A new nation of goods : the material culture of early America / David Jaffee.

Author/creator Jaffee, David
Format Book
Publication InfoPhiladelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, ©2010.
Descriptionxv, 400 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 27 cm.
Supplemental ContentInhaltsverzeichnis
Subjects
Material culture--Connecticut River Valley. --History. --19th century.
Artisans--Connecticut River Valley. --History. --19th century.
Villages--Connecticut River Valley. --History. --19th century.
Social change--Connecticut River Valley. --History. --19th century.
Community life--Connecticut River Valley. --History. --19th century.
Industrialization--Connecticut River Valley. --History. --19th century.
Middle class--Connecticut River Valley. --History. --19th century.
Consumption (Economics)--Connecticut River Valley. --History. --19th century.
Connecticut River Valley--Social life and customs. --19th century.
Connecticut River Valley--Social conditions. --19th century.

SeriesEarly American studies
Early American studies. ^A375699
Contents Painters and patrons -- The village enlightenment -- Cosmopolitan communities -- Itinerants and inventors -- A tale of two chairmaking towns -- Provincial portraits -- Daguerreotypes : the industrial image.
Abstract In the middle of the nineteenth century, middle-class Americans embraced a new culture of domestic consumption, one that centered on chairs and clocks as well as family portraits and books. How did that new world of goods, represented by Victorian parlors filled with overstuffed furniture and daguerreotype portraits, come into being? This work highlights the significant role of provincial artisans in four crafts in the northeastern United States, chairmaking, clockmaking, portrait painting, and book publishing, to explain the shift from preindustrial society to an entirely new configuration of work, commodities, and culture. As a whole, the book proposes an innovative analysis of early nineteenth century industrialization and the development of a middle class consumer culture. It relies on many of the objects beloved by decorative arts scholars and collectors to evoke the vitality of village craft production and culture in the decades after the War of Independence. It grounds its broad narrative of cultural change in case studies of artisans, consumers, and specific artifacts. Each chapter opens with an "object lesson" and weaves an object based analysis together with the richness of individual lives. The path that such craftspeople and consumers took was not inevitable; on the contrary, as the author, a historian demonstrates, it was strewn with alternative outcomes, such as decentralized production with specialized makers. The book offers a collective biography of the post Revolutionary generation, gathering together the case studies of producers and consumers who embraced these changes, those who opposed them, or, most significantly, those who fashioned the myriad small changes that coalesced into a new Victorian cultural order that none of them had envisioned or entirely appreciated.
Bibliography noteIncludes bibliographical references and index.
Issued in other formOnline version: Jaffee, David. New nation of goods. Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, c2010
LCCN 2010008850
ISBN9780812242577 (hardcover : acid-free paper)
ISBN0812242572 (hardcover : acid-free paper)

Availability

Library Location Call Number Status Item Actions
Joyner General Stacks F12.C7 J34 2010 ✔ Available Place Hold