Frank T. Carlton "Art In
Industry: The Significance Of The Arts And Crafts Movement,"
Popular Science Monthly
volume 65 (September 1904), pp 414-416.
( Carlton was
a professor at
Toledo
University
School)
Click here to go directly below
for the full text of Carlton's piece,
Art In Industry
Click here for a brief outline of
the origins in England of the Arts and Crafts movement
In 1904, 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.
Essentially
Carlton
claims that, today (i.e., 1904),
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... Leisure, culture, education,
art and work are now conceived to be
the birthright of all.
"If the machine enables us to produce the necessities of life
for all, it is, nevertheless, the skilled human
hand which must adorn and beautify
these products." The old craftsmen
were artists; "the modern workman is only a link in a great
industrial chain. He repeats, in a monotonous routine, certain
simple movements; no realizing sense of the true social value or
significance of the work which he performs ever comes to him.
Long hours and routine work crush the individuality and ambition
out of him. The arts and crafts movement needs educated
producers and consumers. The task is a double one; the workers
must be trained to produce good work,
and the taste of all consumers must be educated so that they
will demand good articles. Shorter hours and the right use of
leisure will give an impetus to the demand for better qualities
of goods; and thus variety and
handicraftsmanship will to some
extent replace interchangeability and machine production.
Indications of a revival of those industries involving more
skilful hand work.
Two great forces,
in addition to the work of the school, may be discerned to be
removing the obstacles in the path of the arts and crafts
movement -- the decentralizing tendency of electricity when
used to transmit power, and the growth of the labor
movement which demands shorter hours and better shop conditions.
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Today, in the first decade of
the 21st century, looking
back,
Carlton
's predictions did indeed materialize, but in ways that neither
he nor anyone else could be able visualize in 1900. There was
an Arts and Crafts movement, early in 1900, lasting until
about 1916. At that time, the Movement, stimulated by the
activities of Americans such as Gustav Stickley,
was motivated, mostly, by the promise
that the Movement would furnish homes of the common person with
solid, tasteful, and affordable -- handmade furniture and other
art objects.
(The
Movement itself actually originated roughly a century earlier,
ca 1850, driven by the theoretical writings of John Ruskin and
William Morris, in
England, north of Cheltenham, and spread
rapidly not only to North America but to Northern Europe, and
even Japan
.
Personal note: In May
2005, I was able to observe the exhibit of arts and crafts
objects assembled by
London 's
Victoria
and
Albert
Museum
, said to be the largest exhibit ever mounted of the
Movement's artifacts. Also, roughly the same time, I was
fortunate enough to visit the
Cheltenham
museum's exhibit of original arts and crafts materials produced
by the English craftsmen in the
latter part of the 19th century and in early 20th
century.)
In
America, for a variety of
reasons, the steam ran out of the Arts and Crafts movement
around 1916. Stickley's magazine, The Craftsman
folded. (Here's
a link to The Craftsman on CD-ROM.) Stickley's
business went bankrupt. While some Arts and Crafts activity
continued, the events leading up to the tidal wave of change
that took place in the 1920s -- in taste, in technology -- just
overwhelmed the Movement.
Well, not entirely was it
wiped out. Instead, let us just say it went "underground" and
was carried, culturally, until its
reemergence ca. 1960.
For me, rather interestingly,
after examining the contents of books dedicated to teaching
woodworking as a (declining) vocation, or as a hobby, covering
roughly 1900 to the present, furniture designs from Arts and
Crafts Movement are what featured
frequently. Indeed, sometimes these are the only designs a
woodworking manual will contain. No explicit reasons are given,
but one can speculate that the following are leading: Publishers
often solicited teachers of
woodworking course to author these manuals on woodworking, and
in selecting projects to illustrate in these manuals, Arts and
Crafts furniture were chosen because of their simplicity of
construction and natural aesthetic appeal. I have traced this
trend from the early 1900s through the 1940s; by the 1950s,
other trends in furniture designs became more popular, elbowing
out the Arts and Crafts designs. (I will cover these details in
the narrative sections of the history.)
Other examples are the
periodicals contemporary of the era, such as Popular
Science, Popular Mechanics, Industrial Arts Magazine,
and The Craftsman. Popular Science,
you'll notice, published Carlton's article (pasted below), but
as well as featuring furniture projects in articles in issues of
the time, the magazine commissioned, such as this Dover
publishing reprint,
Mission Furniture: How to Make It,
still on sale
today. (Why furniture of the Arts and Crafts movement
became known as "Mission furniture"
is shrouded in mystery, but evidently has something to do with
its similarity to the so-called Mission Furniture of California
of era when California was
still part of
Mexico.
This link
explains it, but not very satisfactorily)
Since, 1960, when it
reemerged, as a Movement, Arts and Crafts has flourished for a
longer period than its original popularity, roughly two decades,
1895-1916. Woodworking magazines, lead by the first title,
Fine Woodworking, help sustain the interest in arts
and crafts furniture design by featuring arts and crafts
furniture projects frequently. (Before
the founding of FW, in 1976, no
magazine existed in
America that was dedicated
solely to woodworking.
I would hazard the guess that
articles on projects for building furniture of the Arts and
Crafts movement are featured in
FW and all other woodworking magazines more frequent
than any other furniture design group.) But
other forces that sustain the Arts and Crafts Movement today are
the numerous
websites,
museums,
conferences,
collectors, to cite just a few sources.
But other forces, especially
the reprinting of art and crafts furniture manuals, catalogs,
and the like, are regularly reprinted by
Dover and other,
similar publishing houses.
(The details of what
is noted above will be covered in my
narrative accounts.)
Full Text of
Carlton 's 1904
Article Pasted Below:
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DURING the last
century the productive powers of man
were multiplied many times by the utilization of the energy of
coal and water through the agency of steam and electricity. As a
result the human race has been lifted
from a condition of struggle for the necessities of life to a
higher plane of material comfort. With the increase of material
wealth has been ushered in the new spirit of democracy.
Leisure, culture, education, art and work
are now conceived to be the birthright of all.
Universal education and culture has heretofore been impossible
because of the meager productivity of the unaided man. The arts
and crafts movement of today is democratic. It proclaims to the
world that beauty, skill and education are for all; and that the
common thing should be made beautiful, and the beautiful,
universal. If the machine enables us to produce the
necessities of life for all, it is, nevertheless, the skilled
human hand which must adorn and
beautify these products. The hand must find its province
where the machine cannot go. In its proper sphere, the machine
may make beautiful things, and may even excel the hand; it is
not the use of the machine, but the abuse of machine production,
which should be deprecated; without the
machine much of our present material comfort would be
impossible.
Art is a form of industry,
and industry properly applied always brings forth a work of art.
The mechanic, fashioning the accurate and splendid tool,
produces a work of art; the man, forming with infinite care the
lenses of the great Lick telescope, brings into being another
work of art. The automatic screw machine and the steam engine
are as certainly works of art as the painting or the sculpture
of the great masters of the Renaissance. There is and can be no
real art considered entirely apart and distinct from industry
and the industrial life of the people. As Emerson has said:
"Beauty must come back to the useful arts and the distinction
between the final and the useful arts be
forgotten." Art is a way of doing things and resides in the
common as well as in the uncommon, at home as well as abroad, in
the present as well as in the past.
The old
craftsmen were artists.
They wrought with infinite care as much for the satisfaction of
doing good and true work as for the money value of the product.
The products of the craftsman's skill
were few, and only the ruling classes were privileged to possess
them. The laboring masses were busily engaged in obtaining the
bare necessities of life; no thought of comfort, art or
education entered into their lives. The
craftsman did unite art and industry; but the modern
conception of democracy did not exist. On the other hand, the
modern workman is
only a link in a great industrial chain. He repeats, in a
monotonous routine, certain simple movements; no realizing
sense of the true social value or significance of the work which
he performs ever comes to him. Long hours and routine work crush
the individuality and ambition out of him.
The specialized worker
necessarily has narrow views of life; his ability to enjoy is
limited. The
opportunity and privileges of both working and leisure hours
are only partially utilized. It
has been said that for a man of
twenty, pleasure is business; of thirty, business is business;
and of forty, business is pleasure. It might
further be maintained that there is little pleasure
outside of business for the ordinary man of forty or fifty.
Business, the grind of daily life, has engrossed the entire
energies of the man. Enjoyment in life means enjoyment of
leisure and of work. The unskilled laborer,
I fear, enjoys neither -- why? His work is monotonous and
wearing, the surroundings of home and workshop are not
inspiring, and he has received no training
which will aid him in finding and utilizing the few
opportunities for rational enjoyment which come to him.
The present arts and crafts
movement is a protest against and a reaction from the minute
division of labor now employed in manufacture, and the
stripping of the artistic features from industry.
Articles are made to sell more particularly than to serve a
useful and important service. Profit, not service, is now the
watchword of industry. Art in the crafts would emphasize
service. The arts and crafts movement aims to give dignity
to the worker, and to teach that all should be workers. The
man of leisure is a drone and a parasite. Each individual has
some particular work for which he is best adapted; and society
needs his services. Only when all are workers and each striving
to do his best work does society approach an ideal condition.
The arts and crafts movement
needs educated producers and consumers.
The task is a double one; the workers
must be trained to produce good work, and the taste of
all consumers must be educated so that they will demand good
articles. Shorter hours and the right use of leisure will
give an impetus to the demand for better qualities of goods; and
thus variety and handicraftsmanship
will to some extent replace
interchangeability and machine production. All civilized men
demand the necessities of life -- food, clothing and shelter --
of a character not greatly dissimilar;
these common requirements lend themselves readily to machine
production. Industrial operations in which machinery is the
chief factor are directed toward producing the greatest possible
quantity of a uniform quality; therefore, as far as inventive
skill will allow, the machine and natural forces, rather than
human skill and energy, are employed in producing
goods which satisfy the common needs
of all men. The class of work in which skill is the determining
factor aims to improve the quality rather than to increase the
quantity produced. As the demand for the latter class of goods
increases the call for skilled
workers will also increase.
There are indications of a
revival of those industries involving more skilful
hand work. More interest
is being manifested, throughout the
country, in art, architecture and the products of the various
handicrafts. The increased attention paid to art and drawing in
our public schools is another indication of the coming change in
the spirit and demands of the American people. The result of
such training on the next generation will be
great, and its effect cumulative on the succeeding one.
Industries involving artistic ability and intricate manual skill
are incapable of minute division of labor. The gain resulting
from the centralization of industry and the division of labor is
very small in this class of work. It .is well adapted, however,
to small factories and workshops, and forms an appropriate kind
of industry for small villages. If there is to be any
considerable revival of village industry, it must come through
an increase in the demand for the products of skilled manual
work.
The use of steam and the lack
of adequate rural transportation facilities forced the
abandonment of village industry and built up the existing great
industrial centers. In recent years
the increasing use of electricity for the distribution and
application of power is changing the location and internal
arrangement of our shops. This, together with the rapid growth
of suburban and interurban electric lines, is placing the
villages and rural community in a better condition for
industrial pursuits. The separation of agriculture and
manufacture will, as a result, probably be
less in the future than in the present or the immediate past.
Two great forces, in addition to the work of the school, may be
discerned to be removing the obstacles in the path of the arts and
crafts movement- the decentralizing tendency of electricity when
used to transmit power, and the growth of the labor movement
which demands shorter hours and better shop conditions.
Just as the manual training movement
was a result of economic and industrial changes, so is the call
for art in the crafts the result of such forces. As the machine
displaces workers, they are pushed higher up
in the industrial scale. Such a phenomenon must also be accompanied by an increased demand for the
products of skilled workers. This movement is not something evolved out of the minds of a few
thoughtful devotees of art; but is in harmony with and dependent
upon the needs of industrial and educational life. It is an
evolutionary movement.
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