On January 16, 1919, the congress of the United States of America ratified the 18th amendment, prohibiting the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors.[i]”  And so, after years of fervent lobbying by groups such as the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the U.S. entered a short-lived period in which alcohol was forbidden (but still widely...

Bruno Mauder (1877-1948), a designer of glass art, studied at the School of Applied Arts in Munich from 1899 to 1901 and in 1909, was appointed director of technical school for glass industry and wood carving in Zwiesel, Germany. For the next 40 years, Mauder worked as a glass designer in this area including the...

Tausend und ein Anfangsbuchstaben – One Thousand and One Initial Letters – is a rare book designed and illuminated by Owen Jones in 1864, eight years after Jones published his influential design sourcebook The Grammar of Ornament. While the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Library’s copy is in German, the book was also published in English...