Browsing by Author "Halonen, Alisa"

Tiivistelmä - Referat - Abstract This research’s main goal was to study how textiles’ substitute materials were used in Finland during the 1940’s. Research focused on what kind of substitute materials were used, in what purpose they were used and how did they work in their use. During the 1940’s there was a shortage of textiles in Finland, caused by The Second World War. The Second World War made it harder to import raw materials and textiles from around the world. In addition The Winter War and The Continuation War slowed down industrial developement and decreased domestic production. Textile shortage forced people to develop various creative ways of coping, one of which was using and developing substitute materials for textiles. Previous studies about 1940’s shortage time have been made, but the field is lacking a study about substitute materials. Many of the previous researches consentrate on studying crafts during the depression in a more general way. This study was targeted to consentrate on textiles’ substitute materials’ as a way of coping. The research was executed as qualitative historical study and the data was gathered using semi-structured interview. A woman born in 1937 was interviewed. The data was analyzed using the content analysis. In this study it was found that the usage of textiles’ substitute materials’ was perhaps not that common, as the previous studies imply. In addition the differences between the countryside and the city came up. It was found, that substitute materials were more commonly used in the city, when in the countryside people coped with what they already had.