John brought up the Marlow book, which was great and I have an early copy. My parents bought a jigsaw (they are now called scrollsaws) for me when I was 13 years old. This would have been in 1949. A year later, a family friend, who had learned cabinetmaking in the seabees and had opened a cabinet shop in Reidsville after WWII, offered me a summer and afterschool job in his cabinet shop. Made 25c per hour. The real treasure for me was his collection of Home Cratsman Magazines. I started buying them and still have some. They carried articles by Lester Margon, which opened my eyes to the wonderful world of FINE WOODWORKING and CRAFTSMANSHIP. Bought a copy of his masterpiece book, Construction of American Furniture Treasures. It was printed in 1949 and I still have it along with some of the other books mentioned. I hope with the electronic age in which we live the forum and information that is being provided by SAPFM, young people will be exposed to our furniture heritage as I was by those magazines and books at an early age.
Oh, my job at age 14 was sanding doors. They were made of gum plywood with a douglas fir veneer surface. Probably learned at an early age how important the final stages of woodworking are. Do not dislike sanding, scraping, etc to this day. May be the most important single lesson I learned at an early age.
Bob