Deerfield's Progressive Impulse

That "band of industrious and brainy women"

Making a living at art in America

Throughout its 40 plus year history, the female artisans of the Deerfield Arts and Crafts movement returned again and again to the complex and interrelated issues of quality and how to make "an adequate livelihood" with objects made by hand. In doing so, this "band of industrious and brainy women" (as one journalist dubbed them) faced head on and found solutions to questions that have long vexed American artists attempting to make a living at their calling. It is significant that the women of Deerfield found a way to navigate this central problem in the history of American art. In the process, the artisans of Deerfield left us a rich aesthetic legacy.