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East Aurora Author and Historian Robert Lowell Goller will present “WHO WERE (AND ARE) THE ROYCROFTERS?” on Thursday, October 1, bridging the past and present to open the RALA50 programming schedule at The Buffalo History Museum in honor of our 50th anniversary celebrations in 2026.Elbert Hubbard attracted hundreds of creative types to his Arts and Crafts community on South Grove Street at the turn of the 20th Century. Some, like famed artist Alexis Fournier, were invited. Others simply showed up, in the hopes of landing a job at the Roycroft, a place where putting “head, heart and hand” into one’s work in equal measure was encouraged in a world otherwise dominated by the assembly-line mentality of the Industrial Revolution.
In 1976, a group of East Aurora residents and conservationists with a common interest in the then struggling Roycroft Campus set in motion a plan to preserve those ideals which had made the Campus a center of the Arts and Crafts Movement.
This group of idealists included several descendants of the original Roycrofters, including Elbert Hubbard’s granddaughter. Others included Charles Hamilton, Kitty Turgeon and Rixford Jennings, a local artist who grew up as a paper boy on Hubbards' Campus. These early visionaries, along with a meeting room full of others, decided that the legacy of South Grove Street was something too important to let slip into the dust of an attic bound history book.
After several meetings and energetic discussion, the Roycrofters-at-Large Association (RALA), was formed. The mission of the group, both then and now, has been to promote the spirit of Elbert Hubbard and his early Roycrofters, and to keep the Arts & Crafts movement alive on the Roycroft Campus and throughout the world. Through the efforts of Turgeon and the founding members of the RALA board, the Roycroft Campus became a National Historic Landmark.
Goller’s “Who Were (and Are) the Roycrofters?” discusses what it was like to work at the Roycroft and shares the stories of some of the personalities—both famous and not- so-famous—who made The Roycroft Campus and Village of East Aurora their workplace and home - both then and today, as the Roycrofters at Large.
Reservations required. A nominal admission to support the museum’s non-profit initiatives applies; History Museum and RALA members attend free. If you are RALA Member, email [email protected] to confirm membership and receive the necessary code to exempt ticket fees at checkout.
To become a RALA Patron Member or to gift a membership, visit our Membership Page at roycroftartisans.org.
ABOUT OUR SPEAKER:
Robert Lowell Goller is a public historian and former journalist who has served as the town and village historian in East Aurora, N.Y., since 2007. Through his books, monthly newspaper column and weekly videos on Facebook and YouTube, he uncovers previously untold stories of the past and places the history of small towns such as East Aurora in the context of national and international events.
His television appearances have included C-SPAN and “Sunday Morning” on CBS. Goller has published three books, and is a 2008 Mary and Gil Stott Award recipient. He and his husband Jason live here in East Aurora, where his most recent book, Who Put the ‘East’ in East Aurora? was published. He is also the author of Aurora Revisited (2011) and Legendary Locals of East Aurora (2014).
Goller is a member of the Roycrofters at Large RALA50 Anniversary and Archive committee, working to celebrate the founding of the Roycroft Renaissance movement in 1976, and has been an advocate for the Roycrofters at Large mission and value within the East Aurora arts community, including its founding of the Roycroft Summer Festival in 1976, an event that has gone on to inspire our town wide Arts in East Aurora each year on the final full weekend of June.
Follow the Roycrofters-At Large Association’s social media pages at Facebook and instagram, @roycroftartisans, for updates and information.
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Event venue
The Buffalo History Museum, The Buffalo History Museum, 25 Museum Ct, Buffalo, NY 14216, United States
Tickets
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