This image was scanned from my private collection
NO TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title: Crocheted Edgings and Insertions
Author/Designer: Louise Nacke
Format/Publication Date: TPB:1915ish
Publisher: Jacob Frank Mercantile Co., St. Louis, MO
Language: English
Page Count: 12
Book Dimensions(ht. x w.): 11 1/2" x 9"
ISBN: None
SUMMARY- The book's introduction claims that modern crocheters prefer to copy from the pattern rather than follow written directions. I find that highly doubtful, but it saved the designer from having to work out the instructions for her own patterns, of which you get 48 in this book. The photos are large clear black-and-white, making it possible to do as the designer suggests if you are experienced and know how to reverse engineer patterns from a sample. The last four edgings are very narrow to go around handkerchiefs - the last one of those is actually tatting, not crochet. I'm mystified as to why a simple tatted edging was dropped into the mix, and it would certainly throw crocheters who weren't familiar with tatting.
I have a small mystery with the Louise Nacke series. The name of the publisher isn't printed anywhere in the copy of this booklet that I have. I assumed it had to be E.C. Spuehler since it is advertised on the back of many of the E.C. Spuehler publications that I've collected, and the fact that it did have St. Louis, Missouri printed on the cover, which is where E.C. Spuehler's publishing house was located. But then I found a copy of Louise Nacke's fifth book of her series, "Bags of all Kinds in Crochet", and it had a copyright date printed in it of 1916. It was copyrighted by the Jacob Frank Mercantile Company, and printed by the Stewart Scott Printing Company. That booklet was printed by a different publisher than E.C. Spuehler, and it also advertised her earlier booklets. Both the 3rd and the 5th books that I have copies of are larger dimensionally than any of the other E.C. Spuehler publications - so I'm guessing that this booklet was also first published by the Jacob Frank Mercantile Company, and not E.C. Spuehler. My educated guess is that E.C. Spuehler reissued Ms. Nacke's five books under its own imprint later in the decade. All of this is supposition. As I find more of the series, I hope to piece together more than this string of guess work - but isn't it interesting what is slowly getting revealed by putting together a catalog of these books? It's a criminal shame that the Library of Congress can't be concerned with women's hobbies - we'd know exactly when the books got published simply by looking up when the Library of Congress received and processed them into its collection...