These Humbler Metals

Author : Bruce A. Austin
Publisher : State University of New York Press
ISBN 13 : 1438493304
Total Pages : 337 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (384 download)

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Download or read book Tourists and Trade written by Bruce A. Austin and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2023-06-01 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amid the economic turmoil of the Great Depression, in 1929, Clarence Wemett, an upstate New York petroleum merchant, underwrote a craft shop bordering U.S. Route 20 and, a few years later, a different one 15 miles away. At precisely the wrong time for such things to happen, the improbable idea of selling discretionary goods targeted to a consumer market characterized by 25 percent unemployment at a rural highway's roadside achieved traction: the first shop was in business for a quarter century, the second for nearly 40 years. More significant than their surprising longevity is the shops' long-lasting contribution to a nascent, national movement that spans crafts personally created for individual use to the commercial work that sees craft elevated to a fine art—craft objects moved from pantry shelves to museum vitrines and craftworkers from hobbyists to professionals. The roadside shops introduced a business model that, 70 years later, is widely experienced on a very different but equally "super" highway, the Internet, and their story is a chapter in the pre-history of the modern crafts movement.