The Stickley Project is the culmination of about fifteen years of research and materials gathering. I can trace its origin back to around 2004 or 2005–I was a graduate student pursuing a PhD in Art History–when I began to take an interest in the Arts and Crafts movement. Being adept at research and learning the basics of organizing a library, I started files on different companies and aspects of the movement. When I would visit libraries I started to photocopy or (later) order scans of materials to add to my files. Soon, I found that I had more information on many of the firms than was available in the reprints available to purchase.

As time wore on, and I began to work on ceramics and metalwork, these files proved to be an invaluable resource, though I was often frustrated by my attempts to recall exactly where I had seen something and the time it took me to track down that source / image / tidbit in my ever expanding files. My reaction to these frustrations eventually led to the creation of a spreadsheet, first of metalwork and later of furniture forms. Early iterations of the database were built using my laptop as a local server and trying to configure the database in a way that would align with the needs I had about sources, images, and the peculiar semantics of cataloging these objects so that I could track them over time. While this worked well for research I undertook at home, I was often plagued by the knowledge that I had all this information, but no way to access it when I was away from my laptop.

Eventually, I realized that I would need to make this cloud-based, and while this presented a few hurdles I needed to clear, eventually I had a working prototype that served me well in my professional life. Concurrent with this was the realization that much of what the field “knows” about Stickley is often based on research that is decades old and often inaccurate. These inaccuracies glared at me from auction listings, in conversations on social media, in catalog descriptions and entries, and even (especially?) from museum labels. While at first this was a minor inconvenience that gave me the comfort of a haughty knowledge (a defect I can still be tempted by–who among us doesn’t enjoy having knowledge that others do not know?), I soon began to realize that these pervasive inconsistencies were impacting our understanding of the field, the way that we discussed Stickley’s career, and the state of scholarship in general.

My decision to undertake this project has a number of very tangible goals. First, I would like to see scholarship on Stickley have more voices and viewpoints. One thing that I am acutely aware of is the manner in which access to materials determines who is able to conduct research. While the internet has lowered that bar considerably, there is still a substantial distance to go. My hope is that this project moves us towards that goal, no matter how incrementally. Second, I believe that knowledge in the field relies too much on the catalog reprints and The Craftsman for information. Without a way to integrate data from the factory inventories, sales journals, advertisements, and articles we are missing the bigger picture. And finally, I wanted a way to show that scholarship is flexible, that it evolves, and that it is subject to revision. The difficulty with printed media is that the cost to produce it creates an incentive that works against the timely distribution of new information and revision and actively discourages disparate voices to participate in the discussion because underlying all decisions is the financial reality of the medium. My belief is that digital platforms can offer a solution to these problems, but they need to embrace the real potential of the medium: timely updates, revisions, additions, and flexibility.

In terms of a bigger goal, I wanted to pursue an alternate model of scholarship that: avoided the political aspects of the peer-review process, created an alternative to the limited opportunities for scholarship constrained by the dwindling number of journals that feature original research, and demonstrates that scholarship on the web can be both nimble and rigorous. It is my hope that you will find value in this project and support this venture.