“Deep investigations of science and exquisite refinements of taste”: the objects and institutional furniture of early historical societies and repositories in eastern Massachusetts
| Author(s) | Eskridge, Caryne | |
| Date Accessioned | 2013-10-02T12:42:29Z | |
| Date Available | 2013-10-02T12:42:29Z | |
| Publication Date | 2013 | |
| Abstract | The Massachusetts Historical Society (1791), the Boston Athenaeum (1807), the American Antiquarian Society (1812), and the Pilgrim Society (1820) make up a group of libraries, historical societies, and repositories founded in the span of three decades that present intriguing similarities and differences. These institutions modeled themselves and their collecting goals after British learned societies, but established American identities by collecting objects that spoke to the history of America before European settlement and in the colonial period. Case studies of examples from these cabinet collections elucidate how these objects contributed to the mission of these institutions. Once these organizations began to collect, they faced an immediate need to obtain furnishings like bookcases and cabinets for display and storage and chairs and tables to support the study of the collection. The object collections of these four organizations reveal how these communities interrogated the world around them. Institutional furniture was vital to the function of these societies and since it often blended into the background of the ordinary, offers access to the unremarkable, daily activities of these communities, which are the most difficult to uncover. | en_US |
| Advisor | Brock Jobe | |
| Degree | M.A. | |
| Program | Winterthur Program in American Material Culture | |
| URL | http://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/12632 | |
| Publisher | University of Delaware | en_US |
| dc.subject.lcsh | Massachusetts Historical Society -- History. | |
| dc.subject.lcsh | Boston Athenaeum -- History. | |
| dc.subject.lcsh | American Antiquarian Society -- History. | |
| dc.subject.lcsh | Pilgrim Society (Plymouth, Mass.) -- History. | |
| dc.subject.lcsh | Decorative arts -- Collectors and collecting -- Massachusetts. | |
| dc.subject.lcsh | Massachusetts -- History -- Societies, etc. | |
| Title | “Deep investigations of science and exquisite refinements of taste”: the objects and institutional furniture of early historical societies and repositories in eastern Massachusetts | en_US |
| Type | Thesis | en_US |