Stickley is a name synonymous with Arts & Crafts style in America. The five Stickley brothers-Gustav, Albert, Leopold, John George, and Charles-were fully engaged in the furniture industry around the turn of the twentieth century and had a huge impact on America's statement of style. But were any one of them a style maker? Gustav Stickley claimed that he had established an American style. Albert Stickley contradicted that claim, and Leopold made his own statement during his final years. Here, for the first time, the representative photographs and ideas of all the brothers' work appear together in one volume, to compare and contrast, so that readers might make their own evaluations. Michael and Jill Thomas-Clark examine each brother's work and its relation to the quest for an American style, placing particular emphasis on the early years and transitional moments. The authors draw a definitive conclusion, and it is an answer certainly worth reading, seeing, and thinking about.Dr. Michael E. Clark is an associate professor at Elmira College in the Fine Arts Department, and Jill Thomas-Clark is a registrar for the Corning Museum of Glass. Their work has appeared in Style 1900: The Journal of the Arts and Crafts Movement. They live in upstate New York.

Dr. Michael E. Clark is an associate professor of fine arts at Elmira College. Jill Thomas-Clark is the registrar at the Corning Museum of Glass.

Introduction The Voice and the Players During the latter part of the twentieth century, the name Stickley achieved mythic proportions in the American decorative arts. Particularly since the landmark Princeton exhibit on the Arts & Crafts movement in America in 1972, it has become legendary and influential in modern American design. A virtual boom in modern reproductions and imitations of Arts & Crafts objects and furniture has permeated the American environment. Scholarship and research into the period has produced a plethora of knowledge about the artists and artisans of the early twentieth century. But until now, no one work has covered the impact of all five Stickley brothers on creating an American style in the decorative arts.