Fireplace Hood
Item
Title
Fireplace Hood
Creator
Craftsman Workshops
Date
1911 (ca.)
Medium
Copper and iron
Credit line
Conservation of the Fireplace Hoods was made possible by a grant from the Morris County Historic Preservation Trust Fund and a generous gift in memory of Vykki Mende Gray.
Description
For the dining room, which was still a public space, the emphasis shifted from the ideals of Stickley’s public persona to his ideals about Craftsman Farms itself. This room allowed for more intimate interactions, like dining with the family, and could be closed off from the living room to enhance the sense of privacy and exclusiveness.
Stickley used the motto on this fireplace hood—“The dear old farm with pictures of fruit hanging on the dining room wall but na’ry a bit on the table at all”—to couch a complaint within a light hearted verse, taken from a song popular in the early twentieth century in the West. Family and guests, surrounded as they were by a dairy farm, orchard, and stables, were brought in on the humor, a jovial poke at the unproductive farmers that belied a deeper cultural critique. Originally, the song poked fun at the gulf between the realities and Romantic notion of farming. It is unclear how Stickley became familiar with it, though his wife Eda may be the source as she traveled through the western United States during the construction of Craftsman Farms.
Stickley used the motto on this fireplace hood—“The dear old farm with pictures of fruit hanging on the dining room wall but na’ry a bit on the table at all”—to couch a complaint within a light hearted verse, taken from a song popular in the early twentieth century in the West. Family and guests, surrounded as they were by a dairy farm, orchard, and stables, were brought in on the humor, a jovial poke at the unproductive farmers that belied a deeper cultural critique. Originally, the song poked fun at the gulf between the realities and Romantic notion of farming. It is unclear how Stickley became familiar with it, though his wife Eda may be the source as she traveled through the western United States during the construction of Craftsman Farms.