Elbert Green Hubbard (1856 – 1915) was an American furniture designer. Hubbard met William Morris in 1894 and the following year inspired by Morris’s Kelmscott Press, founded the Roycroft Press’ East Aurora, near Buffalo, New York. He was the founder of the Roycrofters, an Arts and Crafts community; he organized workshops, lectured, and wrote as a highly effective champion of the Arts and Crafts philosophy.
Religious Beliefs
Hubbard identified as a socialist and anarchist. He was an advocate for social, economic, domestic, political, mental, and spiritual liberty. In A Message to Garcia and Thirteen Other Things (1901), Hubbard explained his Credo by writing “I believe John Ruskin, William Morris, Henry Thoreau, Walt Whitman and Leo Tolstoy to be Prophets of God, and they should rank in mental reach and spiritual insight with Elijah, Hosea, Ezekiel and Isaiah.” Nonetheless, with his pro-business and anti-union sentiments, frequent themes across his works suggest he had strong capitalist sentiments.
In the booklet Jesus Was An Anarchist, Hubbard addressed a critique of war, law, and government (1910). Ernest Howard Crosby called Hubbard’s piece “the best thing Elbert ever wrote” when it was first published as The Better Part in A Message to Garcia and Thirteen Other Things.
“Do not take life too seriously; you will never get out of it alive.”
Elbert Hubbard
Roycroft community
In 1894, Hubbard began his quest to become an American counterpart to William Morris. Hubbard purchased a property in the centre of the rural town of East Aurora, a few kilometres east of Buffalo, New York and created Roycroft. There were more than 400 people in the utopian Roycroft community, based on the British Arts and Crafts movement, but with a commercial slant of its own.
There are two theories on his name choice. The word “roycroft” comes from the French words for craft and “roi’ of king. Literally, it would refer to royal artisans whose handiwork was fit for a King. Other historians believe Hubbard chose the name to honour 17th century printers Samuel and Thomas Roycroft. The fact that his first endeavour was publishing supports this theory.
The Roycrofters operated a restaurant which served the-many tourists who discovered its activities through its publications (Little Journey’s pamphlets, The Philistine monthly journal, and mail-order catalogues advertising gift items and souvenirs). His son Elbert Hubbard Jr. became director of the Roycrofters until the community closed in 1938.
Death
The Hubbards boarded the RMS Lusitania in New York City a little more than three years after the Titanic sank. The ship was torpedoed and sunk by the German U-boat U-20 on May 7, 1915, while at sea 11 miles (18 kilometres) off the Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland.
Sources
Byars, M., & Riley, T. (2004). The design encyclopedia. Laurence King Publishing.
Wikipedia contributors. (2021, April 13). Elbert Hubbard. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 04:19, May 28, 2021, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Elbert_Hubbard&oldid=1017643362
More American Designers
-
Candace Wheeler: The Art and Enterprise of American Design
Candace Wheeler rose to prominence as the top late-nineteenth-century American textile designer by educating herself to match and eventually surpass the achievements of advanced European designers. She transitioned from needlework to fabric and interior design.Read More →
-
Eames House Bird – Mid Century Adornment
The collage-like interior of Charles and Ray Eames’ private house, the Eames House, was supplemented with countless objects and accessories brought back from their travels. Read More →
-
Daniel Mack American Furniture Designer, Invites Us to Slowdown
Daniel Mack creates fine custom furniture, architectural detail, and decoration from wood as close to its natural form and texture as possible, frequently incorporating glass, metal, or stone.Read More →
-
Florence Koehler (1861 – 1944) American craftsperson and designer
Florence Koehler was an American artist, craftsperson, designer, and jeweller, professionally active in Chicago, London and Rome. She was one of the best-known jewellers of the Arts and Crafts movement that flourished in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In Chicago, Koehler’s jewellery in a crafts style was fashionable in artistic circles. Koehler became…
-
Tammis Keefe (1913 – 1960) American Textile Designer
Tammis Keefe (1913–1960) was an American textile designer. She designed everything from dish towels to glassware in her airy Dorothy Leibis Studio. Her work can be found at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cooper Hewitt and the Fashion Institute of Technology.Read More →
-
Richard Schultz (1930 – 2021) American sculptor and furniture designer
In 1951, he became a member of Knoll’s design development group. Initially, he collaborated on the wire Diamond sitting collection with Harry Bertoia. Schultz designed the Petal table in 1960, steel-wire lounge chairs in 1961, and outdoor Leisure Collection seating and tables in 1966 for Knoll. He designed a 1981 collection of outdoor furniture while…
-
Frederick Kiesler Austrian, American Designer
Frederick John Kiesler, an Austrian-American architect, theoretician, theatre designer, artist, and sculptor, was born Friedrich Jacob Kiesler in Czernowitz, Austria-Hungary Empire (now Chernivtsi, Ukraine), in 1890. 1965 saw his passing.Read More →
-
Duane Bryers (1911 – 2012) – Pinup artist – naughty but nice
One of my favourite pinup artists was Minnesota born Duane Bryers, creator of the famous Hilda, a pleasingly, popular and plump pinup girl. Bryers’ background was as interesting as his illustrations. Born in northern Michigan, he excelled at acrobatics as a child. His family moved to Virginia, Minnesota, at 12 and he soon had the…
-
Russel Wright (1904 – 1976) American Industrial Designer
Wright’s design philosophy was based on the idea that the table was the heart of the home. He developed everything from tableware to larger furniture, architecture to landscaping, all of which promote comfortable, informal living.Read More →
-
Douglas Donaldson (1882 – 1972) American Metalworker
Donaldson taught design, metalwork and jewellery at numerous schools in and near Los Angeles, including his first position, director of manual arts, Throop Polytechnic (succeeded by Rudolph Schaeffer). Subsequently, he was a teacher at the new Chouinard School of Art and head of the art department, Los Angeles Manual Arts High School. Read More →
-
James Evanson (1946 – 2022) American furniture and lighting designer
James Evanson has been at the forefront of the “functional art” movement around the world. His work has travelled worldwide since his first exhibition in 1979 at the Art et Industrie Gallery in New York. For the Memphis Collection in Milan, new work was created just for the occasion. The “Lighthouse” lamps gained international acclaim…
-
Peace Poster by Luba Lukova
Peace was first published as Lukova’s visual commentary on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times, and later the artist reinterpreted it as a serigraph poster. Arguably one of Lukova’s most well known and most copied images, Peace asks a question: do we protect peace by creating endless wars? Read More →
-
Lisa Krohn (b.1963) American Industrial Designer
Lisa Krohn studied three-dimensional form with Rowena Reed Kostello, New York, between 1985 and 1986. From 1985 to 1985, she studied art history and visual arts at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. From 1988 to 1988, she was a student at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.Read More →
-
Ruth Reeves (1892 – 1966) American Textile Designer
Her works were influenced by current innovations in France, such as Cubism, when she returned to the United States in 1927. The American Designers’ Gallery in New York hosted Reeves’ debut exhibition, which featured textiles. Read More →
-
Nocturne, model 1186 designed by Walter Dorwin Teague
Standing over four feet tall, this towering console of satin chrome and mirrored cobalt glass is a commanding example of the styling of items to meet the Machine Age ideal of the 1930s. The Nocturne radio, built by Walter Dorwin Teague, one of the premier industrial designers of the 1930s, is one of the most…
-
Boris Kroll (1913 – 1991) American Textile Designer
In 1938, he founded Cromwell Designs, which began by weaving Modern furniture fabrics on a handloom with a bathtub for dying yarns. He began employing power looms in 1939. Boris Kroll Fabrics, New York, was founded by him in 1946. Cotton and novelty spun rayon was used.Read More →
-
Edith Heath (1911 – 2005) Studio Potter to Industrial Designer
Edith Heath successfully transitioned from studio potter to industrial designer while maintaining a studio sensibility. Heath was a pioneering ceramic chemist who pioneered the use of mechanical and handmade production. Her work gained popularity in California and was recognized with industrial-design awards.Read More →
-
Vladimir Kagan (1927 – 2016), American Furniture Designer
Vladimir Kagan was a German furniture designer who was active in New York and studied architecture at Columbia University. He was known for his form and Asian undercurrent, and experimented with rubber products to build comfort into tight seat and back upholstery.Read More →
-
1959 Cadillac Eldorado – Temple Rather than Automobile
The 1959 Cadillac is more of a temple than an automobile, a Gothic memorial to America’s glory years. It was overly long, low, and overstyled, and it’s the 50s’ final flourish. The 59’s outlandish space-age appearance, weird fins, and lavish 390 cubic inch V8 are fascinating, but the most striking aspect of the car is…
-
Mission Furniture – Design Dictionary Term
The term mission furniture was first popularized by Joseph P. McHugh of New York, a furniture manufacturer and retailer. The word mission references the Spanish missions throughout colonial California. The style became increasingly popular following the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo.Read More →
You may also be interested in
William Morris – beauty of practicality – Encyclopedia of Design
Born March 24, 1834 “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or beautiful.” That was the rallying call of the nineteenth-century designer, William Morris, a British designer and social reformer. He aimed to rid the world of shoddy mass-produced goods and replace them with objects that were designed and made by artists.
A short history of wallpaper – Encyclopedia of Design
Before 1840, nearly all the world’s wallpaper came from France, where it was hand-printed, using blocks and sheets of paper to produce a limited line of patterns. Making wallpaper by hand was a costly process, and only the very wealthy could afford to buy it.
Dakota Jackson American furniture designer – Encyclopedia of Design
Dakota Jackson is an American furniture designer best known for his Dakota Jackson furniture line. He was a magician’s son, and by the time he was six, he became a professional magician. He performed in public until his early 20s.