Deerfield Arts & Crafts home page
Mrs. Henry in the room next us was the center of attraction to tourists....Her four poster and covered crickets and hat boxes, etc. made a good setting. She sat on a rush bottomed chair with her spectacles half down her nose and netted between times- With every new-comer, she told her tales and pointed out the beauties with a relish as fresh as if she had never told it before....the tourists enjoyed and flattered and spurred her to new efforts.
Mary Allen's Diary, July 5, 1914, collection of the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association.
A benefit of decorating ones home with Arts and Crafts objects was that the consumer would often have the chance to get to know both the work and the thoughts of a favored artisan. Emma Henry was particularly adept at cultivating tourists' interest in her work. As she sat within a colonial bedroom display featuring her tufting and netting she would demonstrate her craft and talk about its relationship to the work of the colonial past.