The American Craftsman style has its beginnings in the previous British Arts and Crafts movement that goes all the way back to the 1860s. The Brit’s movement, which created a wide assortment of related but very specific design movements throughout Europe, was a response to the decline of the dignity of human labor resulting from the Industrial Revolution. In a few ways it was a response to the apathy for the worker of the Victorian era. Looking to dignify the craftsman again, the movement pushed the hand-made over the mass manufactured. While the British movement still possessed some of the over-done decor of its Victorian pioneer, it was almost anti-Victorian in thought; the movement’s patron, William Morris, was a loyal socialist and as such the thought behind the Arts and Crafts movement in the UK is beyond a doubt part of the materialist argument. However, the high-priced materials and high-priced hand-made techniques meant that the movement was in fact still helping the wealthiest clients, a seeming difference to its background in socialist philosophy.
While the UK movement was a Victorian-era event, its transition to the American setting took place exactly at the point of time when that era was coming to an end. The types of furniture created during this era were in the Mission style. It can be said that the American movement that also stressed craftsmanship was also a design reform movement that renewed originality, purity of form, local natural goods, and the visibility of craft. There was also concern in regard to improving the simpler house of the quickly expanding middle class.
