Arts and Crafts Influence on Education
Jason R. Lloyd
TEL 502
State University College at Oswego
Introduction
The arts and crafts influence on education has help develop the technology field into a
historical field of chaos. In order to understand technology education today, we need to
first understand the history of the influence of the Arts and Crafts Movement and second
social and economic, conditions of the late 19th century. The focus of this paper is to
clarify the origin of the Arts and Crafts Movement and the personal interpretation of how
it shaped the educational field of today.
Historical Background
The official date of incorporation of the Arts and Crafts Movement in America is 1897,
but that era started long before this official date. The movement was the start of a
transition from the traditional manufactured Victorian designs to handcrafted simple
craftsmanship. This new movement originated in England around 1888, as the Industrial
Revolution was eliminating craftsmanship to quantity; hand tools were replaced by
machines (Gomez, 2001). The industrialization was eliminating the skills and trades that
had been handed down for generations among craftsman and women. The Arts and
Crafts Movement proved to be widely influential, popular, and long lasting; spreading
across the Atlantic to Boston to be established in the states starting in 1897 after a
showing. A small group of architects, educators, craftspeople, and collectors organized
the first crafts exhibition held in this country (Unknown 1, 2003). The show promoted
excellence in design, technical mastery, and usefulness in ever day life. Arts and crafts
relied on the past medieval designs, simple and practical, straight lines and solid
craftsmanship for longevity. The Gothic revival of the first half of the 19th century was an
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important influence of the arts and crafts movement by revisiting the influences of the
Middle Ages architecture and cathedrals. It also revived the skills and traditional
materials used by the medieval craftsman.
William Morris
As far as the founder of the arts and crafts movement, William Morris (1834-1896) has
the strongest historical background. Morris came from an affluent family of the time in
Walthamstow, England; He was the third out of nine children of William and Emma
Shelton Morris. Morris led a happy, but spoiled childhood. He enjoyed to forests, birds,
gardens, and flowers which led to his reoccurring topics in his art, poetry, and infatuation
with medieval times (Cody, 1987).
In 1847, Morris’s father died and a year later William entered Marlborough College at
the age of 14. Morris left the college in 1851 to return home. In 1853, Morris entered
Exeter College with the hopes of becoming a member of the clergy. With the reason why
he wanted to become clergy was of his attraction to medieval ideals such as chivalry and
communal life. In 1855 Morris was old enough to receive his first annual inheritance of
900 pounds, which roughly figures out to be over 30 thousand American dollars
currently. With the money backing him, he left Oxford at the end of the year to become
an artist. After a brief apprenticeship in 1856, Morris abandoned architecture to study
art. Three years later at the age of twenty five, in 1859, he married a woman named Jane,
who was 18. They had two daughters Jenny and May within the first few years of
marriage.
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In 1870 Morris was a vocal politician and started many organizations. His main concerns
where poverty, unemployment, lost skills, and the growing gap between upper and lower
classes which he blamed the Industrial Revolution within the Victorian Society. During
the year of 1877, Morris founded The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings,
which makes him the earliest environmentalist and preservationist (Cody, 1987). Morris
was a poet, politician, artist, craftsman, designer, and a printer. One of his first joint
business endeavors was with a partnership he funded of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and
Company that supplied wallpaper, furniture covers, and “useful embroideries” in 1873
(Unknown 2, 2001). Prior to this in 1861, Morris formed a partnership with some
painters to produce manufactured decorations of carvings, metalwork, stained glass, and
carpeting noted for their fine craftsmanship which they thought to reinvest everyday
objects with these qualities (Gomez, 2001). A small business of needle work actually
boosted the educational fields of skilled trades. Morris, with the help of his wife and
daughters, started embroidery kits hand drawn on linen to be needled with silks and
wools. His wife and daughters often started the corners as a way to guide the consumers,
they called this business “gardening with silk and gold thread”. This needle work invited
Morris to the Royal School of Needlework in London, which lead to his work traveling
overseas to the New York Society for Decorative Arts, Newcomb College, Kensington
School of Needlework, and the Massachusetts Normal Arts School (Unknown 3, 1998).
Morris seemed to give a rebirth to medieval arts in a new era.
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Charles Locke Eastlake
Charles Locke Eastlake (1836-1906) was a predecessor to Morris. Eastlake was an
architect, writer, and furniture designer who produced a revolution of design. He
reintroduced hand craftsmanship, honest construction and time honored finishing
techniques. Eastlake designs often boasted handcrafted solid woods and visible
rectangular jointers. He condemned the use of stains and varnishes to disguise expensive
woods; preferring instead to use oils and natural colored finishes. “The present system of
French polishing, or literally varnishing furniture is destructive of all artistic effect in its
appearance, because the surface of the wood thus lacquered can never change its color, or
acquire that rich hue which is one the charms of old cabinet work” (Bienestock, 1998).
Eastlake authored a book entitled Hints on Household Taste which Morris found
particularly inspiring. Charles Locke Eastlake’s reforming ideas have had many names
over the years, new Renaissance style, neo-medieval, plank construction, or even Art
furniture (Unknown 4, 2000). Eastlakes ideas inspired an entire revolution from the
Victorian style , however it was Morris who received credit. Perhaps Morris carried this
title because he had the money to bring the style to the consumer.
The Stickley’s Leopold and Gustav
The common misconception of the Arts and Crafts Movement is the Stickleys. The
Stickley brothers, where actually promoters of the Arts and Crafts designs. Gustav
visited England in the late 1890’s, when he returned he founded the United Crafts in
order to promote the principles established by Morris (Unknown 2, 2001). “Both the
artistic and the socialistic sense…to substitute the luxury of taste for the costliness; to
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teach that beauty does not imply elaboration or ornament; to employ only those forms
and materials which make for simplicity, individuality and the dignity of effect”
(Stickley 1901). Stickley designs where simple compared to the over decorated mass
produced furniture for the middle class. The designs fulfilled its mission of usefulness,
well proportioned, simple and honest constructed furniture (Unknown 2, 2001). The
Stickleys made the Arts and Crafts design well known through mass marketing, publicity,
targeted American’s the American desire for change in design, Stickley based their
designs on Morris’s and Eastlake’s philosophies. Stickley started furniture in 1901 with
the “craftsman” style in which critics of the time stated how it resembles Arts and Crafts
and the west coast mission style. Leopold Stickley in one of his books by describing how
his employees worked down played the Arts and Crafts Movement, … “earliest settlers
equipped with only simple tools, their one great wealth was the skill of their hands.
Schooled in the art of building sturdy, long lasting structures by joining separate pieces of
wood together with interlocking joints, they quickly erected shelter against the elements,
and furnished them with rude, but surprisingly well proportioned benches, beds, and
chairs” (Stickley, 1950). He made it sound as if the settlers of this country worked for
him and only desire function not beauty in design.
Mission
Mission is yet another style people associate with Stickley. However they only adapted
the style. The mission style actually originated in Mexico by the native Indians. The
mission style was first mass produced in 1890’s by Joseph McHugh, a manufacture of
furniture for the west coast. Mission furniture is characterized by being solid, simple,
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weathered or fumed oak, straight lines, mortise and tenon joinery and having dowels to
lock joints (Unknown 4, 2000).
Connections
The true father of the Arts and Crafts Movement would have been the craftspeople of the
medieval times, but because that era was gone Eastlake was the first known to evoke
ideas of simpler designs from the Victorians ornate style. Eastlake enjoyed the natural
beauty of wood. Morris read Eastlake and had the financial backing to create what is
today known as the Arts and Crafts Movement. Morris revitalized the skill crafts which
the Industrial Revolution eliminated. Stickley followed Morris’s ideas to a limited point.
Ironically Morris was against the Industrial Revolution and mass production, Stickley
founded his factory on mass production, using immigrants of the turn of the century to
work in a factory not local craftsman as implied in his book. Originally the wood was
fumed to gain the old cabinet patina that Eastlake boasted of, however today OSHA
deems this process unsafe. To this day L&JG Stickley Company/EJ Audi Company still
produces Morris furniture, Eastlake reproductions, and other designs by Harvey Ellis.
Ellis was an employee of Stickley who designed furnishings he never benefited from the
profits of his designs; he died a pulpier. Stickley also to this day uses a large number of
immigrants employees. The company receives government money to pay a portion of the
immigrants wages. They have also begun to manufacture some of the pieces now out of
plywood. The handcrafted furniture of the movement is replaced by computers and
automated machines. Stickley has now evolved into a company of mass production not
of hand crafted pieces which was Morris and Eastlakes vision. Stickley produces
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hundreds on thousands of furniture each day, they actually measure their productivity on
dollars not pieces. Carvings and inlays are sent outside the state to be mass produced by
a computer. Leopold said, “ From the earliest dawn of history, artist and creative workers
have identified the works of their hands and brains by some distinctive symbol or
signature. These marks have come to be a sign of genuine value, a guarantee of
authenticity, a certificate of craftsmanship recognized by the collectors and neophyte
alike.” The logo is part of production not a finial seal of approval, “…because its easier
to do before it is put together,” my supervisor once told me. During my four years at
Stickley, I have seen a lot, such as cherry plywood not solid cherry, from a company that
advertises solid wood, hot glue to hold decorative pieces together, and greed to increase
production to make more money for the owner while still averaging less than ten dollars
and hour in 1999 for skilled craftspeople.
Conclusion
The influence of the Arts and Crafts Movement on the educational system, on the surface
appears to be promoting the lost skills and trades of the centuries past, by reinforcing the
ideas of honesty, practicality, and craftsmanship. W.R. Lethaby wrote early in the 20th
century “ if the thing is not worth doing it can hardly be a work of art, however well it
may be done. A thing worth doing which is ill done is hardly a thing at all” (Burrows,
2003). Under the surface the Arts and Crafts Movement has paralleled the educational
system. The needs of the students has been changed based on political powers over the
last century, although math has not changed for centuries the curriculum has, the same for
Social Studies, Sciences, Art and Music, even Physical Education. To summarize a
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statement by Dr. William Waite, Really good industrial arts programs where actually
teaching technology already. Technology educators teach basic problem solving skills
needed and how they are applied in everyday life, what the title of our curriculum is
irrelevant, it changes only in the way in which we present material. Regardless of the
time period, whether it be medieval period or the 21st century, usefulness and practical
application has been the focus.
Just as the Arts and Crafts Movement started with the basic belief in practical usefulness
design so has technology education. They both survived social and political changes
such as the Victorian era, Industrial Revolution, computerized reproductions, business
owners greed, and various commissioners of education. Today technology education is
entering a new phase, Project Lead the Way, which emphasizes model theory over hands
on production. The bottom line however reflects medieval Europe’s usefulness and
practical application regardless of the title of the education program.
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Bibliography
Stickley, L (1950).The Story of a Developing Furniture Style. Fayetteville, NY
L.&J.G. Stickley Inc.
Gomez, A. (2001). Manual Arts Movement. Retrieved October 1, 2003.
www.imagine101.com/manual.htm
Unknown (2003). Society of Arts and Crafts. Retrieved October 1, 2003.
www.societyofcrafts.org/about.asp
Unknown (2003). Retro Publishing. Retrieved October 1, 2003.
www.retroactive.com/artsncrafts/garcia1.html
Unknown (1998). The Arts and Crafts Movement in America. Retrieved October 1, 2003.
www.white-works.com/artscrafts.htm
Unknown (2002). The Arts and Crafts Movement in Ditchling. Retrieved Oct. 1, 2003.
www.ditchling-museum.com/arts_crafts_intro.htm
Bienenstock, R.(1998). The History of Furniture Styles. Southern Pines, NC
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www.burrows.com/founders/furniture.html
Cody, D. (1987) The Victorian Web. Retrieved October 1, 2003
www.victorianweb.org/authors/morris/wmsocialm.html
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