William Spratling was born in 1900 in Sonyea, New York. After the death of both Spratling’s mother and sister, Wilhelmina, in 1910, Spratling’s father moved temporarily to his father’s Alabama home (known as Roamer’s Roost) with sons William and David as well as older daughter, Lucile. At that time, the three Spratling children became wards of their grandfather. By the end of 1912, the family had moved once more and the children were separated; each went to live with with various aunts and uncles.

In 1917 William Spratling attended Auburn University during his tenure at Auburn served as an instructor in architecture. Spratling moved to New Orleans in 1921 where he was an Associate Professor of Architecture at Tulane University and became an active part of the New Orleans literary colony. During those years his frequent companions were Natalie Scott, Sherwood Anderson, Oliver La Farge, Frans Blom, John Dos Passos and William Faulkner. Faulkner lived with Spratling for a time, and together they wrote and published Sherwood Anderson and Other Famous Creoles in 1926.

It was in 1926 that Spratling visited Mexico for the first time. He returned for summers over the next several years, and in 1929, moved to Mexico. Spratling quickly was introduced to and became a welcome participant in the artistic circles of Mexico. His activities in promoting the art of Diego Rivera among New York galleries led to his participation in the first exhibition of Mexican arts held in the United States at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Dwight Morrow, the US Ambassador to Mexico, suggested to Spratling in 1931 that Taxco had been the site of silver mines for centuries, but Taxco had never been considered a location where jewelry and objects of silver were designed and made. Subsequently, Spratling hired an experienced goldsmith from Iguala who moved to Taxco and created silver jewelry of Spratling’s design. Other craftsmen joined Spratling’s shop and produced tin ware, copper items, textiles and furniture – all designed by Spratling. These earliest designs were based on pre-Columbian motifs as well as simple themes utilizing rope borders, strap designs and other such basic ideas. The enterprise grew far beyond Spratling’s expectations! Because he had created an apprentice system of training young silversmiths many new talented artisans had an opportunity to develop their craft.

During the Second World War, U.S. department stores were unable to import merchandise from Europe, and many retail stores purchased luxury goods in Mexico. In order to meet this dramatic increase in demand, Spratling opened his company to private investors, and by the end of 1944 had lost control of his company. Early in 1946, “Spratling y Artisanos” was out of business.

By this time, Spratling had moved to a ranch he had earlier purchased south of Taxco at Taxco-el-Viejo. He never again lived within the town of Taxco.

In 1946, he was asked by the U.S. Department of the Interior to develop a plan for development of native crafts in Alaska, and in 1949, a group of 7 young men from Alaska arrived at Spratling’s ranch at Taxco-el-Viejo and began their training. Spratling had designed and produced 200 models for that effort, but after the men completed their training and returned to Alaska, the program languished primarily due to lack of government funding. The actual benefits of the program (both for Alaskans and for Spratling) were never realized. The time, however, that Spratling spent studying Alaskan native cultures and visiting all parts of Alaska created great impact as seen in Spratling’s later silver designs. He used new materials in combination with silver for many of these later designs.

Spratling continued to rebuild his business and had silversmiths fabricating his jewelry and object designs at his ranch. His designs were also produced by the Conquistador Company in Mexico City for a couple of years. Spratling published More Human Than Divine in 1960 and his archaeological interests not only continued but by the early 1960s seemed to take precedence over the creation of new silver designs. He donated collections of his pre-Columbian materials to the National University of Mexico and the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City.

Spratling has been called by many “a Renaissance Man”, and throughout Mexico he is acknowledged as “The Father of Mexican Silver.” William Spratling was killed on August 7, 1967 in an automobile accident just outside Taxco.

In the 1930′s when technology began to reflect the sleek, aerodynamic lines of the Art Deco movement, the new 20th Century Limited train, designed by Henry Dreyfus, was the pride of the New York Central Line, running from New York to Chicago in sixteen hours.

The principles of the Arts and Crafts movement were initially frontiered in England through the efforts of John Ruskin and William Morris. Ruskin was not a craftsman but an academic scholar at Oxford. He believed passionately that the Industrial Revolution would erode the English countryside by turning it into factory fields while relegating the skilled English craftsman to the status of a laborer. The battle cry of his movement, as expressed in his book Seven Lamps of Architecture, written in 1853, was a return to quality and affordable craftsmanship as opposed to the low grade manufactured pieces that were being mass produced. The form of a piece was to support its function in a straightforward manner utilizing quality materials. The design was to be noble, gracing the home in a practical sense, and designed by a craftsman from beginning to end.

William Morris, one of Ruskin’s students in 1853, embraced his mentor’s ideals and dedicated himself to the perpetuation of the movement. Morris, who was trained as an architect and an artist, utilized his talent to create handcrafted objects and home decorations. He was joined by Ruskin’s followers, principally Charles Robert Ashee and A.H. Mackmurdo, who decried the declining quality of merchandise being produced by the factories and challenged the manufacturers by establishing craftsmen guilds. Unfortunately, the establishment of Morris & Co. in 1875 that produced quality crafted furniture, fabrics, rugs, wallpaper, pottery, and books did not achieve one of the movement’s primary objectives – to supply affordable pricing. Making hand-crafted items was costly. Their products sold to the British elite and were not realistically priced for the lower and middle classes. Ruskin and Morris never solved the problem.

While Ruskin’s flag for reform fell in his own country, American Gustav Stickley, disgusted with the over embellished, badly-made furniture being produced in American factories during the Victorian era, began to wave Ruskin’s banner in America shortly before the turn of the century. The movement, embraced by the five Stickley brothers, began to gain popularity in large production centers such as Boston, Chicago, New York, and California. There the Stickley brothers and other industrialists utilized the factories, as opposed to creating guilds, to produce the finely crafted and articulate furniture that met the criteria of Arts and Crafts but made it affordable to the mass population. They used machinery for the non-creative elements of production and craftsmen for the aspects that called for creativity and skill.

A major figure in the American Arts and Crafts movement was architect Frank Lloyd Wright who designed Mission furniture solely for the houses he designed but had no desire to produce a line of furniture. The new furniture style was known as “Mission” because it reflected the understated furniture in the California missions. The early forms were simple and comfortable and oak was the wood of choice. This was in direct opposition to the furniture and decorative items that were being produced by the mass production factories which were inventing machines to turn out designs that were overdone in every detail – scrolled, voluted, protrusive, overly ornate and generally tasteless but inexpensive. By 1900 the McHugh Company, The Michigan Chair Company, and the Roycroft Shops were manufacturing a line of functional oak furniture. These early forms of furniture were somewhat crude and too understated in their design.

It was through Gustav Stickley’s magazine, the Craftsman, published in 1901, that the higher standard for the Arts and Crafts movement in America began to take shape. While the Americans brought the movement to life, it was the English who formulated the philosophy and it was they and the Europeans that gave it style. Scotsman Charles Mackintosh, Austrian Joseph Hoffman, and Britishers Arthur Mackmurdo, Ballie Scott and C F A Voysey provided the influence of grace and artistic expression to the craftsmanship. Their work was then, and still is, considered the benchmark for perfection for the Arts and Crafts movement. American designers Gustav Stickley, La Mont Warner, Dard Hunter, and Harvey Ellis, who worked for Stickley, began to incorporate the European artistic interpretation into their own work with the use of more expensive quartersawn oak with pegged joints, cutout designs, corbels and other finishing elements that added style to the overly simplistic patterns and created the American art form for Arts and Crafts. Gustav, who had left his brothers’ company some years earlier, was the first to provide high quality manufactured Arts and Crafts furniture that appeared to be entirely made by hand.

Another principal figure was Elbert Hubbard, a publisher who became inspired by William Morris in 1894 and wrote prolifically about the movement. He attracted many talented craftsmen and through the expansion of his print shop the Roycroft Inn and Roycroft Shops ultimately became established. Although there is little evidence that Hubbard had much to do with the actual design work, his pen brought widespread attention to the movement and raised the consciousness of many.

Arts and Crafts also included lighting fixtures, tile, and metal work. Pottery designed exclusively as Arts and Crafts was made by Teco, Grueby, Marblehead, and Hampshire. The stylistic movement went into decline during World War 1 and was generally extinguished by the late 1920′s.

reference note by p4A contributing editor Carole Deutsch; for additional information and insight, see American Arts and Crafts by David Rago and Bruce Johnson.

More Commentary on the Arts and Crafts Period, 1888 to 1914

From the Pilgrim through the Victorian Period each time frame of American furniture design has been tied to either an historic event, an individual or simply to the period of time. The Arts and Crafts Period is the first period of design styles that comes out of a “Movement”

By the late 1880′s the Victorian Period with all its excesses was in full bloom. Prosperity, the result of the Industrial Revolution, had created a middle class that demanded more and more in goods there by fueling still more production. The design standard was more rather than less in practically every aspect of life. Every day new inventions were being offered for public consumption. It was an exciting and chaotic time to be alive.

Yet, running quietly behind all this fast paced lifestyle was a counter revolution. Many people were horrified by what they saw not only in design and quality of manufacture but in the quality (or lack thereof) in the working and living conditions of the average family.

From this level of horror and concern grew a desire to return to the simpler country life style of yesterday (of course with the current creature comforts). It is difficult to determine whether the social reformers gathered the artistic aspects of the movement around them or the artistic folk attracted the reformers. Sufficient to state, the combination which began in England at the start of the industrial revolution took strong hold in 1886 with the Century Guild and the Art Workers Guild and then formally in 1888 with the formation of the London Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society. With this Society and its grand exhibitions the “movement” had arrived for full public viewing.

It was both an artistic and a social movement given credence by A.W.N. Pugin, the first architect to design both buildings and their furnishings, John Ruskin, who in his treatise “The Stones of Venice” (1851) put forth the idea of the craftsman, art and life more or less as one, and William Morris who took all these ideas as confirmation of his own thoughts that indeed artistic design coupled with quality craftsmanship could be incorporated into even the lowest of household utensil, manufactured and sold for a profit. Artistic communities sprung up all over the English countryside as it was in the country that it was thought such a combination of art, craft and lifestyle would thrive. However due to economic reality, the products of these communities generally found their way back into the cities as that was where the middle-class and the wealthy who could afford such goods lived.

The “Movement” spread quickly throughout Europe and as far as Japan. With the American penchant for anything and everything new, it was also championed throughout the United States. Like-minded artistic communities were founded in practically every state. Such names as The Roycrofters in leather, bookbinding and publishing, Van Briggel and Rookwood in pottery, Frank Lloyd Wright in architecture, Tiffany in glass and of course Stickley in furniture, come to mind when discussing this period and movement.

While many such communities were formed, it was quickly determined that due to the high cost of quality materials and craftsmanship, the harsh economics of proper business and manufacturing techniques were needed to survive. The idealism of pure art, craftsmanship and lifestyle alone would not carry the day any more in America then it did in England. Those communities that could not combine the idealism with good economics soon closed.

With Gothic Revival being the underlying design thread, coupled with the revolt against the excesses of the Victorian Period, it is no surprise that the Arts and Crafts Period features primarily linear styles but with a lightness brought forth from the desire to meld each piece into a lifestyle of grace and order.

Within the Period there are three distinct styles of design, Mission, Art Nouveau and Art Deco. Many will argue that only Mission is pure to the Movement but as to the period all three should be considered. If one assembles a similar piece of furniture in all three designs, while there are differences, the similarities are unmistakable as having come from the same period of design.

Here in America, the Arts and Crafts Period furniture style of choice was Mission with its straight lines and quarter sawn oak construction. Art Nouveau, with its curvilinear free flowing feminine lines, originating in France and very popular among the upper class in Paris never made much of an inroad here in the states. To be sure it was attempted. The Karpen Furniture Co. of Chicago put together a catalog of Art Nouveau furniture and in New York and other select metropolitan areas some folks used the style. But most Art Nouveau furniture found in the states today was imported.

On the other hand, Art Nouveau designs were quite popular when is came to decorative accessories. The lack of acceptance of the furniture style and the acceptance of all else Art Nouveau arose not so much from the population’s taste but in how the items fit into existing homes. The decorative fit nicely, the furniture did not.

Art Deco, the last of the Arts and Crafts Period styles also was popular here in the states. It incorporated both the austerity of Mission along with the flowing lines of Art Nouveau.

While most all Mission style furniture from the very highest in design quality to the basic mass-produced pieces are in current demand, Art Deco has not yet achieved a steady and substantial following. The exception being the rare singular pieces of extremely high design.

With the advent of World War I, the world’s attention was drawn elsewhere and the movement faded to be followed after the war with what today is called the Moderne Period.

Reference note by p4A.com Contributing Editor Charles Wibel.

The American National Company of Toledo, Ohio was established circa 1925 and together with the Toledo Metal and Gendron Wheel Companies produced a variety of pressed steel goods including large toy cars and trucks, pedal cars, tricycles, and ride-on children’s toys.

Toys were labeled and sold under a variety of recognized trade names including American National, Toledo, Gendron, Pioneer, Skippy, Reliance, Hi-Speed, Hi-Way, Blue Streak and Sampson.

Financial problems of the late 1930s Depression Era forced the company to consolidate operations at the Gendron Wheel Co. plant in Perrysburg, Ohio on the south side of Toledo. World War II production consisted primarily of wheelchairs and stretchers. The company went through a variety of takeovers and transformations after the war continuing to make playground and recreational items into the early 1970s.

The first nonstop trans-Atlantic solo flight was achieved by 25-year-old Charles Augustus Lindbergh between May 20 and May 21, 1927. He departed from Roosevelt Field, Long Island, New York in a highly modified version of a Ryan M-2 strut-braced monoplane, Spirit of St.Louis, and landed 33.5 hours later at Le Bourget Field, near Paris.