Guest Author - Iris ten Holder

Whom do we thank for preserving the craft of rug hooking in the 20th century and for teaching it to so many? Pearl McGown's name endures. Even though rughooking design has evolved, her name is still connected to many rughooking guilds and her books are still worthwhile reading.

Very eloquently McGown manages to bring you back to the 19th century when rughooking took an important place in daily life as women sought to bring comfort to their homes and embellish them.

"You who have little imagination may be unable to project yourself into the daily life of a century ago. But you who have imagination - and how much fuller life can be with it - will enjoy deserting today's
intricate and complex life. and go back with me in fancy to the beinning of the nineteenth century. What was life like in 1800? Have you every stopped to think?"

This was written in 1949 in her book The Dreams Beneath Design, which she wrote after having studied, researched and taught the craft since the early thirties. Her own memories go back another 50 years:

"...when the housework was finally done....the family gathered around the center table to read or work....and I sat beneath the frame stretched over the corners of four chairs, feeding the rags to Mother as she worked."

Her story and the story of her business is told on the National Guild of Pearl K McGown Hookcrafters. Her first business was eventually acquired by Cushing, At age 89 Pearl set up business again with her granddaugher Jane Flynn. In 1998 Charlotte and Bob Price formed The House of Price to purchase the rughooking pattern business of Jane McGown Flynn.

In The Dreams Beneath Design, Pearl tells the charming story of the tin pedlar from Biddeford, Maine who invented the commercial pattern 1868 and made it a thriving business. Pearl was able to trace some of the rugs made with his patterns.

Pearl McGown was a craftsperson and a teacher who was totally involved in the craft and explored the history of design as wll as the technical aspects involved in rug hooking, from the tools to use to the dyes and teh designs.