American Craftsman

American Craftsman is a domestic architectural style inspired by the British Arts and Crafts movement that emerged in the United States in the late nineteenth century and remained active from the 1890s through the 1930s, extending into interior design, landscape design and the applied and decorative arts. It rejected Victorian ornamentation in favor of simpler forms, natural materials, visibly sturdy structure, clean lines and handcrafted woodwork, and it took its name from Gustav Stickley's influential 1901 magazine The Craftsman, which showcased original designs and popularized the movement's philosophy of dignifying modest homes for the growing American middle class. The style became especially prominent in small to medium sized single-family homes in Southern California from about 1905, where its smaller scale earned it the alternative name California bungalow, and it also took root strongly in the Upper Midwest and the Western United States.