton’s Handicrafts of the Southern Highlands,  J. Geraint Jenkins, Traditional Country Craftsmen, much of Henry Mercer’s Ancient Carpenters Tools, George Sturt’s The Wheelwright’s Shop and A. Viires, Woodworking in Estonia. Drew’s book Country Woodcraft added H. L. Edlin Woodland Crafts in Britain, a fabulous book first published in 1949 and Rudolph Hommel’s China at Work. Then in 1981 came Roy Underhill’s first book The Woodwright’s Shop. His bibliography is called “sources'' and is not alphabetical. It looks like it’s based on significance, his first two books are Edlin and Viires. He also has Mercer. And it might be the first place I heard of Joseph Moxon - but I forget when I got that book. Walter Rose’s the Village Carpenter 1937 shows up here too.