A poor sort of heaven, a good sort of earth: the Rose Valley Arts and Crafts experiment (1901-1910)
Date
1982
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
From 1901 to 1910, the Rose Valley Association, with shops located in central Delaware County, Pennsylvania, and offices in Philadelphia, oversaw the production of products (furniture, pottery, bookbinding, printing, painting, illustration, and metalwork) guided by Arts and Crafts principles as set forth by John Ruskin, William Morris, and others. The group was led by Philadelphia architect William L. Price, who established his reputation by designing Main Line country houses, "model houses" published in popular magazines, railroad stations, and resort hotels, most notably the Blenheim and Traymore in Atlantic City. ☐ The thesis reviews the organizational and financial history of the Rose Valley Association as well as the social and cultural development of the utopian community which was created. In addition, a detailed analysis of Rose Valley furniture is undertaken, in terms of its technomic, ideotechnic, and sociotechnic functions. Photographs and other documentation of the Rose Valley Shops' production are analyzed along with surviving examples of the furniture. Photographs of interiors designed by Price and furnished with Rose Valley furniture are also studied. ☐ Conclusions reached are (1) that the Rose Valley experiment from the beginning was within the "modernist" tradition of belief in the concept of progress, accommodation to current financial and social conditions, and limited philosophical commitment -- never a reactionary or "antimodernist" phenomenon as several recent writers have suggested; (2) that the furniture and Rose Valley's philosophical explanations for it reflect this adaptability, eclecticism, and worldliness; and (3) that the built environment of Rose Valley exists today, remarkably preserved, as a result of the particular combination of aesthetic and philosophical sensibilities, on the one hand, and cognizance of the realities of twentieth-century life, on the other, which was formulated by the early community.