The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-08-10
M fetal Crafts Revival
 Timely

TT wasn't by accident that the homes
 of our grandmothers and great
 grandmothers were adorned with beautiful brass and copper door-knock- CTS, candlesticks, vases, wall sconces and andirons. which were so much in keeping with the degnified simplicity and beauty of American homes of the Colonial period and several generations afterward, says the Kansas City Star.
 The metal crafts were then in vogue in. America. The Pilgrim Fathers had brought with them from England the spirit and skill of the old guild workers whose conceptions in the brass, copper and silver crafts had made their prod ucts famous in the mother country and on the continent. Articles of beauty and utility wrought in metals were seen not only in the homes of Miles Standish and Governor Bradford, but in the hum. blest households of early New England, From there their vogue spread to other parts of the country.
 But gradually after the Colonial pc riod came a slump in metal crafts in America. Colonial craftsmen died and succeeding generations did not develop skilled workers in these crafts. By the time of the Civil war they were an all- but-forgOtten chapter in the history of home adornment in this country. The exquisite craftsmanship of the earlier days was recalled only iD the objects of their taste and creative genius which survived here and there, treasured both for their beauty and for the sentiment attached to them.
 But it was unthinkable that an art of such eternal beauty and usefulness should entirely perish from the land. When a revival of metal crafts in the United States set in about 1900 it found a fruitful field in development. Gu riously enough, it was again craftsmen from a foreign shore who introduced creations and reproductions in copper, brass and wrought iron. Russian immi- grants, who came over in large numbers in the early '90s, included many skilled metal craftsmen who took up their work here. They were largely in poor cir cumstances, and lived and worked in the poorer sections of large cities, where their products were on sale chiefly in dingy shops in the slums. Naturally, however admirable their work, 1t was long time before their creations were known outside of the slums of the large cities.
 A few years ago, however, a signifi- cant development looking toward a countrywide revival in the popularity of the metal crafts occurred in New York city through the organization of what is now known as the Art Colony Industries. The object was to organize these crafts on a national basis, pre- serve the high standards of workman ship, and, through sound business meth ods, to make their products available throughout the United States.
 What is literally a colony of artistic craftsmen was organized in the metrop- olis. It comprises a cosmopolitan group whose work compares favorably with the old guild workers of England and their successors in Colonial America. The Russian workers of theecolony excel in brass casting; Swedes in copper crea- tions, and Italians in wrought iron ob- jects.
 Both artistic and commercial success have marked the efforts of the Art Colony Industries to revive nationwide popularity of metal creations, but it is even more significant that this is being accomplished without allowing the com mereial aspects of the experiment ton which it's permanent success must de- pend) to lower standards or diminish the pride of the workers in their crafts manship.
 On the contrary, many of their repro auctions, both by hand and by machine, surpass the originals in beauty. Candle holders such as Priscilla Alden used i; Cape Cod door-knockers, reproductions of those that graced the homes of Wash ington in Mount Vernon, Longfellow in Cambridge, and Daniel Webster in Marshfield. There are service bowls