author
Ida Strawn Baker
1876–1962
Best known for co-authoring an early practical guide to batik, this Midwestern artist and teacher helped bring textile design into classrooms and studios. Her work sits at the meeting point of craft, education, and the American Arts and Crafts movement.
1 Audiobook
Batik and other pattern dyeing
by Walter Davis Baker, Ida Strawn Baker
About the author
Ida Strawn Baker was an American artist, craftsperson, and teacher born in 1876. Reliable records connected with her published work identify her as the co-author, with Walter Davis Baker, of Batik and Other Pattern Dyeing, a 1920 instructional book on textile art and dyeing techniques.
A 1922 alumni note from the University of Northern Iowa places her in Indianapolis, where she and her husband were working with the Waldcraft Company. The same note says she was associated with the Boston Society of Arts and Crafts, the Handicraft Guild of Indiana, and the Women's Rotary Club, suggesting an active role in both design education and the wider arts-and-crafts community.
Because surviving online biographical information is fairly limited, the clearest picture that emerges is of a maker-teacher who helped explain batik in a practical, accessible way for students and craftspeople. That makes her a small but interesting figure in the story of American decorative arts in the early twentieth century.