Mission Furniture

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Mission furniture is a catch-all term often (mis) used to refer to the host imitators of Stickley furniture.

Gustav Stickley was an architect and furniture maker and visible frontman for the American Arts and Crafts design movement. In 1901, he began publishing the Craftsman magazine, which was devoted to showcasing and educating the philosophies of Arts and Crafts: design based on honesty, simplicity, and usefulness.

The Arts and Crafts movement began in England before the turn of the 20th century largely in response to the machine age of the Industrial Revolution, and was quickly adapted to fit American sensibilities. Its founders felt that the time-honored skills and traditions of handcrafting mission style furniture were being lost to the machine, the factory and the divisions of labor.

Furniture wasn’t made by hand anymore, so no one laborer could even take pride in the workmanship of his mission oak furniture.

The European version of the movement attempted to recreate a noble world of craft labor destroyed by industrialization; Americans sought to establish a new source of virtue to replace heroic craft production: the tasteful middle-class home. On the heels of the busy and cluttered Victorian styles, Arts and Crafts was a breath of fresh air in more ways than one.

The main thought guiding this movement was that all elements in a home should connect to their environment and contain pure forms, stripped of historicism. Stickley believed that:

• A house ought to be constructed using locally available materials and in harmony with its landscape
• Eliminating barriers in the floor plan encourages family interaction
• Built-in bookcases and benches are practical and ensure the house isn’t dependent on furniture from outside
• Natural light is embraced by constructing large groups of windows and limiting the amount of artificial light in the house

Between 1900 and 1916, this furniture style and creative movement really hit its pinnacle of popularity, much later described by author David M. Cathers in his Furniture of the American Arts and Crafts Movement as “… a severely plain and rectilinear style which was visually enriched only by expressed structural features and the warm tones of the wood…”
All pieces were handmade using no machines, as dictated by the design ethic (though there were plenty of splinter movements that sought to fuse the machine age and celebrate the artistry of handcraft).

Stickely's primary building material was American oak – hence the catch-all term “mission oak style”. Mission furniture became very popular. Joinery was visible and celebrated. Further, clean lines and pureness of function still characterize mission furniture today. The movement lives on in small communities throughout America, including groups such as the Amish (who believe life should be simpler for religious reasons – but sentiments on handcraft are the same). Amish mission furniture is truly beautiful and compliments any home.

The Movement was also in step with a shift in the American standard of living. While cities thrived, suburbs were born. The American dream became homeownership, and the Craftsman hope was to build those homes and furnish them with objects that reflected the simple life that fewer and fewer people experienced.

It is unrealistic to believe that all of the artisans, craftsmen and designers of this time were true Arts and Crafts philosophers. The people who preached loudest about a return to simplicity were the same ones taking full advantage of American consumerism. Sales for mission bedroom furniture, mission dining furniture and even mission office furniture abounded. Stickley and his contemporaries never really achieved the idealistic life of harmony, though their furniture reflected their beliefs. Competition and jealousies were as common then as they are now, making themselves heard in the many Arts & Crafts publications and even in advertisements.

Despite this bickering side of the Movement, the general mood of the times was optimisitic. As in contemporary times, the big-name designers like Stickley, Frank Lloyd Wright and Elbert Hubbard set the examples and others followed. By 1915, though, the media was tired of the style and actively began searching next great design trend: Modernism.

A clear influence of the Arts and Crafts Movement remains, however. Mission, Prairie, and the 'California bungalow' styles of homebuilding are still sought-after designs in the United States today.

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