Craft: An American History

by Glenn Adamson

Thorstein Veblen, originator of the theory of conspicuous consumption, who derided the craft revival as sentimental, “romanticism with a smear of lackadaisical aestheticism across its face.”38 But Dennett was especially clear-sighted in highlighting the tension between products and process—on the one hand, “things,” aesthetically gratifying but politically inert; and on the other, political reform leading to a more just society. The Arts and Crafts movement, in all its variety and intermittent splendor, focused primarily on the first of these. It never paid more than lip service to the project of empowering the skilled worker. But there was another movement abroad in the Progressive Era that did just that: the cause of organized labor.