Photographs by Victoria Campbell
Hammer
When you’re born into the Rockler woodworking family, you whittle your own pacifier. Right? Not exactly. Rockler’s now executive chairman, Ann Jackson, wasn’t even allowed to take high school shop.
“I’m old enough that girls couldn’t take woodworking in high school,” says Jackson. “And I should have been in woodworking because I failed tuna salad!”
In fact, the daughter of the founder of Rockler Woodworking and Hardware never made sawdust fly until she was an adult.
“My first big project was a dictionary stand—amazingly fun,” she says. “Turning [shaping wood with a lathe and turning tools] is very meditative: You have to have such intense concentration you can only breathe and focus. It’s very relaxing.”
Not only does the girl who couldn’t take woodshop in school now head a company that supplies woodshops, but just this past summer she completed her master’s degree, publishing a thesis about women furniture makers.
“Of the nine women I interviewed, only two were able to take it in school,” Jackson says.
And those nine are far from alone. Jackson says she’s seen a dramatic increase in women shopping and taking classes at Rockler this year.
Jill Miller, founder of Hopkins woodshop Projects in Person, has seen a similar trend. Miller reports that about 95 percent of the ticket buyers for her classes are women. Miller’s customers arrive to a pile of lumber and leave with anything from a cutting board to a dining table.
“We get a lot of women 60-plus who were never allowed to use tools, but we also see a lot of men who’ve never touched tools either,” Miller says. “Skills you might have learned from your dad or grandpa back in the day, they’re not getting passed down.”
Then again, maybe having skills passed down is overrated anyway. Just look at Minneapolis master bespoke-furniture maker Laurie McKichan, who first learned woodworking at the Edina Community Center Woodshop.
“I grew up doing traditional women’s crafts—needlepoint, sewing—but right away I loved the smell of a woodshop, the design challenges, the curves and joinery,” McKichan says. “A lot of times clients come to me with an idea and ask, ‘But can you do it?’ I say: I don’t know! So, I go into my happy place, with solitude and tools, and do something creative and positive. I’d tell any woman, ‘Just try it.’ It’s so satisfying.”
Jess Hirsch has also witnessed a wave of women diving into sawdust. She founded Minneapolis education and maker space Women’s Woodshop (just renamed Fireweed Community Woodshop) on Inauguration Day in 2017.
“I just needed to put something positive into the world. What evolved has been so supportive, so truly community-embracing,” Hirsch says. “It’s called Fireweed now because that’s one of the things that blooms first after a wildfire. After COVID, after the social uprising? Hopefully we can reemerge in a more beautiful way after the wildfire that was 2020.”
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People working with wood
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Taking measurement for wood project
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Stacked boards
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Woman working with saw
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wood boards
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working with a drill
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Woman working with saw
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wood boards
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Finished project
