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The History of
Roycroft
| Roycroft is as much a state of mind as a place; this paraphrases what Elbert Hubbard had in mind when he founded the utopian craft community more than 100 years ago. The first Roycroft publication was printed in
1895. |
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Originally devoted to the making of beautiful books in the manner of William Morris, the Roycrofters soon
developed a wide range of arts and crafts items for sale. What they made to furnish and decorate their
expanding Roycroft Campus was soon being sold by catalog. |
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The unique combination of Hubbard family, artisans, and workers created a multi-level complex operation
that included books, art, education, music, and magazines. |
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The Book "Images of America The Roycroft Campus" by Kitty Turgeon and Robert Rust explore the key
factors that surround what made Roycroft Campus fascinating social experiment and made it eligible for a
National Historic Landmark status. That designation was given in March 1986.
Click
Here to learn more about this book. |
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Elbert Green Hubbard was born june 19, 1856, the third child to a
country doctor and his wife in Bloomington, Illinois. His parents had
moved west after their sojourn in western New York on the Seneca Indian
Reservation. Dr. Silas was from a large family from Mayville, New York,
on Chautauqua Lake. Juliana Reed Hubbard, a young teacher, was
from Buffalo, New York, the daughter of a bookbinder. Elbert's
father was a phrenologist, having studied medicine at Castleton College
in Vermont. Apparently, he was a good doctor who never earned much
money because he often gave away his services. |
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With little formal schooling, Elbert Hubbard went to work selling soap for a cousin in Chicago. He married
Bertha Crawford in 1879. They moved to Buffalo, where Elbert joined his sister Frances's husband, John
Larkin, as a partner in the Larkin Co., another soap business. In 1883, the young Hubbard and their son
Bert moved to East Aurora, New York, and for ten years he commuted by train to work in Buffalo. |
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His liaison with Alice Moore began in the late 1880s; she soon encouraged his writing and subsequent
"dropping out" of the "establishment" or traditional world. After a six-week stint at Harvard, he traveled to
England to research his Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, soon to be published by J. P. Putnam &
Sons. A daughter, Miriam, was born to Elbert and Alice in 1894, and only a year later, Katherine was born
to he and his wife Bertha. The man was torn between his respect and love for the two women, but divorce
and remarriage was the eventual result between 1902 and 1904. |
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Elbert Hubbard founded the Roycroft Press in 1895, and two years later, he began building what was to
become the Roycroft Campus. The success of his essay "A Message to Garcia" (1899) catapulted him
and the Roycroft to fame and enough fortune to build his Roycroft Campus bigger and better and
eventually, to employ nearly 500 people. |
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After Alice and Elbert's death on the Lusitania in 1915, Elbert II (Bert) and his wife, Alta, ran the enterprise
differently, but with a financial stability that was better than ever through the 1920s. Changing tastes and
especially, the Great Depression dragged the Roycrofters into bankruptcy by 1938. Bert and Alta lived on
as prominent citizens of East Aurora / he even served as mayor. Their children stayed in the area. Their
only son, Elbert Hubbard III (known as John), became a doctor; he is now retired. Their youngest daughter,
Nancy Hubbard Brady, was one of the founders of the RALA; she died in 1982. Here daughter Linda
carries on the book business, "The House of Hubbards." Miriam's six children dispersed to several places
around the East Coast. Here eldest daughter, Mary Roelofs Stott, became a noted author and musician;
there is an award fund in her name. One of the Hubbard's farms, the Arden Farm, is still in Miriam's family;
run by her youngest son, Mark, it provides organic produce for the western New York community. |
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You can become a Member at Large for just $25.00 per year. Get the benefits and
Click Here and join now. You
will be supporting National Historic Landmarks, a working printing press museum located in the original
Roycroft Copper Shop side by side with the 2R Fine Arts Gallery, the Design Home Furnishings Studio and
the Roycroft Gift Shop. |
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We welcome you to visit us at this Historic Arts & Crafts Landmark. Drink in the atmosphere where Elbert
worked, walked and created The Roycroft Community. |
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