In Good Hands: The Women of the Canadian Handicrafts Guild

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University and an avid outdoor recreationist. She is also the
author of The Mountain Is Moving: Japanese Women’s Lives, Kurlek, and
Margaret Laurence: The Long Journey Hom

This celebration of the remarkable women who promoted crafts in Canada
and fostered the arts-and-crafts movement has been carefully researched
and well documented. Among the book’s special contributions to the
field of art history is its correction of the class and gender biases
that have dominated that field until recently.

In Good Hands can be enjoyed for its stories of both individuals and
associations. It will serve as an important resource book not only for
craftspeople and artists but also for historians and many other
researchers. Scholarly apparatus include extensive notes, several
appendixes, a substantial index, and an impressive 42-page bibliography.
There are also many intriguing photographs.

Montrealers Alice Peck and May Phillips started the Home Arts and
Handicrafts Committee in 1896 and founded the Canadian Handicrafts Guild
in 1905. For 30 years, the Guild was the leading national patron of
Canadian handicrafts as art. These women, and the many supporters of
this movement, believed that arts and crafts were the very basis of a
country’s reputation in the field of art. In Good Hands confirms and
celebrates their convictions and their dream.