The Craftsmanship Aesthetic: Showing Making at the American Museum of Natural History, 1910-1945 (original) (raw)

Crafts production and resistance to domination in the late 20th century

Journal of Occupational Science, 1996

The number of jobs in manufacturing is headed down quite as much as up, and the attention of policy makers must be directed elsewhere: in particular, to finding ways of making socially productive kinds of self employment more rewarding, in monetary as well as psychological terms. Stephen Toulmin 1 Who are the oppressed? For [Simone] Weil they are the workers, under capitalism and socialism and communism. The colonized under imperialism. Those people, millions she said, who have no power in the world and who live and die at the intentional whim of the managers, the dominators. Michelle Cliff 2 Artisanal or craft work has persisted in the world through the late 20th century. Individuals continue to use crafts to adapt to oppressive situations and groups to mobilize resistance to political and economic domination. This has certainly been the case in the Third and Fourth Worlds, where recent generations of once pre-industrial peoples are fighting for cultural survival 3,4. Pre-industrial crafts such as embroidery, wood carving, and quilting also have been used politically in the United States and elsewhere in the First World, where the Industrial Revolution supposedly has already come and gone. Embroidery, wood-carving, quilting.. . these are occupations according to the 1989 definition by Elizabeth J. Yerxa, founder of occupational science, and her colleagues: Occupations are "chunks of daily activity that can be named in the lexicon of the culture" 5. But what happens when the lexicon of the culture is contested? Then naming daily activities and interpreting their meaning becomes a political act 6. Crafts production, marketing, and preservation have political dimensions that neutral-sounding terms like "material culture" and "folk art" have tended to mute 7,8,9,10. This paper focuses on the overtly political use of crafts under conditions of threat to survival in the last half century. I hope to convince readers that culture, which I will define here as "patterns of meaningful everyday activity," is political-and that defining occupations "in the lexicon of the culture"

Process, Products, and Possibilities: Interactive Exhibition and the Future, 1933-1940

This study explores how world’s fairs and museums embraced participatory and decidedly showy exhibitions during the 1930s. In Chicago, the Century of Progress Exposition (1933-1934) opened alongside the fledgling Museum of Science and Industry, the first science museum in the United States with few “hands off” signs, and the New York World’s Fair (1939-1940) offered spectacular visions of the future of the American city. This paper briefly examines some specific exhibits and explores both the purpose and the exhibition strategy used by each display. The essay begins by describing some differences between the depression era fairs and previous American expositions to show how the 1930s expositions departed from earlier ones. Using the contemporaneous establishment of the Museum of Science and Industry as an example, the larger goal is to demonstrate how the depression-era fairs influenced museum exhibition philosophy by building exhibits that were complex, interactive, featured clear expository narration or signage, and spoke directly to the common person. These exhibits provided groundwork for today’s museology. The four examples presented here: the Houses Of Tomorrow, Coal Mine, Futurama, and Democracity, demonstrated through innovative display how applied science (as opposed to theoretical science) and industrial design could improve life for average Americans. These popular exhibits, and their corporate sponsors predict the traveling, often high-tech, “blockbuster” exhibitions of today’s museums.

The art that is life" : the arts & crafts movement in America, 1875-1920

Little, Brown eBooks, 1998

The Arts & Crafts Movements in America, 1875-1920 Wendy Kaplan One of the most significant and far-reaching movements in American art, the Arts & Crafts movement transformed American attitudes toward design, the home, and the work process by emphasizing how to make objects and live with them. Decorative objects from the movement, an immensely popular era of American art, are much-sought-after collectibles. This lavish, beautifully designed book, originally published in 1987 in conjunction with a landmark exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is the first to have interpreted the Arts & Crafts movement in America. With eight essays by distinguished scholars and more than 300 illustrations, the book serves as the classic reference on American design reform and celebrates the decorative arts and architecture of this important era. The works included are decorative objects such as furniture, glass, silver, ceramics, textiles, wallpaper, books, and architectural drawings. Collectors and anyone interested in the Arts & Crafts movement will be thrilled to see this classic book available again.

Old Wine in New Bottles: The Industrial Arts Movement's History

Journal of Technology Studies, 1995

Technology educators seem content to avoid questions that would open a dialogue with the past. If technology education is viewed in historical perspective, contemporary disparities and dilemmas of identity take on a different light. Through this article, we challenge the currently accepted historical model of technology education. We argue that contrary to this ``evolutionary" model, the history of theory, policy, and practice in technology education reveals few expressions of the formative ideals of the industrial arts movement. The ideals that provided meaning and mobilized support for the industrial arts movement during the 1920s and 1930s were accepted only rhetorically. These ideals were initially disregarded and eventually lost.