2:4.
Hand tools vs Power machines:
Woodworker's manuals were almost entirely given
over to descriptions of hand tools and instructions in their use.
Electrification -- using alternating current -- did not begin in
American urban centers until about 1915, and was complete by 1930; then
electrification in rural areas begun.
Some direct current lines were
available, as you'll note in Document 2: A L
Hall Workshop at Home 1908 and Document 42: Ira S Griffith's article,
"Recreation With Tools" 1910
Hall himself mentions the availability of DC power, even though he still constructed his Morris chair with a foot-powered
table saw. I have uploaded a jpg of Hall's chair below.
Document 2: A L
Hall Workshop at Home 1908
Griffith
gives advice to wannabe amateur woodworkers, including what is an ideal
home workshop, how to build a suitable workbench, and the essential set
of tools to buy:
Document 42: Ira S Griffith's article,
"Recreation With Tools" 1910
Mention of foot-power brings up the Arts and Crafts
movement, which was initially had a sort of Luddite mentality, ie,
anti-power machine. However, when Stickley brought the design movement
to America, excuses were created to eliminate Arts and Crafts
operations in from their English cousins' constraints.
In 1903, the architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, presented his vindication of using machines for
furniture construction in the polemic, "The Art and Craft of the
Machine".
Document
21:
Frank Lloyd Wright -- Art and
Craft of the Machine 1901 Wright, who later became one of America's foremost
architects, embraced ideas from both William Morris (chief
exponent of the Arts and Crafts movement's reaction to Victorian
excesses in embellishing furniture),
Appendix
11:
On the Origins of the Art Nouveau and the Arts
and Crafts Style
In 1904, in Document 6, to an
observer like Frank T Carlton, a professor at Toledo University School,
the potential impact of the Arts and Crafts Movement on American
society was quite evident and today, in 2006, a century later, we can
only marvel at how remarkable his insights are, but in an uncanny
way. Document
6: a 1904 article heralding
"The Significance of the Arts and Crafts Movement for Woodworking"
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