{"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":"\u003cb\u003eFinalist for the 2023 \u003ci\u003eForeword\u003c\/i\u003e INDIES Book of the Year Award in the Regional category\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAmid 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","brand":"State University of New York Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50500846453010,"sku":"9781438493299","price":24.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_cd4724f8-1903-4a65-af1a-3d209d83eacf.jpg?v=1730755790","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/tourists-and-trade-roadside-craftsmen-and-the-highway-transforming-craft-9781438493299","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}