Joy in Labour: The Politicization of Craft from the Arts and Crafts Movement to Etsy Michele Krugh

Joy in Labour: The Politicization of Craft from the Arts and Crafts Movement to Etsy Michele Krugh

Abstract: Since the time of the Arts and Crafts movement of the late nineteenth century, craft production and consumption has been politicized. Craft's focus on hand making has been used to contrast intentional, individual labour with the division of labour involved in industrial mass production. Through its mission to build a more fulfilling world through ethical commerce, craftsmanship, and fun, the contemporary e-commerce site Etsy participates in the discourse of politicized craft that was articulated over a hundred years ago by William Morris, with his dream of "joy in labour." While craft's individualism can limit its political effectiveness, craft's utopian impulse to build a better world through more fun and through labour that is more fair is a valuable ideal and one that has survived for more than a century.

Résumé : Depuis l'arrivée du mouvement Arts and Crafts (Arts et Artisanats) à la fin du dix-neuvième siècle, la production et la consommation de produits artisanaux n'ont cessé d'être politisées. La concentration de l'artisanat sur les produits faits main est utilisée par opposition au travail individuel, intentionnel, de la main-d'oeuvre travaillant dans la production industrielle de masse. Selon sa mission de construire un monde pleinement satisfaisant grâce au commerce éthique, à l'artisanat, et au plaisir, le site de commerce électronique contemporain Etsy participe au discours de l'artisanat démocratisé qui a été formulé il y a quelque cent ans par William Morris, et son rêve du « plaisir dans le travail ». Bien que l'individualisme de l'artisanat puisse limiter son efficacité politique, l'aspiration utopique de l'artisanat visant à construire un monde épanoui et meilleur par un travail plus enthousiasmant et plus juste est un idéal valable, un idéal qui a survécu depuis plus d'un siècle.

Since the Arts and Crafts movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, discussions of craft have always related, indirectly or not, to labour practices. This discourse contrasts intentional, individual labour with the division of labour involved in industrial mass production. Although the Arts and Crafts movement was linked with socialist and progressive reforms in Britain and the United States, the most lasting contributions of the movement are the transformation of craft into a leisure activity and the linking of craft with unalienated labour, in opposition to mass production. Influences on contemporary craft, such as movements against globalization and sweatshops and for organic food, fair-trade goods, and green products, reveal that concerns with production and consumption remain. Individuals can use craft production as an outlet for their concerns about the exploitation of their own labour and the labour of others. Currently, many craft fairs and web sites, like Etsy, attract amateur crafters who make products in their leisure time. Craft production continues to be politicized by many. This paper will focus on the late nineteenth and then the early twenty-first centuries.

There are many definitions of craft. For art historian Howard Risatti, craft is a "fundamental expression of human values and human achievement," part nature, part culture, and to be distinguished from fine art and design. Craft, according to sociologist Howard Becker, is "a body of knowledge and skill which can be used to produce useful objects." M. Anna Fariello speaks of an "essence of craft ... bound to the hand, to the process of working, of making." "The craft object embodies a moral act," in metal smith Bruce Metcalf's view. For glass artist Che Rhodes, craft "connects the past with the future." Most definitions of craft involve the concepts of making by hand and connecting with tradition. Yet, as furniture designer David Pye asserts, "'Handicraft' and 'Hand-made' are historical or social terms, not technical ones," since almost nothing can be made completely by hand, without tools or machines. Instead, these terms refer "to workmanship of any kind which could have been found before the Industrial Revolution." Therefore, the focus on "hand making" is used to make explicit the difference between the labour involved in individually producing objects and that involved in the context of the division of labour for mass producing objects.

The Arts and Crafts Movement

The Arts and Crafts movement started in England in the eighteen seventies and spread to other European countries and North America, where the peak of the movement was from eighteen ninety to nineteen ten. It was motivated by three principle ideas, according to historian Alan Crawford: the "Unity of Art (artists and craftsmen working together), Joy in Labour (the creative satisfaction of ordinary work), [and] Design Reform (making manufactured objects better)." The movement has been characterized as romantic, anti-modern, and nostalgic, since early exponents of the ideas, like John Ruskin and William Morris, looked to the artisan guilds of the Middle Ages for inspiration. The ethical and political dimensions of Ruskin's The Nature of the Gothic, in particular, inspired Morris's belief in art as the expression of man's joy in labour. In Metcalf's view, "Ruskin's genius was to move attention away from a disinterested contemplation of an artwork and toward a broader examination of the society from which the work emerges." Moreover, Ruskin's version of the history of the Middle Ages strongly influenced Morris's. In "Architecture and History," Morris explains his belief that all workmen were artists in the Middle Ages and that this situation began to change in the sixteenth century, creating a division of labour between workmen and artists. By the late eighteenth century, this division had reduced workmen to machines. By the late nineteenth century, Morris felt that the situation was even worse; workmen were now slaves to machines. Morris believed a way to combat this problem was to change manufacturing conditions in order to reinstate the social relations of production of Middle Ages artisan guilds. In "The Revival of Handicraft," Morris argues that we do sorely need a system of production which will give us beautiful surroundings and pleasant occupation, and which will tend to make us good human animals, able to do something for ourselves, so that we may be generally intelligent.

Starting with the individual, human animal and then moving to the societal level, the Arts and Crafts movement sought to "reassert unity in a world perceived to be artificially fragmented," according to historian Tom Crook. The ideal place of unity was the workshop, where social solidarity and the production of objects necessary for life combined. In the workshop, craftsmen could learn from each other and produce objects in their entirety -from idea to material reality. By removing the division between designers and workmen, Morris wanted workers to experience joy in their work, rather than alienation. Alienation, here, refers to Karl Marx's concept, where the worker confronts the product of his labour as "something alien, as a power independent of the producer." In the capitalist mode of production, as the world of things becomes more valued, the world of men becomes devalued, according to Marx. Labour, therefore, does not just produce commodities but also "produces ... the worker as a commodity." Morris wanted to use the social relations of craft to combat this alienation. If workers were in charge of the whole process of design and creation, they would find a satisfaction in their labour that they could never find as just part of the process. The "revival of handicraft" became, for Morris, "a token of the change which is transforming civilization into socialism" and was "both noteworthy and encouraging." Art historian Lawrence Lutchmansingh believes that

Morris's enshrinement of handicraft production ... entail[s] a comprehensive analysis of its attendant economic, social, and psychological conditions, and it has the effect precisely of exposing the nullity and the alienating effect of industrial manufacture, and of offering a glimpse of what disalienated labour might be under socialism.

Yet, as Morris became more involved with socialism, he recognized that arts and crafts organizations, like the craft guilds, utopian communities, or even his own company, Morris and Co., were important but too small-scale and not political enough to effect the "complete unri- vetting" of the "immense chain of the terrible organization of competi- tive commerce" that would free mankind.

Why were artists and craftsmen concerned with labour? As an imperial power the Great Britain of Queen Victoria was at its peak in the eighteen eighties, but there had been economic problems domestically since the late eighteen seventies. Some of these problems included large working-class strikes, like the eighteen eighty-seven "Blood Sunday," the eighteen eighty-eight Matchgirls Strike, and the eighteen eighty-nine Dockers Strike, manifestations of a rapid growth in trade union activity. Around this time, the British government was also enacting a series of laws to safeguard the public against dangerous industrial conditions. In addition, trade rivalry between Germany, Great Britain, and the United States was increasing, leading to concerns over the poor quality of British goods. In the interests of competing better with foreign markets, the British government supported the creation of design schools to improve manufacturing quality.

In the United States, starting around the eighteen nineties, the Progressive Era middle class, composed in part of managers and professionals, were also trying to alleviate some of the problems caused by industriali- zation. Such problems included urbanization, immigration, child labour, tenement slums, and corporate monopoly corporations. Industrialization was blamed for destroying communities, destabi- lizing families, and making the individual nothing but a "cog in the machine of progress." In eighteen ninety-eight, Wellesley College professor Vida Scudder claimed that, in "the days of handicraft, work was its own reward; it is so no longer ... [T]he division of labour, leaves people where it found them, only a little more stupefied." In response to these social problems, the middle class began to develop social-welfare programs and educational reforms. Elementary and high school cur- ricula added drawing and handicrafts. Vocational, industrial art, and design schools, similar to those founded in Great Britain, were developed to make American goods competitive with European imports. Many of these secondary education schools, such as the Rhode Island School of Design, the Pratt Insti- tute, the Cooper Union, and the Cranbrook, still remain important and influential in the field of design.

The social concerns over exploitative labour practices, international competition, and poor design quality influenced the Arts and Crafts movement reformers to link labour and art. Arts and Crafts reform attempts varied but generally focused on manufacturing conditions. In Britain, some reformers looked to the past and tried to recreate medieval craft guilds. Two of the most influential guilds of the Arts and Crafts movement were the Century Guild and the Art Workers' Guild. The Century Guild, eighteen eighty-two, believed that "every aspect of a house should fit together" and good design should be available less expensively. While the Century Guild's exhibitions started out cooperatively, with everyone's work intermixed and unlabelled, by the following year, their exhibition was divided by individual. They were not able to maintain the cooperative atmo- sphere they had imagined. Another important guild was the Art Workers' Guild, eighteen eighty-four, which helped architects find craftsmen to assist in their buildings and helped craftsmen "affirm their own significance and independence." Stansky concludes that the

Art Workers' Guild served to give members a "sense of identity and solidarity" and was crucial in spreading Morris's ideas.

In addition to guilds, others tried to create utopian communities, schools of design, or philanthropic organizations, including the School of Handicraft, eighteen eighty-seven, for working class labourers and Toynbee Hall, eighteen eighty-four, "a pioneering university settlement house in one of the poorest sections of London," where students lived among London's poor. Further, the British Home Arts and Industries Association, eighteen eighty, worked from the premise that "cultur- ally deprived working-class people" and women would be given an uplifting activity and skill that they could market through the craft classes they established around Britain.

Concerns about labour conditions led Arts and Crafts reformers to form a contradictory relationship to machines. Some reformers rec- ognized their necessity; others called for their removal and a return to pure handicraft. Morris felt that, as "a condition of life, production by machinery is altogether an evil; as an instrument for forcing on us better conditions of life, it has been, and some time yet will be, indispensable." Morris's contemporary, Arthur Mackmurdo, co-founder of the Century Guild, focused only on the positive aspects of machinery, and according to Stansky, "believed that machinery could act as a liberating force that would free men to spend more time in pursuit of the idea of beauty itself." The two views on mechanical automation reveal what Ernest Mandel terms the "antinomies inherent in the capitalist mode of production":

On the one hand, [automation] represents the perfected development of material forces of production, which could in themselves potentially liberate mankind from the compulsion to perform mechanical, repetitive, dull and alienating labour. On the other hand, it represents a new threat to job and income, a new intensification of anxiety, insecurity ... and intellectual and moral impoverishment.

The Arts and Crafts movement was not able to significantly affect production and automation and liberate mankind from alienating labour. In fact, Morris's company -initially called Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co. but later reorganized into Morris and Co.- perceived itself to be a cooperative of artists who designed as well as produced objects. While Morris, himself, embodied the designer as ideal craftsman, completing all components of his projects, a division of labour existed among his workers. He was not able to make his company match his socialist ideal.

In the United States, middle-class men and women lived cooperatively with poorly educated and poorly paid workers and immigrants in settlement houses, like Chicago's Hull House and Boston's South End House. Here, the reformers used craft to fill workers' leisure hours that they feared might otherwise be spent drinking or gambling. These settlement houses and organizations like New York's Scuola d'Industrie Italiane then marketed immigrant crafts-in particular, in the case of the New York school, Italian embroidery and handmade lace. Yet, in some instances, "the line between handicraft and sweated labour was thinner than some imagined." Reformers may have tried to use craftsmanship to better the lives of immigrants, but "their cottage industries often differed little from industrial homework, seen as the most destructive form of sweated labour." Other attempts to market the Arts and Crafts ideal came from American companies, such as Gustav Stickley's Craftsman magazine and furniture company and the Roycroft mail-order gift catalogues. Stickley did not believe that craft meant hand production only but rather that the worker should master the machine as a useful tool. With the labour saved by the machine, the worker, theoretically, would be free to express his individuality in the finishing details. Feminist scholar Eileen Boris claims that this commercialization both democratized and diminished the legacy of Ruskin and Morris.

The impact of Arts and Crafts reforms varied. First of all, not all Arts and Crafts proponents were interested in political or social reforms. Those who were interested did not succeed in radically transforming social relations and the conditions of production. Charles Robert Ashbee, creator of the Guild and School of Handicraft, felt that the British made "a great social movement [into] a narrow and tiresome little aristocracy [of designers] working with high skill for the very rich." Thus, while Morris had wanted to create art that would be available to all classes of people, in practice, due to the costly nature of his production methods, his firm produced work mainly for the upper class. US Bureau of Labour economist Max West wrote, in nineteen oh four, that the most far-reaching effects of the Arts and Crafts movement would be the improved quality and design of factory-made goods. In fact, curator Wendy Kaplan argues, the glorification of work by hand actually reduced the quality of goods and downgraded professional standards. Likewise, Pye feels that Ruskin and Morris destroyed Victorian workmanship by diverting "the attention of educated people from what was good in the workmanship of their own time" and causing them to despise it. Moreover, Boris concludes that what began "as a critique of art and labour under industrial capitalism turned into a style of art, leisure activities, and personal and social therapy." Robert Edwards agrees that the most long-lasting legacy of the Arts and Crafts movement was "transformation of handicraft from an essential skill for earning a living to a nonessential enrichment of leisure time." Art historian Maria Buszek finds it ironic that the Arts and Crafts movement ended up elitist and naïve, as criticism on the subject of craft doubled back to focus not on the everyday and sociohistorical relevance of craft media but on the preciousness and particularities of those media in regard to the objects they produced.

Certainly, Morris's desire to change the nature of production was not seen as a danger to "the inevitable laws of economy," according to the Times editorial at the time of his death. Instead, the editorial claims that the "world can afford to judge him indulgently" and ignore "the results of a warm heart and a mistaken enthusiasm." In the end, the most lasting contributions of the Arts and Crafts movement have been the transformation of craft into a leisure activity and the linking of craft with unalienated labour in opposition to mass production.