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A Second Industrial Revolution?

The Burchfield Penney Art Center at Buffalo State College, dedicated to WNY art since 1966, is the home of a substantial collection of Roycroft objects, books and magazines which are often shown in specially curated exhibits in the gallery. 

 

An object in the current exhibit had this quote from Roycroft founder Elbert Hubbard: “you cannot get joy from feeding things into a machine all day. You must let the man work with hand and brain, & out of the marriage of hand and brain beauty will be born.”

 

Recently, on Tom Ashbrook's NPR program, On Point, I heard discussion of a book, “The Second Machine Age” by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, which examines how digital technology will bring great change just as steam technology did for the Industrial Revolution. The authors warn that “there is never a worse time to be a worker with only ‘ordinary’ skills and abilities to offer, because computers, robots, and other digital technologies are acquiring these skills and abilities at an extraordinary rate.” 

 

During the program’s discussion, several individuals called in who work with their hands making artisan goods and I was reminded of the Arts & Crafts Movement’s reaction against the Industrial Revolution which we are so familiar with at the Roycroft.

 

I think that we all must be as versatile and flexible as Elbert was in his day - learning, evolving with and using technology to our best advantage while continuing to pursue the satisfaction of creativity. 

 

- Sue

Being "Bookish" on the Roycroft Campus

The Roycroft Book Club returns this spring with a discussion at 4 p.m. on Sunday, March 23 at the Power House for the book “And the Mountains Echoed” by Khaled Hosseni. 

The club will read a variety of books from contemporary bestsellers to historical non-fiction, and even some Elbert Hubbard titles.  

Join us as we continue the Fra’s love of literature and especially his love for lively discussion on Campus. For more information and future books, go to the Roycroft Book Club.

 

- Sue 

A Presidential Roycroft Gift

Roycroft books were printed in various editions, from inexpensive paper-bound books to ones which had elaborate hand-tooled leather covers with decorative, custom illuminated pages. This allowed individuals to purchase the books they could afford. Many men of industry were fans of Elbert and collected his most expensive volumes for their personal libraries as well as giving them as gifts.  

 

One such gift of note is listed in a dairy entry for January 31, 1934 in the book, Closet Companion by Geoffrey C. Ward:

“The President” (FDR) “ was sitting. A stack of papers on his desk. Some of the various Birthday presents he has received - [a] beautiful gold plaque from California, engraved, in a red velvet case - a special book gotten up by the Roycrofters, beautifully bound. There was of course no time to do more than glance at them.”

 

This excerpt is courtesy of LU-H, RCC volunteer. Feel free to share your “finds” with me. I am happy to post them.

 

• Sue

A Roycroft Love for Valentines' Day

Elbert Hubbard and his second wife, Alice, wrote countless letters to one another and saved many of them. Elbert’s son “Bert” inherited the letters and allowed author Charles F. Hamilton access to these as well as permission to use many in his book, “As Bees in Honey Drown,” which follows the development of Elbert and Alice's relationship.

 

Many of the earlier letters are dominated by discussions of his manuscripts with passionate thoughts periodically bursting through. The following from Alice to Elbert is such an expression following many paragraphs of manuscript critique: “But I won’t write more tonight for this longing heart wants only you. Take me, press me to your breast and I shall be nourished and assured. O, the greatness of love.”

 

Elbert, as always, used more words to express himself and, in this case, ends up using the moment for self commentary: “I think of you and wonder why I love you. I have been endeavoring to formulate the reason and can only do so negatively. For your charm for me lies not on the features of your loving face, nor in the tall, agile, graceful figure, nor in the varieties of expression that play across your face, nor in your wit and words of wisdom. . ., but it seems to be that there in your soul for me is perfect truth and having no guile yourself you attribute none to me, thus I am benefitted and strengthened.”

 

Find out what the secret codes “1,2,3,4” and 79 meant to the lovers by reading “As Bees in Honey Drown.” The book is sold at the Roycroft Copper Shop. Please purchase it there so you will be directly supporting the restoration of the Roycroft Campus.

 

- Sue

Elbert Hubbard’s Essay on Silence

Excerpt from “Art & GLory: The Elbert Hubbard Story” by Freeman Champney

 

“One of Hubbard’s literary jokes was “the Essay on Silence” - a neatly bound pamphlet of blank pages. The Roycroft pilgrims used it as an autograph book; Hubbard declared it his best book; and the advertising pages of the Philistine had a field day with it: “has been translated into fifty-seven languages and dialects. It has been reprinted over fourteen thousand million times. Nothing ever written by any author, living or dead, has had so wide a circulation. Such is the felicity of the language in the original, that it loses nothing in the translation.”

 

Ah, EH would have had a field day with modern art. . .

 

- Sue

Labor & Elbert

Last week I wrote about the evening Elbert penned his most famous article, “A Message to Garcia”. I referenced the growing labor movement and how they might not have agreed with Elbert’s view of the perfect employee being one that does the work without question.

 

I have just finished an interesting book, “American Lightning” by Howard Blum, which  describes the labor unrest and bombings across the country in 1910, specifically the case of the bombing of the Los Angeles Times building. The author describes a time when the labor movement was  literally fighting a war with business owners. Many people lost their lives in this war.

 

Today the pendulum has swung the other way. In the intervening 100 years Labor has found its footing and can negotiate toe to toe with business and government. However many state budgets are stretched to the breaking point and government officials are looking to the unions for help to reduce one of their largest expenditures - that of labor costs - in order to balance state budgets without necessitating layoffs.

 

I am not taking a position here, I simply want to hold up a mirror to where we have been and where we are now. What would Elbert think of the current state of affairs? Would he be pro union or pro business? He played both sides of the fence in his day- demonstrating his appreciation for his employees with unique benefits and opportunities, but as a business owner and a friend of business (“A Message to Garcia”) he was always looking for employees who showed initiative and loyalty above all else. It is difficult to say how he could negotiate a path between the two camps today, or, for that matter, how we will.

 

- Sue