Factory Man

Factory Man
Author: Beth Macy
Publisher: Little, Brown
Total Pages: 469
Release: 2014-07-15
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0316231568

The instant New York Times bestseller about one man's battle to save hundreds of jobs by demonstrating the greatness of American business. The Bassett Furniture Company was once the world's biggest wood furniture manufacturer. Run by the same powerful Virginia family for generations, it was also the center of life in Bassett, Virginia. But beginning in the 1980s, the first waves of Asian competition hit, and ultimately Bassett was forced to send its production overseas. One man fought back: John Bassett III, a shrewd and determined third-generation factory man, now chairman of Vaughan-Bassett Furniture Co, which employs more than 700 Virginians and has sales of more than $90 million. In Factory Man, Beth Macy brings to life Bassett's deeply personal furniture and family story, along with a host of characters from an industry that was as cutthroat as it was colorful. As she shows how he uses legal maneuvers, factory efficiencies, and sheer grit and cunning to save hundreds of jobs, she also reveals the truth about modern industry in America.

Bespoke

Bespoke
Author: Betty Norbury
Publisher: Stobart Davies Limited
Total Pages: 440
Release: 2007
Genre: Crafts & Hobbies
ISBN: 9780854421855

Supplies the designs and contact details of 150 leading furniture makers.

The Artistic Furniture of Charles Rohlfs

The Artistic Furniture of Charles Rohlfs
Author: Joseph Cunningham
Publisher:
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2008
Genre: Art
ISBN:

Charles Rohlfs (1853-1936) ranked among the most innovative furniture makers at the turn of the twentieth century. Praised by the international press and exhibited throughout the United States and Europe, his beautiful works grew out of an interesting mix of styles that included Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau, and proto-modernism. This book presents the first major study of this important American designer and craftsman, drawing upon new photographs and fresh sources of information. Alongside traditional historical approaches, the book presents detailed formal, structural, and stylistic analyses of Rohlfs's well-known masterpieces from major museums, together with lesser-known objects in public and private collections. Topics include discovering the contribution of Rohlfs's wife--mystery novelist Anna Katharine Green--to his designs; the far-ranging sources of his idiosyncratic motifs; his influence on Gustav Stickley's designs; his commissioned interiors; his efforts at self-promotion and marketing; and his attempts to define a conceptual framework for his artistic endeavor. Handsomely designed and illustrated, the book also features a complete set of unpublished period illustrations of over seventy works.