During the early twentieth-century, mass-production dominated how products were manufactured in the United States. Automated factories churned out huge amounts of standardized products, including everything from automobiles to furniture. In response to this widespread conformity, many American designers began creating works grounded in historic traditions, favoring the handcrafted over the machine-made, the unique over the commonplace.

The Delaware Valley and Pennsylvania’s bucolic Bucks County became centers for the production of these thoughtfully-made works. In the 1940s, the Japanese-American woodworker George Nakashima settled in New Hope, Pennsylvania, where he established a studio and a reputation as a leading member of the first generation of American Studio furnituremakers. Nakashima was joined by a swathe of iconic craftsmen, including Phillip Lloyd Powell, Paul Evans, and Robert Whitley, all of whom produced custom-designed functional furniture that blurred the lines between craft, sculpture, and design.