William Morris (1834-1896) can be considered the father of the Arts & Crafts
Movement. He was an artist, writer, socialist and entrepreneur.
I'll get to him next..
and his chair!
wc
The Arts & Crafts movement was started independantly by two Englishmen in the late 1800’s.
John Ruskin was an author, poet, social critic and an art professor at Oxford.
He put forth the idea that it would benefit society to move away from factory sweatshops and their mass produced shoddy goods, towards hand crafted high quality goods. His philosophy expressed a desire to return to craftsman working within the medieval guild system for the benefit of workers and society.
There is already too much written about the intriguing Arts & Crafts movement, and by better authors.
I only intend to recap the parts which affect furniture design.
My sources for this quickie A&C history will be:
Mission Furniture you can build by Wagner
WOOD magazine A&C furniture
Pop WW A&C furniture projects
A&C furniture by Howard
In the Craftsman Style by Fine WW
Authentic