{"product_id":"tourists-and-trade-roadside-craftsmen-and-the-highway-transforming-craft-9781438493299","title":"Tourists and Trade: Roadside Craftsmen and the Highway Transforming Craft","description":"Amid the economic turmoil of the Great Depression, in 1929, Clarence Wemett, an upstate New York petroleum merchant, underwrote a craft shop bordering U.S. Route 20 and, a few years later, a different one 15 miles away. At precisely the wrong time for such things to happen, the improbable idea of selling discretionary goods targeted to a consumer market characterized by 25 percent unemployment at a rural highway's roadside achieved traction: the first shop was in business for a quarter century, the second for nearly 40 years. More significant than their surprising longevity is the shops' long-lasting contribution to a nascent, national movement that spans crafts personally created for individual use to the commercial work that sees craft elevated to a fine art-craft objects moved from pantry shelves to museum vitrines and craftworkers from hobbyists to professionals. The roadside shops introduced a business model that, 70 years later, is widely experienced on a very different but equally \"super\" highway, the Internet, and their story is a chapter in the pre-history of the modern crafts movement.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e State University of New York Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 12\/02\/2023\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781438493299\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 258\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.84lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.58d","brand":"Bruce A. Austin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43251407093941,"sku":"9781438493299","price":28.01,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/files\/img_bf64d20e-8e31-4586-91aa-45f25f014c4f.jpg?v=1699372258","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/tourists-and-trade-roadside-craftsmen-and-the-highway-transforming-craft-9781438493299","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}