Elbert Hubbard, the former Larkin Co. executive, marketing guru, and founder of the Roycroft Arts & Crafts Movement, was the originator of the direct-to-consumer “Factory to Family Idea” that helped transform the Larkin Co. into one of the country’s largest mail order firms and the Hydraulics into one of its premier Machine Age industrial precincts. From PBS:

The dawn of the 20th century was a fluid time in America. Mass production was at a fever pitch, traditional values were in flux, the roles of men and women were changing, and America’s consumer culture was emerging. A new aesthetic was also entering the vernacular – Arts and Crafts. It evolved out of a socialist movement in England that rejected the dehumanizing effect of mechanization in favor of honest craftsmanship. Elbert Hubbard was one of the most influential forces in American business as the new century opened and the Roycroft artisan community that he founded in East Aurora, New York was the first and most successful purveyor of Arts and Crafts in the nation.

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