Page 29 - Constructing Craft

Craft and Leisure

Leisure was, for working people at least, from the end of the nineteenth century a

by-product of the reorganisation of work. The move from craft as work to craft as
leisure brought with it questions of morality. William Morris proposed that leisure

could be considered in two ways. One was as non-work or free time, and another as
an extension of work, or voluntary labour. In both cases leisure was a form of rest,

but in the first it implied inactivity or, more precisely, any pastime which did not have

a manual component. In the second, by contrast, leisure was productive. In
Victorian society work was considered morally uplifting and Morris preferred the

second form of leisure ‒ voluntary labour ‒ to the first. Free time spent inactively, he
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claimed, ‘was work's least important reward.’ After the First World War crafts were
still evolving from work to leisure activities. Leisure-time used productively, even if it

was only filling ‘empty spaces’, was preferable to bored and disaffected people
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getting up to mischief such as fermenting social or political unrest.

The approval of work as a form of leisure persisted throughout the twentieth

century. In the United States for instance, hobbies ‘appear[ed] to … experience an
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unprecedented growth in public acceptance ... during the great depression.’ It is
reasonable to expect, given the similarity of the two societies, that a growth of

interest in hobbies occurred in New Zealand between the wars as well. It was
suggested that the two main reasons for the growth during the depression were that

people, if they were unemployed or underemployed, had more time and, even if
employed, had less money and had to make do. In addition, at a deeper level, the

authorities in the United States, as in Britain, believed that the declining hours being

worked throughout the century, because of technological advances, were
problematic because people might fill their time with useless and morally dangerous

activity. ‘Hobbies were recommended [because] they allowed participants to

exercise and/or learn a variety of skills and attitudes that would make them more
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fulfilled and more productive.’

In New Zealand hobbies were recommended as a means of relaxation. One woman

writer suggested that women could learn from men:
It is a duty to yourself to spend some time each day in doing
something which is not really necessary, but which you enjoy.

Constructing Craft