Elbert Hubbard's Scrap Book (butcher paper covers in box) by Elbert Hubbard - 1923

Elbert Green Hubbard (1856 â€" 1915) was an American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher He is known best as the founder of the Roycroft artisan community in East Aurora, New York, an influential exponent of the Arts and Crafts movement Among his many publications were the fourteen-volume work Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great He and his second wife, Alice Moore Hubbard, died aboard the RMS Lusitania when it was sunk by a German submarine off the coast of Ireland on May 7, 1915

Roycroft was a reformist community of craft workers and artists which formed part of the Arts and Crafts movement in the United States Hubbard founded the community in 1895, in the village of East Aurora, New York, near Buffalo Participants were known as Roycrofters The work and philosophy of the group, often referred to as the Roycroft movement, had a strong influence on the development of American architecture and design in the early 20th century The name "Roycroft" was chosen after the printers, Samuel and Thomas Roycroft, who made books in London from about 1650â€"1690 And beyond this, the word roycroft had a special significance to Elbert Hubbard, meaning King's Craft In guilds of early modern Europe, king's craftsmen were guild members who had achieved a high degree of skill and therefore made things for the King The Roycroft insignia was borrowed from the monk Cassiodorus, a 13th-century bookbinder and illuminator

Hubbard had been influenced by the ideas of William Morris on a visit to England He was unable to find a publisher for his book Little Journeys, so inspired by Morris's Kelmscott Press, decided to set up his own private press to print the book himself, founding Roycroft Press

His championing of the Arts and Crafts approach attracted a number of visiting craftspeople to East Aurora, and they formed a community of printers, furniture makers, metalsmiths, leathersmiths, and bookbinders A quotation from John Ruskin formed the Roycroft "creed":

"A belief in working with the head, hand and heart and mixing enough play with the work so that every task is pleasurable and makes for health and happiness"

The inspirational leadership of Hubbard attracted a group of almost 500 people by 1910