Join us for our Summer Seminars 2026, “Craft, Design, and the Machine in Modern Life,” a six-part online lecture series!

Led by SMCF Executive Director Jonathan Clancy, Ph.D., this series explores a series of conversations spanning the Arts and Crafts movement to contemporary debates about technology and AI, where we invite you to explore what design means, what it can accomplish, and how the relationship between machines and culture continues to shape our lives. Together, these seminars use moments from history not as a comprehensive narrative, but as opportunities to learn, reflect, and engage in the important discussions that the Stickley Museum at Craftsman Farms seeks to foster.

Lectures may be purchased individually or as a complete series. Click here for the full course description.

Week #4: July 18, at 1:00 PM EDT via Zoom
The Spirit of the Machine and the Nature of Materials

We perceive that the person who would use a machine must be imbued with the spirit of the machine and comprehend the nature of his materials. We realize that he is creating the telltale environment that records what man truly is.
– Norman Bel Geddes, Horizons in Industrial Design (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1932), 4.

Ignore for a moment the question of style and Henry Dreyfuss’s streamliner locomotive transforms before your eyes. Here, in a single object lies the fulfillment of so many ideals–of form following function, of ornament that springs organically from the materials it is made from, of design being a true expression of its age–that generations of craftspeople had wrestled with since Morris’s time. Although it more than adequately illustrates Stickley’s observation that “the simple and the structural are a spontaneous expression of the times” it can feel foreign and distant from the realm of craft. It questions, quite forcefully, the degree to which the machine has wholly conquered the idea of craft and forces us to confront, as Triggs worried, “the relation of the machine to culture.” This session will explore streamlined design–through works by Bel Geddes, Dreyfus, Clarence Karstadt and others–and examine the manner in which it struck (or missed) an appropriate balance between the machine and humanity and what it might teach us about today.

A La Carte
Member Price: $30 / session
Non-Member Price: $35 / session

Full Course
Member Price: All 6 sessions for $150 (one session free)
Non-Member Price: All 6 sessions for $210

Registration is required. Once registered and paid, you will receive an email prior to each session with a link to join.

Do you have a scheduling conflict for the live session? You can still enjoy the program. Register and we’ll send you the recording! All paid attendees will be emailed a private link to the session recording when it is available, typically 6-7 days after the live program.

Missed us? You can also register retroactively. If you register for a session that has passed, you’ll receive access to the recording when it is ready.

Haven’t tried a session yet? Each session is planned as a “stand-alone” lecture, so you can take them all or attend the topics that interest you most.