Flappers & Fiction

Mary Bacon Ford profiles the Industrial Art movement in England, led by William Morris and his fellow art socialists who seek to restore handicraft traditions and improve working conditions. The movement emerged from the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood and aims to replace machine-made goods with hand-crafted items, giving workers pride in their labor and profit-sharing. Morris, a poet-socialist born in 1834, operates factories at Merton Abbey where artisans work in pleasant conditions, while also editing The Commonweal and designing textiles. Ford describes Morris’s colleagues including illustrator Walter Crane, potter William de Morgan, and bookbinder T.J. Cobden-Sanderson, all working to revive artistic craftsmanship.