Arts and Crafts Movement

The Arts and Crafts movement was an international design philosophy that originated in England during the 1860s.  Its key influences originated from the artist William Morris (1834-1896) and from the writings of John Ruskin (1819-1900).

The movement’s original thrust was a reaction against the impoverished state of the decorative arts where it advocated traditional craftsmanship using simple forms and often romantic or folk styles of decoration.

A subsequent reaction of the Arts and Crafts movement has been economic and social reform, to the point, some consider, of being anti-industrial (Craftivism).

Prairie School
The Prairie School was a late 19th and early 20th century architectural style, common to the Midwestern United States, that developed in sympathy with the ideals and design aesthetics of the Arts and Crafts Movement.  The Praire School embraced handcrafting and craftsman guilds as a reaction against the new assembly line and mass production manufacturing techniques which they felt created inferior products and dehumanized workers.

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) was a leader of the Prairie School movement of architecture and developed the concept of the Usonian home.