Fireside Industries
1937Dearest Reader,
Another company that reached out to my father was Fireside Industries of Adrian, Michigan.
They offered him a free rug hooking course, an invitation to learn a craft that could be done at home and perhaps turn into a source of income. But the offer did not stand alone. With membership, he would also receive giftwares and continued lessons, a steady stream of materials designed to both teach and keep him connected to the program.
Fireside Industries was part of a growing number of correspondence-based businesses during the 1930s, a time when opportunity often arrived by mail. In the midst of the Great Depression, when traditional paths were limited, these programs offered something tangible: a skill to learn and a product to create.
Their model was simple but appealing. A free course would draw you in. Membership would provide ongoing instruction, supplies and giftwares, that could be used or sold.
As I look at all of these envelopes, I see that my father was looking for a path. Something creative, practical and skilled. He is requesting this information and having it sent to an address not his home. This is my almost seventeen-year-old dad searching.
Dr. Nancy Watson
Washington
Read More From Nancy
Suspended Oaths: Germans and Italians
In a letter dated December 13, 1941, just six days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, my grandmother recorded how quickly the war reached into ordinary lives. My father was living in Saginaw, Michigan at the time, having just turned twenty-one, and the country was still reeling from the shock of December 7. The United […]
Hometown Hero Returns
Among the newspaper clippings my parents saved was this story of Lieutenant Chester Ambrose of Martinsburg, West Virginia. Unlike so many wartime headlines that announced another life lost, this article tells of a young officer who survived some of the fiercest fighting of the Second World War and was able to return home. Lieutenant Ambrose […]
Washington in Blackout
In the December 13, 1941, letter, my grandmother described another unsettling reality of those first days after Pearl Harbor, the fear that the war might reach the American mainland. Information was fragmentary, rumors circulated freely, and no one yet knew what form the conflict would take. She wrote simply and without drama: “They tell us […]
