July 1977 

uary 1977 
PREFACE
 

When the Research Division of the National Endowment
 

for the Arts was requested to survey American craftsmen and
 

their organizations, it quickly became apparent that not
 

enough information was available even to begin such a survey.
 

There was no commonly accepted definition of the term "craftsman", no useful taxonomy of the field, and no reliable estimates of the number of craftsmen or craft organizations.
 

In response to that need for preliminary information,
 

this planning study has been prepared. The study attempted
 

to prepare a systematic classification of crafts in America,
 

to group and classify craftsmen and their organizations into
 

an appropriate system, to estimate the numbers of craftsmen
 

and crafts organizations, to record their geographical distribution, and to suggest approaches, methods and costs for
 

a true survey of the field.
 

This planning study has been prepared by Mathematica
 

Policy Research, Inc. The project team was led by Diana
 

Zentay0 whose principal colleagues were Dr. Constance F. Citro
 

and Miriam D. Plotnicov. This summary report has been prepared ~by Dr. Citro. The complete report, which contains detailed information on survey alternatives, may be seen in the
 

in the Library of the Arts Endowment or borrowed on an interlibrary loan basis. To do so, contact Mrs. Chris Morrison0
 

Librarian, National Endowment for the Arts, Washington, D.C.
 

20506: phone: (202) 634-7640.
 

Research Division
 

National Endowment for the Arts
 

July 1977
 
INTRODUCTION
 

Evident all around us is a growing interest in the world of crafts-­

in producing crafts, acquiring crafts, teaching crafts, learning a craft,
 

writing about crafts. Everywhere one turns, it seems, there is a crafts
 

shop or a crafts book or a crafts fair. A large number of Americans of all
 

ages, races, and in all localities make crafts on a leisure basis. A smaller
 

number of craftsmen, working in every conceivable mode with many different
 

materials, sell or exhibit their products as professionals, achieving often
 

a high degree of artistic quality. A wide range of institutions directly
 

or indirectly support crafts productlon--organlzations and associations of
 

craftsmen, craft materials supply houses and equipment manufacturers, art
 

and technical schools, colleges and universities with degree programs or
 

courses in crafts, publishers of craft books and periodicals, craft shops and
 

galleries, museums, and public agencies at the local, state, and Federal levels.
 

Given the popularity of craft activities in the United States today,
 

it is astonishing how little we know about the crafts world in a comprehensive way. We do not know how many craftsmen there are altogether, nor how
 

many are working on a professional basis. We do not.know the geographic
 

distribution of craftsmen, their educational background, or economic status,
 

or their preferred media and techniques. We are ignorant of the role crafts
 

production plays in the U.S. economy. Similarly, we know very little about
 

the activities of the various craft-supportlng institutions.
 

A few small surveys related to crafts have been conducted in the
 

last few years, but much remains to be done if a full~p~cture of the crafts
 

field is to be obtained. To fill this knowledge gap, the National Endowment
 
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for the Arts expressed interest in a national crafts survey. As a preliminary step, the Endowment contracted with Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.
 

(MPR) to carry out a review of existing information and to prepare a prelimlnary survey design. MPR delivered its report, entitled A Plannin~ Study for
 

a National Survex of the Craft Arts, to the Endowment in January 1977.
 

THE SCOPE OF THE PLANNING STUDY
 

The Endowment’s charge to Mathematica Policy Research was to carry
 

out a planning study that would help define the scope of a national crafts
 

survey and estimate the costs and resources likely to be required. The first
 

step was to review existing knowledge about the crafts field. Hopefully, sufficient information would be available to permit MPR to construct preliminary
 

estimates of the numbers and basic characteristics of each component of the
 

crafts world, including craftsmen and craft-supporting institutions and
 

organizations. This review would also, of course, identify areas where
 

knowledge was particularly lacking. In a parallel effort, MPR was to attempt
 

to learn the information needs and priorities of the Endowment, other Federal
 

agencies operating craft-related programs, and private groups concerned with
 

crafts. Based on the knowledge gained from these two steps, MPR was to
 

design questionnaires for each component of the crafts field, recommend
 

survey procedures to be followed, and develop cost estimates.
 

In the course of the planning study, it quickly became evident that
 

to develop estimates of every type of craftsman and craft-supporting institution was not feasible. Information in many cases was too scattered and sparse
 

to permit constructing estimates within the time limits of the project. It
 

also became clear that the Endowment and others to whom MPR talked during the
 

study were most interested in the group of craftsmen who sell or exhibit their
 
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work professionally. Interest was high in the organizations or associations
 

to which many professional craftsmen belong as well. This interest gaine~
 

importance as MPR determined that about the only cost-effective means of
 

reaching craftsmen for a survey is through their organizations or a similar
 

source of mailing lists.
 

Hence, MPR directed the bulk of its efforts during the planning
 

study to estimating the number and basic characteristics of professional
 

craftsmen in the United States from the scanty available data and to designing survey questionnaires and procedures aimed at this group. Secondarily,
 

MPR focused on craft organizations. In fact, to develop estimates of
 

professional craftsmen, it turned out that MPR had to estimate the numbers
 

and characteristics of craft organizations as a necessary preceding step.
 

This experience led MPR to recommend strongly in the planning study report
 

that a survey of craft organizations be conducted prior to a survey of individual craftsmen in order to make the latter survey as cost-effective as
 

possible. In turn, the survey efforts directed at craft organizations and
 

craftsmen should benefit subsequent surveys of other types of craft-supporting
 

institutions such as shops and museums.
 

The full planning study report runs to 93 pages and 6 appendices.
 

This paper attempts to pull out from the report knowledge we learned that
 

may be of general interest to persons in the crafts field. We begin with a
 

review of the few surveys which have focused on craftsmen and crafts production in recent years. Unfortunately, as will be evident, the data from these
 

surveys is too restricted to go very far toward providing a comprehensive
 

picture of crafts activity in America today. We then turn to the estimates
 

of professional craftsmen and their organizations that we constructed working
 

from some of these survey efforts and several recent directories. Finally,
 

we offer our survey recommendations.
 
 

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WHAT RECENT SURVEYS TELL US
 

A 1974 survey of 3,017 persons representing the American population
 

found that 39 percent currently engage in "woodworking, weaving, pottery,
 

ceramics or other crafts," and another 18 percent would like to do so, if
 

i
 they had the time. This sample survey is too small, however, to permit
 

reliable cross-classification of the people working in crafts by other
 

characteristics, such as income and residence. Moreover, the survey
 

clearly focused on the leisure activities of Americans; most respondents
 

were probably making crafts for recreation; fewer were craftsmen who earn
 

at least a portion of their livelihood from crafts production.
 

The American Crafts Council (ACC), a national organization of
 

craftsmen with about 20,000 members resident in the U.S., surveyed its
 

membership in 1975 to discover their general characteristics and particularly
 

their evaluation of ACC services. A grant from the National Endowment for the
 

Arts supported the survey. ACC sent a three-part questionnaire to a random
 

sample of 3,000 members; about one-third of the sample responded. The largest
 

proportion of respondents (37 percent) were working craftsmen or "artisans"
 

to use ACC’s term. The next largest proportion (26 percent) were teachers.
 

Almost half the respondents made less than $i,000 a year from their crafts;
 

eight percent earned $15,000 or more from craft production. Over 60 percent
 

of the respondents had been producing crafts for five or more years. Nearly
 

one-third were producing functional ceramics; the next most frequent craft
 

2
 specialty was loom weaving, followed by off-loom techniques.
 

iAssociated Council for the Arts, Americans and the Arts (New York,
 

1975), p. 51.
 

2Derived from unpublished tabulations provided by the American
 

Crafts Council.
 
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Marietta College in Ohio has recently undertaken a project to prepare
 

a directory of craftsmen and craft organizations. Marietta originally sent
 

a two-page questionnaire to the membership lists of almost 1,000 organizations.
 

The first edition of the Marietta College Crafts Directory USA, published in
 

March 1976, contains names, addresses, and craft specialties of nearly 5,000
 

craftsmen who returned questionnaires. It also includes the names of over
 

900 craft organizations. Additional information obtained on the questionnaires
 

regarding income derived from crafts production, whether the craftsman has
 

a studio and employees or apprentices, educational background, publications
 

received, and organization memberships was not processed. Since the first
 

edition, over 50,000 questionnaires have been returned from craftsmen originally queried plus new names, and over i0,000 responses keypunched for a
 

possible second edition. However, because the Marietta list is not the
 

product of a scientific survey of a defined population, it is doubtful that
 

the craftsmen included can be regarded as representing all professional
 

craftsmen in America.
 

Several other surveys of craftsmen have been conducted recently but,
 

because of focusing on certain groups of craftsmen and in some cases because
 

of very low response rates, are of limited usefulness in obtaining a comprehensive picture of crafts professionals in the U.S. today. These surveys
 

include a one-page questionnaire in the Spring 1976 issue of The Workin$
 

Craftsmen, sent to 7,000 subscribers, of whom 275 replied; and a recent
 

survey of 183 rural Tennessee craftsmen and 9 organizations conducted by
 

the University of Tennessee Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural
 

Sociology.
 

One might think information regarding individual craftsmen who
 

pursue crafts on a.vocational basis would be available from the United States
 
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Decennial Census and other statistical surveys which ascertain the occupation
 

of the working population. Unfortunately, this is not so. The occupational
 

codes used by the Bureau of the Census, while extending to three digits,
 

identify only a few categories of craftsmen in the sense of those who make
 

objects by hand. The Bureau’s broad category of "craftsmen, operatives, and
 

kindred workers" uses the term in the sense of the craft unions and includes
 

persons working at particular trades in industrial setting. Some professional
 

craftsmen, as we have defined them, are in the Census but it is impossible to
 

sort them out.
 

ESTIMATING PROFESSIONAL CRAFTSMEN
 

Despite the absence of a large-scale survey of craftsmen in America to
 

date, bits and pieces of data are available that permit constructing at least
 

rough estimates of the total number of professional craftsmen and their distribution by place of residence and type of craft. A key source for constructing
 

these estimates is the Bowker publication, Contemporary Crafts Marketplace,
 

which is prepared by the ACC Research and Education Division. The 1975 edition
 

lists 251 national, regional, and state craft organizations by name and address
 

that have at least I0 members and are organized under a constitution or by-laws.
 

The importance of this list is that characteristics relevant to craftsmen are
 

included, such as the number of members in the organization and the date founded.
 

Table i shows the number and percentage distribution of the 238 state
 

and regional organizations listed in Contemporary Crafts Marketplace by geographic division of the country, the distribution of the reported memberships
 

of these organizations, and the average membership of organizations in each
 

division. Also shown is the geographic distribution of the membership of the
 

American Crafts Council--the largest national craft organization--from a list
 

furnished by ACC for the planning study.
 
TABLE 1
 

COMPARATIVE DISTRIBUTION OF CRAFT ORGANIZATIONS
 

AND ORGANIZATION MEMBERS FROM ACC SOURCES, BY REGION AND DIVISION
 

(1) (2)	 (3) State and Regional
 Members of	 Average
 Craft Organizations
 Organizations
 Membership Size
 Listed in 1975 Contem­ in Column (I) of Organizations
 

Region and (Column (2) divided


porarYNo. Crait~ MarketplaCeofPercentTotal Division No.	 [Percent by Column (i))
 

~f Total
 

Northeast	 69 29.0% 23,805
 51.6%	 345
 

New England	 35 ~
 16,040 34.8
 458
 Middle Atlantic	 34
 14.3
 7,765 16.8
 228
 

North Central
 38 16.0 5,636 12.2	 148
 East North Central
 28 11.8 4,107 8.9	 147
 West North Central
 i0 4.2 1,529 3.3	 153
 

South
 __63 26.5 i0,279 22.3	 163
 South Atlantic
 29 12.3 4,237 9.2	 146
 East South Central 16
 6.7 2,538 5.5	 159
 West South Central 18
 7.6 3,504 7.6
 195
 

West
 6--8 28.6
 62400 13.9	 94
 Mountain
 19 ~
 1,369 3.0
 7-~
 Pacific	 ,9 ~0.6
 5,031 10.9
 103
 

TOTAL
 238 100.1
 46,120 I00.0
 194
 

(4)
 

Members of
 

American
 

Crafts Council
 

No.
 

! of Total Percent

8~410 37.7% 

2,516 11.3 

5,894 26.4 

4,349 19.4 

3-~313­ 14.8 

1,036 4.6 

4,220 18.9 

2,582 11.6 

589 2.6 

1,049 4.7 

5,367 24.0 

1,278 5.7 

4,089 18.3 

22,346 i00.0
 

NOTE: Regions and divisions are as defined by the U.S. Bureau of the Census. See list at the end of this paper.
 
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Several interesting points appear. The areas of the country with
 

the most craft organizations are the Pacific division with over 20 percent
 

of the total number and the New England and Middle Atlantic divisions with
 

over 14 percent each. The members of ACC are spread geographically in a very
 

similar pattern, except for a much higher proportion (over 26 percent) in
 

the Middle Atlantic division, which includes ACC’s New York City headquarters.
 

The pattern of membership in the state and regional organiations, however,
 

does not follow the distribution of the organizations themselves. Thus,
 

New England, with less than 15 percent of the organizations has almost 35
 

percent of the members, while the Pacific division with 20 percent of the
 

organizations has only ii percent of the members. The average size of the
 

organizations in each region ranges from 345 members in the Northeast (458
 

in New England specifically) to 163 in the South to 148 in the North Central
 

region, with the West having the lowest average of 94 members per organization.
 

The total membership represented by the 238 state and regional organizations listed in Contemporary Crafts Marketplace amounts to 46,000 craftsmen.
 

In addition, this source lists 13 national organizations (including ACC)
 

having a combined membership of over 50,000, for a total number of about
 

96,200 craftsmen. This figure is just the starting point, however, as
 

Contemporary Crafts Marketplace includes only a fraction of the total number
 

of craft organizations in the U.S. (the first edition of the Marietta Directory
 

listed almost 1,000 organizations) and therefore only a fraction of craft
 

organization members.
 

We engaged in an intensive effort to determine the total number of
 

craft organizations in the U.S. to use in building an estimate of craftsmen
 

based on the membership patterns evident in Contemporary Crafts Marketplace.
 

Through cross-checking lists of organizations, principally from the Marietta
 
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College Directory project plus other sources, we arrived at a total number
 

of 1,692 craft organizations in the U.S. Table 2 shows the number and percentage distribution by geographic division of our final list of craft
 

organizations. There is a concentration of organizations in the South, but
 

otherwise they are fairly evenly spread throughout the country.
 

To build an e~timate of craftsmen, at least of those who belong to an
 

organization and their geographic distribution, one could simply multiply the
 

total number of craft organizations in each division shown in table 2 times the
 

average membership of all 238 state and regional organizations combined from
 

table 1 (i.e., 194 members), adding in the membership of those national organizations for which the members’ residence is not known for a grand total. In
 

fact, we prepared one estimate in this manner. Alternatively, because the average
 

membership varies by division, one could multiply the craft organizations in each
 

division from table 2 by the average membership for that division from table i,
 

again adding the membership of national organizations into the total. We prepared another estimate along these lines.
 

However, as already pointed out, the membership distribution of the
 

state and regional organizations listed in Contemporary Crafts Marketplace
 

is highly skewed toward the Northeast and away from the other regions, particularly the West. The average membership size by division indicates a reason
 

why this is so. New England contains organizations that are much larger on
 

the average than in any other area of the country, while the Mountain and
 

Pacific divisions have the smallest organizations on the average. Analysis
 

that looked at size categories of membership confirmed this finding, showing
 

that over 23 percent of the organizations listed for New England have 500 or
 

more members, while only 6 percent have less than 50 members; in contrast,
 
-i0­

TABLE 2
 

DISTRIBUTION OF TOTAL LIST OF CRAFT
 

ORGANIZATIONS BY REGION AND DIVISION
 

Region and Total Craft Organizations
 

Division
 

Number Percent of Total
 

21.7%
 Northeast 366
 

New England 16---~
 98


11.9
 M%ddle Atlantic 201
 

20.6
 North Central 348
 

East North Central
 208 12.3
 

8.3
 West North Central 140
 

37.3
 

South Atlantic 20---~ 12.2
 

East South Central
 

South 632
 

258 15.2
 

West South Central 167
 9.9
 

West 346
 20.4


8.3
 Mountain 141
 

12.1
 Pacific 205
 

i00.0
 TOTAL I, 692
 

SOURCE: Developed by combining and eliminating duplicate
 

organization names from The 1975 Contemporary Crafts Marketplace list
 

of 251 names; the March 1976 Marietta College Crafts Directory llst of
 

910 names (568 were not duplicated elsewhere); an additional 500 names
 

from Marietta received in July (348 were not duplicates); another 1,400
 

names received from Marietta in September (415 were not duplicates);
 

203 crafts cooperatives from the 1974 Office of Economic Opportunity
 

National Consumer Directory (76 were not duplicates); and a few miscellaneous names.
 
-IIless than 2 percent of the Western organizations have 500 or more members,
 

while almost 52 percent have fewer than 50 members. (Interestingly, this
 

same skewed distribution is found looking at the age of the organizations
 

in each area. New England has the highest proportion of craft organizations
 

founded earlier than 1950--almost 47 percent--while the Mountain division
 

has the lowest proportion of organizations founded prior to that time--9
 

percent--and the highest proportion established in the period 1970 to 1974-­

over 45 percent.)
 

We questioned whether it was valid to assume that the average size by
 

division on our total list of almost 1,700 organizations, if we knew these
 

figures, would parallel the average size by division reported for the subset
 

of organizations listed in Contemporary Crafts Marketplace. On the contrary,
 

given that Contemporary Crafts Marketplace was aiming to include the "best" or
 

most prominant craft organizations, it did not seem unreasonable to assume
 

that all or almost all of the very large organizations (those with 500 or
 

more members) were already included in that publication. Thus, we would
 

not expect the over 1,400 additional organizations on our total list to show
 

such wide variations in average size over the different geographic areas in
 

the country. Hence, we decided to prepare at least one estimate of the numbers of craftsmen by geographic area that included a correction for large-


size organizations.
 

Another correction that we needed to introduce before we could come up
 

with reasonable estimates concerned overlap in organizational affiliation.
 

In other words, we wanted to find out if craftsmen tend to join Just one
 

organization or whether they tend to have multiple organization memberships.
 

Craftsmen’s joining patterns are interesting in themselves and could also
 

help us decide whether to use the average membership figures derived for the
 
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organizations listed in Contemporary Crafts Marketplace as is or whether to
 

make some subtraction to allow for multiple membership.
 

Early in the project we received a list of the ACC membership. We next
 

wrote to 24 other organizations listed in Contemporary Crafts Marketplace,
 

including all 12 national organizations (not counting the ACC itself), and to
 

a national organization not listed, requesting their membership rosters to
 

use in determining the extent of organizational overlap. We also obtained lists
 

from three craft fairs and one statewide exhibition in different parts of
 

the country to determine whether the people exhibiting at these events also
 

belong to organizations. We received membership lists from 22 organizations
 

and fairs in time for checking.
 

We checked each of the 22 lists against the ACC list to determine if
 

persons who belong to other national organizations also belong to ACC and
 

if persons who belong to state and regional organizations or who exhibit
 

at fairs also belong to ACC. Because of time constraints, we could not do
 

all of the cross-checking that would have been desirable, for example, checking
 

for duplication between state organizations and other national organizations
 

besides the ACC. However, we did glean some interesting results.
 

Table 3 shows the extent of overlap between the ACC membership and each
 

of the other organizations we checked. The percentages range from a low of
 

less than one percent in the case of the National Wood Carvers Association to
 

a high of 66 percent for the Ann Arbor Street Fair and the Pacific Northwest
 

Arts and Crafts Fair and 61 percent for the Society of North American Goldsmiths. We estimated the total overlap for all of the national organizations
 

listed in Contemporary Crafts Marketplace with ACC at 9 to I0 percent, based
 

on the 7 organization lists we were able to check directly; and for the
 
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TABLE 3
 

OVERLAP OF MEMBERSHIP IN SELECTED CRAFT ORGANIZATIONS
 

WITH MEMBERSHIP IN THE AMERICAN CRAFTS COUNCIL
 

Organization Type Number of U.S.
 Percentage Overlap


and Name
 Members
 with ACC
 

National:
 

Glass Art Society
 

Guild of Book Workers
 

Handweavers Guild of America
 

National Association of Handcraftsmen
 

National Standards Council of
 

American Embroiderers
 

National Wood Carvers Association
 

Society of North American Goldsmiths
 

Regional or State:
 

Albuquerque Designer-Craftsmen
 

Ann Arbor Street Fair
 

Arizona Designer Craftsmen
 

California Design (exhibition)
 

Contemporary Crafts Association (Oregon)
 

Florida Craftsmen
 

Indiana Artist-Craftsmen,Inc.
 

League of New Hampshire Craftsmen
 

Minnesota Crafts Council
 

National Crafts Fair (Baltimore)
 

Pacific Northwest Arts and Crafts Fair
 

Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen
 

Southern Highland Handicraft Guild
 

Tennessee Arts Commission
 

United Maine Craftsmen
 

312 22.1%
 

215
 4.7
 

18,786a 13.0
 

1,401 21.6
 

1,816
 6.2
 

i0,134a 0.2
 

381
 61.4
 

113 33 6
 

149 65 8
 

313 28 8
 

462 19 5
 

288 21 9
 

350 39 4
 

240 19.2
 

3,969a 3.2
 

384 22.9
 

508 41.6
 

155 65.8
 

1,197a 10.9
 

657 11.3
 

628 6.2
 

611 6.1
 

SOURCE: Derived from membership lists furnished by each organization
 

which were compared to a list furnished by ACC. All names in each list were
 

checked for duplication unless otherwise noted.
 

NOTE: Percentage overlap with ACC means the percent of members
 

belonging to the specified organization who also belong to ACC.
 

aBecause of the large number of members, a representative sample of
 

names, ranging from one in every two names to one in every six depending on
 

the size of the organization, was checked against the ACC.
 
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organizations in each division at an average overlap of 13 percent, ranging
 

from over 40 percent overlap in the South Atlantic division to less than
 

4 percent in New England.
 

We were now ready to proceed to estimate the number of craftsmen
 

belonging to organizations. Table 4 shows three such estimates ranging from
 

246,000 for the estimate called M2, to 353,000 for the M3 estimate, with
 

the MI estimate falling in between at 326,000 craftsmen.
 

The MI estimate for each division, in simplified terms, builds on
 

the number of organizations from our total list of 1,692 for the division
 

blown up by the average size of the organizations in that division listed
 

in Contemporary Crafts Marketplace, corrected for overlap with the ACC. The
 

total of the craftsmen identified by division in the MI estimate amounts to
 

307,000; the national estimated total of 326,000 craftsmen includes members
 

of national organizations (not also members of ACC) for whom we could not
 

determine residence.
 

The M2 estimate is the same as MI with a correction factor included
 

to allow for the hypothesis that all large craft organizations are already
 

listed in Contemporary Crafts Marketplace and are not added to from our total
 

list of 1,700. This estimate amounts to 227,000 craftsmen on an area basis
 

and 246,000 including members of national organizations.
 

Finally, a third estimate, M3, simply uses the average membership size
 

of organizations listed in Contemporary Crafts Marketplace for the nation as
 

a whole times the total organizations in each division correcting for overlap,
 

but not taking into account the variations in average size by geographic area
 

or the large-size hypothesis. This estimate is the highest, amounting to
 

334,000 craftsmen distributed geographically and 353,000 craftsmen in all.
 
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TABLE 4
 

ESTIMAYED PERCENTAGE DISTRIBUTIONS OF CRAFTSMEN
 

COMPARED TO CENSUS POPULATION FIGURES BY REGION AND DIVISION
 

Percent of Estimated Craftsmen
 

MI- derived on M2- derived correct-


Region and
 

Division
 

Northeast
 

New England
 

Middle Atlantic
 

North Central
 

East North Central
 

West North Central
 

South
 

South Atlantic
 

East South Central
 

West South Central
 

West
 

Mountain
 

Pacific
 

Total identifiable by
 

geographic area
 

(Number of Persons)
 

National Total
 

a geographic
 

area basis
 

41.8%
 

16.6
 

15.7
 

9.2
 

6.5
 

30.6
 

7.7
 

12.5
 

10.4
 

11.9
 

3.3
 

8.6
 

i00.0
 

(306,975)
 

325,883
 

ing for oversize
 

organizations
 

32.8%
 

16.4
 

18.6
 

11.6
 

7.0
 

33.3
 

8.2
 

16.9
 

8.2
 

15.2
 

4.5
 

10.7
 

99.9
 

(227,127)
 

246,045
 

Percent of
 

M3- derived on Population
 

a national Age 18-64,
 

basis 1974a
 

23.0%
 22.8%
 

13.2 17.1
 

21.3 27.0
 

13.2 19.3
 

8.1 7.7
 

34.6 32.0
 

12.1 15.9
 

13.4 6.3
 

9.1 9.8
 

21.2 18.4
 

8.1 4.6
 

13.1 13.8
 

i00.i I00.2
 

(333,965) (122,313,000)
 

352,873 122,313,000
 

SOURCE: See text for explanation of how each estimate was derived.
 

aU.S. Bureau of the Census, Estimates of the Population of States by Age:
 

July i~ 1973 and 1974, Current Population Reports, series P-25, no. 539 (January
 

1975), table i.
 
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The M3 estimate shows the least skewness toward New England and away from the
 

West and South, as we would expect given the procedure used to derive it; the
 

MI estimate is most highly skewed with the M2 estimate occupying a middle ground.
 

The last column in the table shows the entire working-age population of
 

the United States in 1974 (age 18 to 64) by division for comparative purposes.
 

We should not expect craftsmen to follow the geographic profile of the larger
 

population exactly; nevertheless, estimate M2, which appears quite plausible,
 

parallels this geographic profile fairly closely. According to this estimate,
 

there are more craftsmen in New England and in the East South Central division
 

and fewer in the South Atlantic and East North Central areas than is true of
 

the general population; otherwise the distributions are quite similar.
 

It seems reasonable to conclude from these estimates that there are at
 

least 250,000 craftsmen affiliated with organizations in the United States and
 

perhaps as many as 350,000. Of course, not all of the members of craft organizations are professional craftsmen who sell or exhibit their work; excluding
 

these persons would decrease our estimates somewhat. On the other hand, none
 

o~ our estimates accounts for professional craftsmen who do not belong to organizations; including these craftsmen might increase our estimates considerably.
 

However, the fact that high percentages of craftsmen exhibiting at the three
 

fairs from which we obtained lists also belong to the ACC suggests that the
 

number of non-affiliated craftsmen may not be that great.
 

Given that our estimates reasonably approximate professional craftsmen
 

in America, it is also true that many members of special groups working in
 

ethnic craft traditions outside the mainstream of professional craft activity
 

are likely to be excluded from estimates based on organizational affiliation.
 

Such special groups include Native Americans, persons of Spanish origin, the
 

Amish, and the like. The 1970 Census counted 344,000 Native Americans age 20
 
-17­

to 64 in the U.S., of whom about 55 percent resided in rural areas; almost
 

one-half lived in the West, with the next largest proportion in the South.
 

There are over four and a half million persons age 18 to 64 of Spanish origin
 

with the largest concentrations in the Pacific and West South Central areas.
 

We were unable to determine the number of craftsmen in these categories, but
 

are sure there are some.
 

For one special group, the Amish, we were able to obtain fairly good
 

estimates from an informed source.1 The total Amish population over baptismal
 

age estimated for 15 sects is about 210,000 individuals, of whom the majority
 

are rural. For the rural sects, about 75 to 80 percent are estimated to be
 

craftsmen; even for the sects which are only 40 to 60 percent rural, about
 

30 to 40 percent are estimated to be craftsmen. Special groups such as the
 

Amish and Native Americans will require their own survey designs and procedures,
 

as it is likely that only a fraction of the craftsman in these gronps will belong
 

to organizations.
 

We found it virtually not possible, based on available data, to construct acceptable estimates of craftsmen by other dimensions such as craft
 

specialty. Replies to one source, the ACC’s survey of its membership, suggest
 

that the largest number of craftsmen are engaged !in functional or sculptural
 

ceramics (over 30 percent), with over 25 percent engaged in weaving, either
 

loom or off-loom. Over 18 percent were engaged in metal work (jewelry,
 

sculpture, and holloware in gold or silver), over 8 percent in stitchery
 

(embroidery, quilting, lace), and over 6 percent in wood work (accessories,
 

sculpture, furniture), with smaller percentages engaged in textiles (printed),
 

enamels, glass, leather work, and book work. Classifying names of organizations listed in Contemporary Crafts Marketplace that could be identified by
 

special craft (we could classify in this way 133 out of 251) suggested strong
 

iMs. Margaret Yocum.
 
-18­

concentrations of craftsmen in weaving (over 44 percent), stitchery (32 percent), and wood work (18 percent). Admittedly such classification is very
 

crude.
 

Table 5 indicates the geographic distribution of four major crafts-­

ceramics, stitchery, weaving, and woodworking--developed from a variety of
 

sources. The validity of this information is highly questionable; nevertheless,
 

we see interesting patterns. Potters are clearly concentrated in the South;
 

stitchers are fairly evenly divided throughout the country but with a concentration in the West; wood workers are strong in the North Central region.
 

It would be fascinating to explore the reasons for these distributions, if,
 

in fact, they hold up in a national survey--reasons from history, location
 

of raw material sources, and so on.
 

RECOMMENDATIONS
 

Clearly, the world of crafts is large and complex. Our review of
 

existing knowledge of th~ crafts field for the planning study focused on
 

two major components, professional craftsmen and the organizations or associations to which they belong. The time and resources of the project did not
 

permit looking in any detail at the other kinds of craft-supporting institutions and organizations, but we know there are a sizeable number of craft
 

shops and sales outlets, materials suppliers and equipment manufacturers,
 

educational institutions teaching crafts, museums with craft collections,
 

craft publications, and government agencies with craft-related programs.
 

We also know there are substantial numbers of leisure craftsmen in addition
 

to professionals, and that there are craftsmen working professionally, among
 

groups such as Native Americans and the Amish, who are outside the mainstream
 

of those affiliated with organizations. Ideally, to obtain a comprehensive
 
 

-19­

TABLE 5
 

PERCENTAGE DISTRIBUTION OF SELECTED CRAFTS BY REGION
 

Region Ceramistsa Stitchersb
 Weaversc Wood Workersd
 

Northeast 15.7% 20.0% 29.3% 23.8%
 

North Central 22.1 21.2 23.0
 37.5
 

South 46.1 20.3 17.5
 19.8
 

West 16.2 38.6
 30.2 18.9
 

TOTAL 100.i i00.---~ i00.0 ~
 

(Number of
 

Craftsmen) (1,226) (1,182) (24,726) (10,134)
 

NOTE: Regions are as defined by the Census Bureau.
 

aDerived from summing reported memberships by region for 16 regional
 

and state organizations listed in The 1975 Contemp.orary Crafts Marke~lace
 

that could be identified as specializing in ceramics.
 

bDerived from summing reported memberships by region for 16 regional
 

and state organizations that could be identified as specializing in stitchery
 

as above.
 

CDerived from summing reported memberships by region for 65 regional
 

and state organizations that could be identified as specializing in weaving
 

as above, plus the membership by region of the Handweavers Guild of America
 

Inc., from a current membership list; no correction was made for possible
 

overlap.
 

dDerived from a current membership list furnished by the National
 

Wood Carvers Association.
 
-20­

picture of crafts activity in American today, the Endowment for the Arts
 

would want to survey each of these groups and organizations.
 

However, the minimum data necessary to construct acceptable estimates
 

for designing a scientific sample survey is much harder to obtain for some
 

groups and organizations than others. Some groups also appear harder to
 

locate and interview. For example, interviewing ethnic craftsmen may pose
 

problems of language or cultural barriers. Or, trying to find ~he person
 

in a large museum or publishing house who is knowledgeable about its
 

craft-related activities may prove quite frustrating. Hence, our basic
 

recommendation to the Endowment is that each component of the crafts world
 

be approached as a separate problem from the viewpoint of designing the most
 

effective survey.
 

We recommend that one of the first groups for the Endowment
 

to survey be professional craftsmen. There are several compelling reasons
 

for this recommendation. First, in our discussions with many persons during
 

the course of the planning study, there was clearly greatest interest in
 

obtaining more information about these craftsmen. This interest is not hard
 

to understand. Professional craftsmen are in a real sense at the heart of
 

the crafts world; they inspire nonprofessional craftsmen and, without them,
 

the craft-supporting activities of institutions and organizations would be
 

less important. Second, although not that much is known about professional
 

craftsmen, the job of designing a representative sample appears much more
 

feasible for this group than for many of the other groups and institutions.
 

Similarly, it appears relatively easy to reach professional craftsmen for
 

interviewing. Finally, a survey of professional craftsmen should reveal
 

information that can improve the effectiveness of surveys directed at other
 

components of the crafts field.
 
-21­

As we learned during the planning study, professional craftsmen are
 

a very small proportion of the general population. Our estimate of 250,000
 

to 350,000 professionals represents less than one-half of one percent of
 

all working-age Americans. It would be prohibitively expensive to survey
 

this group through traditional house-to-house methods (an initial sample
 

of well over I million persons would be needed to obtain a sample of
 

about 2,000 professional craftsmen). The only practical means of reaching
 

craftsmen, as we determined, is through organizations to which they belong
 

or similar sources of mailing lists, such as persons exhibiting at craft
 

fairs, craft marketers’ lists of suppliers, subscribers to craft magazines,
 

and so on.
 

Because of efforts such ~s the Marietta College Directory, it seems
 

possible to assemble virtually a complete list of craft organizations within
 

a fairly short time. Putting together a complete list of craft marketers or
 

other potential sources of craftsmen’s names would be a much more time-consuming
 

and difficult proposition. Furthermore, even though a survey limited to
 

members of organizations will inevitably overlook some professional craftsmen, the effect on the validity of the survey results should not be severe.
 

All of the available evidence suggests that craftsmen, like other groups in
 

America, gravitate naturally toward joining organizations or associations
 

of like-minded persons. Our crosscheck of membership lists with names of
 

craftsmen exhibiting at fairs, for example, revealed considerable overlap
 

between the two groups. That is, there are not large numbers of craftsmen
 

exhibiting who do not also belong to an organization. Hence, we recommend
 

that the Endowment use craft organization membership rolls as the main
 

source of the sample of craftsmen to be interviewed in a survey.
 
-22­

Before conducting the survey of craftsmen, however, we recommend
 

that the Endowment first conduct a survey of the craft organizations and
 

associations themselves. We say this both because of the utility of learning
 

more about the functions associations serve in the crafts world and because
 

a ~rior survey of organizations should greatly facilitate a cost-effective
 

survey of their members. Let us develop these recommendations more fully.
 

We estimated in the planning study that there are close to 2,000
 

craft organizations active in the United States today. They vary widely in
 

size and geographic scope, from the American Crafts Council with 20,000 members from all over the U.S. to small local groups such as the Fairbanks
 

(Alaska) Weavers Guild with a 1975 membership of 18 persons. They also vary
 

in the craft skills or specialties of their members. From the descriptions
 

provided for thome organizations in Contemporary Crafts Marketplace, it
 

appears that their activities and services cover a wide range. Most of the
 

organizations listed have a newsletter or other form of communication with
 

their membership, many sponsor craft fairs or exhibitions, some offer classes,
 

workshops, or help their members buy equipment, market their products, or
 

obtain education through scholarships.
 

More information is available about craft organizations than about
 

craftsmen themselves or the other craft-supporting institutions. But there
 

is still much to learn about these organizations--their finances, how they
 

~re staffed, their salience to their members, the extent and variety of
 

their activities and services. It seems a very useful contribution to
 

expanding our knowledge of the crafts world to survey the organizations
 

that craftsmen have formed.
 

Conducting a survey of organizations first also has the great
 

advantage of making possible a more cost-effective survey of individual
 
-23­

craftsmen later on. A sensible procedure for obtaining names of individual
 

craftsmen to interview is to request membership lists from a sample of craft
 

organizations rather than from the total list, as this cuts down the cost of
 

checking the lists for duplication of names prior to selecting the craftsmen
 

to be surveyed. However, if the Endowment were to proceed with the survey
 

of craftsmen first, ignoring their organizations, important characteristics
 

of each organization such as geographic coverage, skill coverage, size, and
 

so on, will not be known. This means that the sample of organizations from
 

which membership lists are requested may turn out to contain too many small
 

organizations or too many organizations of weavers or potters, and therefore
 

produce a sample of craftsmen that is not truly representative of the total.
 

If, instead, a survey of organizations is conducted as a prior step, it
 

becomes possible to use information obtained in that survey to improve the
 

representativeness of the sample of craftsmen. In technical terms, it will
 

be possible to stratify organizations on critical characteristics, requesting membership lists from a sample of organizations within each stratum.
 

This procedure hel~s ensure the representativeness of the sample of craftsmen that is obtained while realizing a cost savings because membership lists
 

do not have to be requested or processed from every one of the 2,000-odd
 

organizations. In addition, replies to the craft organizations survey
 

may suggest topics which should be explored more fully in the individual
 

craftsmens’ survey than previously thought.
 

In short, there seems to be every advantage to conducting a survey
 

of craft organizations prior to surveying individual craftsmen or any of the
 

other components of the crafts world. The number of or~mniza[ions is relatively
 

small and can be easily reached for interviewing. In the planning study
 

report, we consider the advantages and disadvantages of the different methods
 
-24­

of surveys--mail, telephone, personal interview, and combinations of these
 

types. Our recommendation is for a mail survey of craft organizations that
 

covers the entire universe, i.e., i00 percent of the known organizations,
 

rather than a sample. The survey procedure should be carefully designed to
 

find out about new organizations to add to the initial list that is developed
 

based on existing directories.
 

The survey of craft organizations can be quickly designed and carried
 

out. From the information learned, the Endowment will be in a very good
 

position to design an effective survey of those craftsmen who belong to
 

organizations. Again, we recommend a mail survey of craftsmen, using a sample
 

drawn from membership lists of selected organizations included in the
 

previous survey. The sample could be supplemented by lists of craftsmen
 

participating in regional or statewide fairs to permit a better assessment
 

of whether a survey primarily based on organization membership rolls will
 

in fact represent the vast majority of practicing craftsmen.
 

We recommend further that the survey of craftsmen be done in two
 

increments. Since so little is known about craftsmen, we feel it is an
 

inefficient use of resources to design a lengthy questionnaire and send it
 

to a large sample with the hope of getting a lot of detailed information on
 

a wide range of subjects. For one thing, respondents are apt to balk at
 

a large questionnaire and to fail to send back a completed form. If the
 

response rate to the survey is too low, the results will be of questionable
 

value. Moreover, the replies to certain items may turn out to be uninteresting or unimportant. Or some groups of craftsmen may turn up in many more
 

numbers than required for reliable results, while other groups may be insufficiently represented. Of course, exploiting as fully as possible the information
 

gained in the survey of craft organizations should minimize the likelihood of
 

obtaining an unrepresentative sample of craftsmen or of asking for irrelevant
 
-25
 

information. Nevertheless, we feel that a conservative, incremental approach
 

will afford the greatest dividends in the long run.
 

Thus, we recommend first a "screening" survey of professional craftsmen
 

with a sample large enough--between about I0,000 and 25,000 craftsmen--to be
 

representative of all important characteristics, such as types of media, residence, income levels, and so on. The questionnaire would contain general
 

questions on significant facets of a craftsman’s life and work. The purposes
 

of this initial survey would be to provide a broad-range, descriptive picture
 

of craftsmen in America, not now available, and to pQint up subject areas
 

or particular groups of craftsmen that merit more in-depth attention. The
 

next increment would be questionnaires that ask for much more detailed information on a given subject area or from a particular group.
 

We realize the approach described is not appropriate for craftsmen
 

who do not belong to organizations and who belong to special groups, such
 

as Native Americans, ethnic craftsmen, and the Amish. These craftsmen will
 

require special survey designs that address the particular problems of
 

designing a representative sample and of reaching and interviewing each
 

group. A prior survey of professional craftsmen who are affiliated with
 

organizations should benefit the design and effectiveness of surveys of
 

these special groups.
 

Having surveyed craft associations and professional craftsmen
 

belonging to them, the Endowment for the Arts will have gone a long way
 

toward building a comprehensive picture of crafts activity in the United
 

States today. With the knowledge gained from these two surveys, the Endowment will be better able to embark upon effective surveys of other groups
 

of craftsmen and of the many institutions and organziations that are part of
 

the complex and varied world of crafts.
 
-26­

LIST OF STATES INCLUDED IN THE REGIONS AND DIVISIONS
 

DEFINED BY THE U.S. BUREAU OF THE CENSUS
 

NORTHEAST
 

New England
 

Maine
 

New Hampshire
 

Vermont
 

Massachusetts
 

Rhode Island
 

Connecticut
 

Middle Atlantic
 

New York
 

New Jersey
 

Pennsylvania
 

NORTH CENTRAL
 

East North Central
 

Ohio
 

Indiana
 

Illinois
 

Michigan
 

Wisconsin
 

West North Central
 

Minnesota
 

lowa
 

Missouri
 

North Dakota
 

South Dakota
 

Nebraska
 

Kansas
 

SOUTH
 

South Atlantic
 

Delaware 

Maryland 

District of Columbia 

SOUTH (continued) 

South Atlantic (continued)
 

Virginia
 

West Virginia
 

North Carolina
 

South Carolina
 

Georgia
 

Florida
 

East South Central
 

KentuCky
 

Tennessee
 

Alabama
 

Mississippi
 

West South Central
 

Arkansas
 

Louisiana
 

Oklahoma
 

Texas
 

WEST
 

Mo un t a in
 

Montana
 

Idaho
 

Wyoming
 

Colorado
 

New Mexico
 

Arizona
 

Utah
 

Nevada
 

Pacific
 

Washington
 

Oregon
 

California
 

Alaska
 

Hawaii