Item description for Elbert Hubbard Roycrofters THE FRA Magazine January 1916 Arts & Crafts Antique

A RARE FIND!
January 1916 Issue of THE FRA - A Journal of Affirmation by Elbert Hubbard
Nice old advertisements throughout
Roycroft was a handicraft community in East Aurora, NY founded around 1895 by Elbert Hubbard. Dissatisfied with his life in 1892, Hubbard left his job as a successful soap salesman for J. D. Larkin and Co. in Buffalo, New York and began a new life journey. He first enrolled at Harvard, but stayed there only briefly before deciding to instead embark on a walking tour of England. During his travels he met William Morris and was inspired by his Morris' Arts-and-Crafts Kelmscott Press. So, after returning to America and finding no publisher for a series of biographical sketches he had written called "Little Journeys", Hubbard decided to publish the work himself. Hubbard's new writing and publishing venture proved enormously successful. Hubbard and his print shop grew so famous that a hotel had to be built to accommodate all the visitors. Hubbard hired local craftsmen to make a simple, straight lined style of furniture to furnish the hotel rooms. This furniture became so popular with visitors, many wanted to buy the furniture for their own homes. Thus began the Roycroft furniture manufacturing industry. The community of Roycroft craftspeople grew to also include skilled metalsmiths, leathersmiths, and bookbinders - reaching its peak in 1910 with over 500 workers. Sadly, in the midst of that success, Hubbard and his wife were among the fatalities onboard the Lusitania when it was sunk by a German U-boat in 1915. Hubbard's son Bert took on leadership of the Roycrofters Community until 1938 when the Roycrofters closed shop for good. The beauty and craftsmanship of Roycroft bookbinding, metalsmithing, and furniture-making are highly sought after by collectors today.