Roycroft
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Roycroft was a reformist community of craft workers and artists which formed part of the Arts and Crafts movement in the USA. Elbert Hubbard founded the community in 1895 in the village of East Aurora, Erie County, New York, near Buffalo. Participants were known as Roycrofters. The work and philosophy of the group, often referred to as the Roycroft movement, had a strong influence on the development of American architecture and design in the early 20th century.
The name Roycroft was chosen after the printers, Samuel and Thomas Roycroft, who made books in London from about 1650-1690. And beyond this, the word roycroft had a special significance to Elbert Hubbard, meaning King's Craft. King's craftsmen being a term used in the Guilds of the olden times for men who had achieved a high degree of skill - men who made things for the King. The Roycroft insignia was borrowed from the monk Cassidorius, a 13th century bookbinder and illuminator.
Elbert Hubbard had been influenced by the ideas of William Morris on a visit to England. He was unable to find a publisher for his book Little Journeys, so inspired by Morris's Kelmscott Press, decided to set up his own private press to print the book himself, founding Roycroft Press.
His championing of the Arts and Crafts approach attracted a number of visiting craftspeople to East Aurora, and they formed a community of printers, furniture makers, metalsmiths, leathersmiths, and bookbinders. A quotation from John Ruskin formed the Roycroft "creed":
- "A belief in working with the head, hand and heart and mixing enough play with the work so that every task is pleasurable and makes for health and happiness".
The inspirational leadership of Hubbard attracted a group of almost 500 people by 1910, and millions more knew of him through his essay A Message to Garcia.
In 1915 Hubbard and his wife, noted suffragette Alice Moore Hubbard, died in the sinking of RMS Lusitania, and the Roycroft community went into a gradual decline.
14 original Roycroft buildings are located in the area of South Grove and Main Street in East Aurora. Known as the "Roycroft Campus", this rare survival of an art colony was awarded National Historic Landmark status in 1986.
The Elbert Hubbard Roycroft Museum in East Aurora is the main collection and research centre for the work of the Roycrofters.
[edit] See also
[edit] Further reading
- Marie Via and Marjorie Searl, eds. - Head, Heart, and Hand: Elbert Hubbard and the Roycrofters (1994) ISBN 1-878822-43-8
See: http://www.arts-crafts.com/archive/ehubbard.shtml
[edit] External links
- Roycroft Organization
- Roycroft Inn, East Aurora
- The Roycroft Community 1894-1938 by Hilary Davis
- The Roycroft Campus
- Roycrofters At Large Association
