Vol. XXVIII —No. 2 
August, 1915 
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B room, where the furniture is handmade, 
a walls and table-runners stencilled from 
The creative spirit of the craftsman is clearly evident in this dining- 
the rug composed of strips of “filler” joined by stitchery, and the 
a design of the owner’s own making 
A RESUME OF WHAT THE MOVEMENT HAS DONE AND IS DOING FOR THE AMERICAN HOME—'THE 
CAMARADERIE OF CRAFTSMEN—SOME DIVERGENT EXAMPLES OF THE WORK AND ITS INFLUENCE 
Mira Burr Edson- Kohler 
P ROBABLY few outside of its active participants realize what 
the arts and crafts movement has done and can do for the 
American home. Significant of its relation to the home, how¬ 
ever, is the fact that the first material manifestation of the 
movement, and that which started one of its earliest and its 
best-known apostles upon the career of craftsman, was the fur¬ 
nishing of his own home, by William Morris, at the time he 
married. 
The story is too well known to repeat: it is told in any biog¬ 
raphy of Morris, and delightfully in that of Mackail. The way 
in which the group of friends rallied around the enterprise, con¬ 
tributing beauty by means of their own hands, sounds too ideal 
for a commonplace world. It presents a picture of the finest 
comradeship, and thus fittingly prefaces the claim of William 
Morris that true craftsmanship promotes comradeship: and that 
inspiring work and true comradeship are the basic needs of life, 
and that these the quest of beauty in work secures. A certain 
human interest must accompany the expression of the true crafts¬ 
man, whose work does, as a matter of fact, generally begin at 
home; which, in return, lends to his work the indispensable 
element of sincerity. 
As an American instance of home-building in relation to the 
crafts, and of our own day, may be cited the experience of a 
group of young married men at Mt. Vernon, N. Y. They gathered 
together in the evenings through the inspiration of one who had 
conceived the idea and acted, modestly and under protest, as 
the leader. They were business men and had not studied crafts¬ 
manship as such, knowing nothing of the technical details of 
the materials used until they began to use them. There was no 
plan outlined and no “course." Each decided what he wished 
to make for his own home and then, with such help as he might 
gain from observation and his own judgment, started in. Obser¬ 
vation was wonderfully quickened, of course, but each discovered 
that there was much that he seemed to know without learning 
which he could bring to bear upon his work, and that he could, 
actually, learn by doing. The results of the winter were grati¬ 
fying to all concerned; the self-confidence and power of each 
were much increased and a fine mutual interest was awakened. 
One member began with small metal fastenings for a built-in 
closet in the dining-room, then made hinges and door-plates, going 
on to electroliers and finally a handsome metal lamp. Others 
had made creditable pottery ; one, some decorations in pyrography : 
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