Stickley Furniture | Suite101.com

It is interesting to read the varying accounts on the Web of the history of Stickley furniture. Although the Stickley name actually refers to more than one company, most American design historians agree that Gustav Stickley, one of five brothers who all worked in the industry almost simultaneously, is the premier furniture designer of the Arts & Crafts movement. My research revealed that discrepancies exist in the histories of Stickley furniture and its evolution. Primarily the difference lies in the relationship between Gustav and his brothers Leopold and John George. However, other variations cloud the entire brotherhood's growth into major players in the history of American furniture.

One version states that the first Stickley Brothers furniture factory was opened in 1880 by three of the brothers, Charles, Albert and Gustav, in Binghamton, New York. Another version has Gustav leaving his uncle's employ to start the Binghamton firm with Charles and Albert in 1884. In 1891, Albert left this company and joined either his brother John George or Leopold (accounts differ) in opening another Stickley Brothers Furniture Company in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Another historian says that this was the original factory, however.

Meanwhile, Gustav traveled to Europe (either in 1897 or 1898), either on his own to study the design influences of Ruskin, Morris and Voisey, or as part of the establishment of a European branch of the Stickley Brothers' manufacturing concern. While there, he absorbed the philosophy represented by these leaders of the Arts & Crafts movement which was a reaction to the rapid Industrialization of craftsmanship and the mass adoration of Victorian embellishment in all things. His trip to the 1900 Paris Exhibition confirmed his bias against reproductions. "While taking his philosophical inspiration from the European Arts & Crafts movement, Stickley took his artistic inspiration from America. Stickley felt that art should be of and by the people, stemming from their everyday lives."(1)

He later expressed this philosophy in his magazine, The Craftsman, as the goal "to substitute the luxury of taste for the luxury of costliness; to teach that beauty does not imply elaboration or ornament; to employ only those forms and materials which make for simplicity, individuality and dignity of effect."(2)

Others in the United States had discovered the Arts & Crafts movement, including Elbert Hubbard whose Roycroft community produced hand-made furniture, hand-produced books, etc., Harvey Ellis, Charles Rohlfs, Dirk Erp, Frank Lloyd Wright, the Greene brothers of Pasadena, and many more. "The American Arts and Craft Movement was a response to the decline of personal craftsmanship brought about by the Industrial Revolution. Poorly crafted and overly decorated objects characterize these machine-made products of industrialization. Recognizing these flaws, a few late-19th century English writers and designers initiated what is known as the Arts and Crafts Movement. The movement stressed superior craftsmanship and honest simplicity of design attributes which are both timeless and universally treasured."(3) It was Gustav Stickley, however, who brought the concept of simple and sturdy furniture design to the attention of the population. He opened his United Crafts workshop in Eastwood, NY (near Syracuse) in 1900, and began publishing The Craftsman shortly thereafter.