Is there a more distinctly California home than the Craftsman? Known for its sprawling porches, gabled roofs, hardwood floors and an emphasis on beautiful materials like exposed beams, these low-slung homes were hand-tailored to a lifestyle that cherishes the outdoors. Made iconic by the majestic turn-of-the-century Gamble House and the many bungalows peppering Pasadena — a hotbed for the architectural movement — the Craftsman house has become a timeless example of humble materials used to exquisite ends.
Yet an appreciation for aesthetics alone didn’t give rise to the Craftsman in the early 20th century, and it actually didn’t originate in California at all.
The Craftsman movement stems from 19th-century Victorian England, at a time when the influx of emergent technology was dramatically altering society. The likes of steam-powered engines made it possible to rapidly pull off mechanized work, aided by factory laborers working inhumanely long hours to help them chug along. Yet craftspeople watched in real time as the new systems, the division of labor enacted to keep them going and increased use of machinery threatened to make their lives’ work redundant. Scores of artisans and knitters who called themselves “Luddites” fought back on the ground, raiding textile factories and setting mills on fire to protest the loss of their livelihoods, workers’ exploitation and the demand to make products of worse quality en masse.
These gruesome skirmishes ultimately weren’t successful in changing course for British industrialization, which charged ahead. But they inevitably helped fuel a larger societal pushback against mechanized industrial labor, one that spread far past England and found firm footing in California: the Arts and Crafts movement…