Box Used to Hold Wedding Rings at Marriage of Henry Booth and Carolyn E. Farr

In a time when women were discouraged from working outside of the home, Elizabeth Copeland succeeded in becoming trained as an enamel artist and enjoyed a long, financially successful career. Because of the high value it placed on craft work, the Arts and Crafts movement provided many more opportunities for women to work as professional artists than had previously been available.

Copeland was the leading enamel artist of her day; this exquisite box showcases her skill as well as her commitment to true hand-working, as the silver and enamel alike show the variations and inconsistencies that mark them as handmade, not machine-tooled. Henry Booth so valued this box, which he purchased from the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts, that it was used to hold the rings on the day of his wedding to Carolyn Farr in 1924.

Mariam Hale
Collections Fellow
Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research
April 2024

Like his parents, George and Ellen Booth, Henry Scripps Booth devoted his energy and patronage to organizations that embodied the ideals of the Arts and Crafts Movement. One of the hallmarks of the transatlantic movement was to support living, working artists.

Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts (founded 1906)

Founded on June 26, 1906, the Detroit Society of Arts & Crafts provided an environment where artists, craftsmen, architects, and designers could share ideas and coordinate activities to raise the level of American craftsmanship. Out of their showroom, works by major craftsmen active in Europe and America were exhibited and sold. George Booth was not only one of the founders of the Detroit Society of Arts & Crafts, but also its first president.

The Society’s showroom operated from 1916, when it opened a new building on Watson Street in Detroit, until 1958, when the mission of the Society shifted toward design education (the Art School of the Society of Arts and Crafts had been established in 1926). George Booth worked closely with the Society’s Secretary Helen Plumb sourcing objects for display and sale in the showroom; George Booth also filled his home, Cranbrook House, with items he purchased or commissioned for the showroom. Beyond George Booth, Ellen and the entire Booth family patronized the Society’s showroom for gifts and furnishings for their respective homes. The Booth family continued support of the Society well into the second half of the 20th century, as it reincorporated as the Center for Creative Studies - College of Art and Design (1975 to 2001) and later the College for Creative Studies (2001-present).

Kevin Adkisson
Curator
Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research
November 2021