Working on a series of these little stop motion films for the exhibition. This one showcases correspondence regarding William Stromberg:

Good Design: The Story of William Stromberg

Born in 1890, William Stromberg left his native Finland by sea in 1914, jumped ship in San Francisco in 1916 and made his way to Coos Bay, Oregon, where he became a high rigger in the logging industry. Nicknamed “High Lead Bill,” Stromberg was left with a broken back, paralyzed legs and damaged elbows after a shipyard accident in 1942. After a year of hospitalization, he turned to a former lumber-camp hobby of whittling to make a living. Using wood scraps provided by friends, Stromberg created Finnish-style utensils—serving spoons and forks reminiscent of forms he recalled from his youth.

Elegant, simple and unusual at the time, the utensils caught the attention of Maurine Roberts, volunteer exhibition director at the Oregon Ceramic Studio (now Museum of Contemporary Craft). Stromberg’s salad sets, similar to these from the Museum’s collection, became popular additions to the OCS sales gallery.

Roberts introduced Stromberg’s work to a national audience, leading to its inclusion in Good Design, organized in 1952 by the Museum of Modern Art for the Merchandizing Mart in Chicago. The first shipment of Stromberg’s work was stolen from the exhibition. The second set, rushed to Chicago after the receipt of an urgent telegram, was stolen as well. Nevertheless, orders poured in from Georg Jensen, Billy Baldwin of Baldwin-Machado Interior Design, Better Living Magazine, Associated Merchandizing Corporation, and the department stores Frederick & Nelson, Bleazby’s and Bloomingdale’s, among others. Overwhelmed by this response and the loss of two full orders, Stromberg became physically ill, and decided to focus his limited energy on filling orders exclusively in the Pacific Northwest.

—adapted from Namita Gupta Wiggers, Unpacking the Collection: Selections from the Museum of Contemporary Craft