Popularity Of Hobbies

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20995, 23 December 1939, Page 20 (Supplement)

Popularity Of Hobbies

A GOOD USE OF LEISURE The cult of hobbies is making such progress in the United States of America that there are several special magazines which rely mainly on “hobbyists” for their circulation. Not long ago the City of Miami, Florida, had an exhibition of hobbyists’ products. The exhibits ranged from crochet work to a collection of snake venom. A wandering “mike” daily brought interesting interviews with the exhibitors to the public through a broadcasting station, and helped to create and sustain interest in the showing. Exhibits were displayed in four classifications: Doing things; learning things; acquiring things; and making things. Even the sponsors of the exhibition were surprised at the wide range of unusual things brought in and at the absence of some of the most common hobbies; stamp collections are considered one of the first of the hobbies; yet there was only one stamp exhibit, a commemorative collection. It was thought, when the idea for the show was first brought up, that most of the hobbyists would be children and young persons; on the contrary, the older generation was the most interested. More Exhibits By Men

More exhibits were entered by men than by women. Both husband and wife united in a single hobby in more than one instance. One of the most popular exhibits was that entered by a man from the street cleaning department of the city (a set of pictures made from shells); another hobby came from a judge. Policeman doctor, ship captain, teacher, school boys and girls, housewives, business men and women, and “just old folks” were all represented. Several exhibits showed that men and women sometimes swap interests when it comes to a hobby. The best collection of needlepoint, for example, was entered by a man, while it was a woman who exhibited coins. Quite a few exhibits were by men who followed their daily work into highly specialised lines as a hobby.

Hobbies occupy a part of the stage at Temple University, U.S.A., where the curriculum of avocational courses is being enlarged. The courses conducted by the evening extension division of the university. Holding weekly classes in these after-work hours enables business men and women to benefit from them. Studies, not theoretical but actual, are on the workshop plan. Students learn not so much why they should take up hobbies as how they can follow them. They have a choice of studying photography, creative writing, pastel and water colour, cartooning, graphic work, the dance, oil painting, sculpture and modeling, poetry writing, leather modelling and stage and screen work.