engineering

Roycroft

Roycroft is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Roycroft rather than just read about it. In short: Roycroft was a reformist community of craft workers and artists which formed part of the Arts and Crafts movement in the United States. Elbert Hubbard founded the community in 1895, in the village of East Aurora, New York, near Buffalo.

Key takeaways

Roycroft belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Roycroft to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Roycroft from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Roycroft was a reformist community of craft workers and artists which formed part of the Arts and Crafts movement in the United States. Elbert Hubbard founded the community in 1895, in the village of East Aurora, New York, near Buffalo. Participants were known as Roycrofters. The work and philosophy of the group, often referred to as the Roycroft movement, had a strong influence on the development of American architecture and design in the early 20th century.

History

The name "Roycroft" was chosen after the printers, Samuel and Thomas Roycroft, who made books in London from about 1650–1690. The word roycroft had a special significance to Elbert Hubbard. Hubbard believed "roycroft" meant "king's craft" in French. In guilds of early modern Europe, king's craftsmen were guild members who had achieved a high degree of skill and therefore made things for the King. The Roycroft insignia was borrowed from the monk Cassiodorus, a 13th-century bookbinder and illuminator. Elbert Hubbard had been influenced by the ideas of William Morris on a visit to England. He was unable to find a publisher for his book Little Journeys so, inspired by Morris's Kelmscott Press, decided to set up his own private press to print the book himself, founding Roycroft Press. His championing of the Arts and Crafts approach attracted a number of visiting craftspeople to East Aurora, and they formed a community of printers, furniture makers, metalsmiths, leathersmiths, and bookbinders. A quotation from John Ruskin formed the Roycroft "creed":

A belief in working with the head, hand and heart and mixing enough play with the work so that every task is pleasurable and makes for health and happiness. The inspirational leadership of Hubbard attracted a group of almost 500 people by 1910, and millions more knew of him through his essay A Message to Garcia.

The Roycroft Press is also credited for publishing partner publications, such as Carl Lothar Bredemeier's The Buffalo Magazine for Arts in 1920. In 1915 Hubbard and his wife, noted suffragist Alice Moore Hubbard, died in the sinking of RMS Lusitania, and the Roycroft community went into a gradual decline. Following Elbert's death, his son Bert took over the business. In attempts to keep his father's business afloat, Bert proposed selling Roycroft's furniture through major retailers. Sears & Roebuck eventually agreed to carry the furniture, but this was only a short-lived success. Fourteen original Roycroft buildings are located in the area of South Grove and Main Street in East Aurora. Known as the "Roycroft Campus", this rare survival of an art colony was awarded National Historic Landmark status in 1986. The Elbert Hubbard Roycroft Museum, housed in the George and Gladys Scheidemantel House in East Aurora is the main collection and research centre for the work of the Roycrofters.

Roycroft Inn

Part of the Roycroft Campus, the Inn is a hotel with a restaurant and lobby bar across the street from the primary buildings. It first opened for visitors in 1905 and in 1986, as part of the Roycroft Campus, became a National Historic Landmark. A nine-year restoration was completed in 1995, with funding from the Margaret L. Wendt Foundation; the total cost was $8 million. At that time, the facility re-opened. The Salon area contains restored murals by Roycroft artist Alexis Jean Fournier. The inn also hosted a training camp for the Buffalo Bills from 1960 until 1962.

Gallery

Famous Roycrofters Arthur H. Cole (1898–1973), coppersmith and later established the independent Avon Coppersmith. Jerome Connor (1874–1943), sculptor of Elbert Hubbard statue, North Wind on the Roycroft Chapel, and others. William Wallace Denslow (1856–1915), illustrator of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Alexis Jean Fournier (1865–1948), American painter, including 20 murals at the Roycroft Inn. William Joseph "Dard" Hunter (1883–1966), American authority on making paper by hand, as well as printing using handmade type. He published a number of books on traditional, pre-industrial, techniques for making paper. Walter Jennings, coppersmith and jeweler Karl Kipp (1882–1954), worked in the bindery in 1908 and later established the Roycroft Copper Shop. Fredrick Kranz, created fine leather goods. Victor Toothaker (1882–1932), coppersmith Samuel Warner (1871–1947), book designer, artist and illustrator for many Roycroft books.

See also American craft Arden, Delaware Byrdcliffe Colony Elbert Hubbard Frank Lloyd Wright Gustav Stickley Rose Valley, Pennsylvania Roy Croft

References

Further reading Beyer, Rachael A. (June 21, 2013). "'You must make it the fashion:' selling utopia in Roycroft and Arden, 1895-1915". Iowa State University Digital Repository. OCLC 880379261. Retrieved March 20, 2018. Cathers, David M. (1981) Furniture of the American Arts and Crafts Movement: Stickley and Roycroft Mission Oak New American Library, New York, ISBN 0-453-00397-4 Champney, Freeman (1968) Art & glory; the story of Elbert Hubbard Crown Publishers, New York, OCLC 274494 Dirlam, H. Kenneth (1964) Sinners, this is East Aurora; the story of Elbert Hubbard and the Roycroft Shops Vantage Press, New York Guiler, Thomas A (2025) The Handcrafted Utopia: Arts and Crafts Communities in America's Progressive Era Richard W. Couper Press, Clinton, New York, ISBN 978-1-937370-43-5 Hamilton, Charles Franklin (1973) As Bees in Honey Drown: Elbert Hubbard and the Roycrofters A.S. Barnes, South Brunswick, ISBN 0-498-01052-X Rust, Robert et al. (2000) The Roycroft Campus (Images of America series) Arcadia Publishing, Charleston, SC, ISBN 0-7524-1344-9 Turgeon, Kitty and Rust, Robert (1998) The Arts and Crafts Home Friedman/Fairfax Publishers, New York, ISBN 1-56799-455-5 Via, Marie and Searl, Marjorie (eds.) (1994) Head, Heart, and Hand: Elbert Hubbard and the Roycrofters University of Rochester Press, Rochester, N.Y., ISBN 1-878822-43-8

External links

Roycroft Organization Roycroft Inn, East Aurora Roycroft shop marks and related historical furniture maker details The Roycroft Community 1894–1938 by Hilary Davis The Arts & Crafts Movement: People: Elbert Hubbard The Roycroft Campus Roycrofters At Large Association The Winterthur Library Overview of an archival collection on the Roycrofters Roycrofters Collection: Books published at the Roycrofter colony founded by Elbert Hubbard, (97 items). From the Rare Book and Special Collections Division at the Library of Congress Furniture Items from the 1906 Roycroft Catalog

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Roycroft

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Roycroft claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Roycroft before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Roycroft ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Roycroft

In research: Roycroft appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Roycroft in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Roycroft is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1895 establishments in New York (state), 19th-century art groups, American artist groups and collectives, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Roycroft outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Roycroft in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Roycroft means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Roycroft out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Roycroft in simple terms?

Why does Roycroft matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Roycroft?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Roycroft.