ABSTRACT
In 1885 May Morris took over responsibility for the Morris & Co. embroidery department – supervising employees and outworkers as well as designing and stitching. With the formation of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society in May 1887 – the generally recognized formal inception of the movement, whose importance, according to Parry, cannot be over-estimated – Morris was among the participants. A woman edited Embroidery, the craft journal, while up and down the British Isles individual women stitched for both personal and professional purposes. Morris published her first article on embroidery in 1888 in the magazine of the Century Guild, the Arts and Crafts fraternity of A. H. Mackmurdo and Selwyn Image. Professionally, one of Morris’s major acts was the founding of the Women’s Guild of Arts in 1907. Until the 1890s entry to the design profession was restricted to those women, such as Morris or Kate Faulkner who were related by birth or marriage to men in the profession.
