OVERVIEW OF FEATURES
The Stickley Project puts a number of features at your fingertips. It is designed for collectors, scholars, appraisers, students, and anyone interested in Stickley. As of November 2020, the database features:
- Images and Data from 27 catalogs and sets of Retail Plates
- Images and Data from period Advertisements in Newspapers and Periodicals
- Images, Advertisements, and Data found in The Craftsman
- Data from Stickley’s Factory Inventories, Sales Journals, and Business Records
The database contains two essential components: images of the forms (when known and available) and the accompanying data. By synthesizing the information available from catalogs, The Craftsman, sales journals, advertisements, and the extant factory inventories, the range of information available is substantially increased and the data becomes easier to work with.
Data and Dates
The increased data available to those interested consists of factory inventories, an expanded range of catalogs, Sales Journals, advertisements, and other articles. One immediate difference is the increase in known forms Stickley produced, but equally significant is a more accurate system of dating than has been previously attempted. The range of dates given for a form represent the full span of its documented production rather than exclusively on relying on catalogs. The result is a richer picture of Stickley’s production history.
Images
The images accompanying each entry are typically culled from the firm’s catalogs, although in cases where forms were not illustrated in the extant catalogs, advertisements or images from The Craftsman have been used. Forms recorded in the Sales Journals or inventories for which no image has been located feature a placeholder to preserve the grid format of the database. Some of the objects Stickley produced underwent transformations that were documented in the illustrations featured in his catalogs and these entries often contain multiple views of those forms and brief notes on a chronology, where it can be discerned. In a few cases, although the model number stayed the same, the form is substantially different from its predecessor to warrant a separate entry. The decision to separate entries in this manner makes it possible to locate specific forms by their visual characteristics.
Individual Entries
Entries typically contain the following fields: Title, Date, Model No., Materials, Dimensions, Notes, Cataloged In, Documented In, and Retail Price. Some entries contain a clickable field “related forms” that makes navigation easier. Of particular interest is the “Cataloged In” field, which lists catalogs that a model appeared in.
Clicking on catalogs in the “Cataloged In” field links back to the entry for that catalog, which often contains notes and the reasons for assigning the date. Because of the way the database is cross-referenced, at the bottom of the each catalog’s entry page are all of the forms that appeared in it. The “Documented In” field is reserved for data that appears in sources other than catalogs–like sales journals, factory inventories, advertisements, and The Craftsman. Because of the extent of data that remains to be processed, this field (in particular) continues to grow.
