L. Day Perry

L. Day Perry was an American manual-arts writer born in 1887 and remembered today mainly for Seat Weaving, first published in 1917. In that book he identified himself as Supervisor of Manual Training in Joliet, Illinois, and as an instructor in esthetic and industrial education during the University of Chicago summer session.

His writing was practical and teacher-friendly, focused on useful skills rather than theory. Seat Weaving explains how to work with cane, reed, rush, and splints, and it reflects Perry's interest in school shop work and the educational value of making things by hand.

Library records also credit him with Construction of Radio Receiving Sets (1924), written with Ralph Ogden Buck, which suggests a wider interest in applied industrial and technical education. Reliable biographical details beyond his dates, published work, and teaching roles are scarce, so much of his legacy survives through the instructional books themselves.