Chapter 2 1901 - 1910 Motivations for woodworking: a) hours of work and leisure time; b)
disposable income; c) other factors
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[under construction 2-3-09]
Constraints of "Leisure Time"
Hours of work still hovered in the 60-hours per week
range, so the definition of "leisure time" during this era
had substantial constraints upon anyone's desire to engage in
woodworking as a hobby. Likewise, disposable incomes limited the luxury
of a hobby to an elite few.
"Professional men", Gustav Stickley recommended, should "have a basement workshop as a place to substitute manual for mental labor".
"The man who works with his hands at home
. is a healthier and better balanced man and his interest in his home grows more vivid and personal with every article of furniture that he makes with his own hands and according to his own ideas".
Source: Gustav Stickley, Craftsman Homes, pp. 169-70.
Lacking though from the chapter Stickley dedicates to projects that "professional" craftsmen consider for constructing are "instructions", that is, scaled plans, materials lists, cutting instructions, all the sorts of things one assumes in contained "instruction sheets" or "woodworker's manuals".
Arts and Crafts Ideas Spreading Across America
It was the "most democratic of art movements," the
American Civic Association declared in 1906, in the wake of the rapid spread of
Arts and Crafts ideals across the country
Americans were subscribing to dozens
of periodicals devoted to Arts and Crafts concerns, joining hundreds of Arts
and Crafts societies, and taking classes at a bewildering variety of summer
schools, night schools, design schools, and settlement houses. They also viewed
the works of craftsmen from all over the world at international expositions
(see no. 6) and at exhibitions sponsored by societies and schools. These agents
of dissemination affected amateurs as well as professionals, consumers and
appreciators as well as makers.
After a brief overview of books, periodicals, and Arts and Crafts
societies, Mrs Johnson's essay focuses on the role of education in spreading Arts and
Crafts ideology — and practice. Manual training programs in the public schools
and the British-inspired methodology taught at American design schools, topics
not covered elsewhere in this catalogue, were crucial in shaping an
understanding of the crafts among artists, art workers, hobbyists, and the
general public.
Source: Mrs. M.E. Johnson, "Arts and Crafts," (Leaflet No. 10, Department Pamphlet No. 4-I, American Civic Association, Department of Arts and Crafts, 1906), page 1, as cited by Wendy Kaplan, "Spreading the Crafts: The Role of the Schools", in Wendy Kaplan, ed., "The Art That is Life": The Arts and Crafts Movement in America, 1875-1920 Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1987, page 298
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