Shaker and Mission?

Chalk and cheese. The purposes are different, the philosophies are different, and there's a century between the manufacturing techniques.

Google knows the rest, as do books by Christian Becksvoort (Shaker) and Stickley himself or Bavaro & Mossman (Craftsman) or a few others for general Mission. best of all is Mayer & Gray's "In the Arts & Crafts Style", but that's hard to find.

Avoid books by Norm or Thomas Moser.

Reply to
Andy Dingley
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Shaker is hand work trying to look like machine work, Craftsman is machine-made trying to look like hand work.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

It's not early for Wright, it's just early for Wright's Prairie period. He had a _long_ career, and the early stuff alone would be enough for most architects.

Have you ever visited his house, if you're in Chicago? That's a fine example of his early period styles.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

I thought the Shakers did not eschew the use of machinery; they did shun ostentation in their products. That's why you see wood knobs, lack of carvings, etc.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Reply to
Mark & Juanita

Shakers certainly weren't anti-machinery, it's just that not much of it had been invented by then. Even Babbitt's famous circular saw was still only seen as a labour-saver for construction carpentry timber, not a resaw for cabinetry.

The Shakers used hand tools (with great skill) and they aspired to the sort of perfection of finish that we usually identify as "machine-made quality" -- certainly in the early Victorian period when "machine made" was an accolade found proudly stamped onto goods.

The Arts and Crafts movement is a late Victorian reaction, primarily to the dehumanising effects of factory life on the workers. Ruskin and Morris saw it less in terms of products and more in terms of those involved. The later American A&C theorists attempted to recapture the golden age of craft labour by the deliberate application of machines. If you could make an honest product, then the assumption was that it would generate honest employment and fair treatment of workers. At the same time, the product was supposed to look as if it were hand-made and to avoid all the gingerbread that Victorian machinery had been so good at churning out.

The English A&C movement never took this line, even in the 20th century (pre-war anyway). Gimson and the Barnsleys were adamant over the use of hand tools, and the way that artisan craftsmanship was the only right way for an artisan craftsman to be employed.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

Very well stated in its entirety.

Reply to
Swingman

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