Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1906-09-14
INDIAN LACE MAKING.

'1f you had told me a dozen years ago."
Miss Sibyl Carter said recently TO a friend,
that ! was going into the Indian country
to start lace-schools, that ] should have
seven OF them on my hands within q, year,
that indian women would be making lace
that was selling to the richest women OF
the country on Its own merits, and that
Queen Victoria would be returning us her
thanks for a magnificent piece Of lace
made by squaw, i should have laughed"
Miss Carter laughs still, but It Is with
qualification and thankfulness instead Of
incredulity. In 1891 she was talking with
an indian girl who had attended an
Eastern school, and she asked her what
she had been doing since returning to the
reservation. Nothing was the sulen
reply. At Miss Carriers impulsive rebuke,
the girl flashed out: Work. work? What
work could / do? ] live in the woods"
What. indeed, could the women do those
poor squaws, to raise themselves In their
own eyes and in the respect of the world?
Miss Carter pondered the question, and
finally she gathered twelve Minnesota
| squaws together and taught them to
make pillow -lace--"the only thing" Miss
Carter confessed, (which i knew how to
| do with my own hands" When she saw
the intense eagerness Of these women to
acquire some means Of self-support, their
| facility in learning and their innate
artistic sense, she told Bishop Whipple,
VINO nitu Deen nef steady enCOufaBer IN the
project, that she would raise money
enough to start the work, and that
she would then go to Florida to
/ rest Within a week she telegraphed him,
Three thousand dollars in the bank:
| leave on nine o'clock train for Florida"
Her enthusiasm and despatch were worthy
Of her neutrality-suspicious. Samuel
| Adams.
Then Miss Carter took her three thou
sand dollars and spent It. It went like
water, but how much she did with IT, She
1 founded six lace-schools in Minnesota.
She had to patch up an old log cabin and
| make II habitable for the teachers. and
then had to teach them the lace making.
| Her missionary work seemed to begin
| where that OF others left on II begins
| with the people who have been left out
| the Indian mothers Other people have
| taken the boy and the girl and put them
| TO school, but have left the old woman
| on the forgotten or ignored
| her entirely. Their eagerness is pathetic
| Women carrying babies upon their backs
have walked SO miles to beg for a lesson,
and then after taking 1t have walked the
SO miles back. Miss Carter went 80 miles
| herself through a trackless forest In re-
, Spouse to a touching appeal for a school.
and there in the dense woods found 10
| women gathered to take a lesson.
Since Miss Carter began her home In
dustries among the Minnesota women 10
| years ago lnefe mas Deen a WOnueflul
! change among them What has done It?
Just oldfashioned work, with wages
promptly paid. One OF these Indian
mothers took her own girls when they
came back to the reservation from the
government schools and taught them lace
making. The girls. instead of finding
| their mother In the miserable tepee where
they had left her. found her in a neat
cabin, In a rocking chair, working at a
piece OF lace at $40 a yard; and they were
forced to look up to her and learned from
her what the Eastern school had not
taught them. And the men would come
in and say. How nice II is: mother teach
daughters
The lace is of two kinds. that made on
pillows, after the Venetian designs which
Miss Carter choosesand imports for them,
and the Renaissance lace, done with the
needle, which they work exquisitely. 1t is
| she who collects the money needed, selects
and instructs all teachers, and then sells
all the lace. Her strong. brilliant face
beams with the joy OF II. The prevalent
phrase. the dirty squaw." is never used
by a person who has seen the exquisite
wilderness OF their handiwork. no piece Of
which ever needs laundering before SELL
ing. Can many white Americans say that
OF their own embroidery and drawn work?
Miss Carriers lace schools, or, rather.
cottage Industries. now number 600 Indian
women workers in Minnesota and the ad-
Joining states; and in addition she has re-
Gently established school in Honolulu and
one in Italy itself The teacher who under
took the latter school declares humorously
that her Florentine pupils are almost as
quick to learn as the Indlans Both OF
these foreign teachers were taught by
Miss Carter in her own house. She has
been awarded two magnificent gold
medals for exhibition OF the Indian
women's work.-one by the Pan-American
and the other by the Paris Exposition.
l-tLucy Elliot Keeler. in Advocate and
Guardsman.