"Such a paradise can be made on earth:": furniture patronage and consumption in antebellum Natchez, Mississippi, 1828-1863
Date
1998
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
This thesis uses extant furniture with a Natchez provenance to understand the local, domestic, and international connections of Natchezians, and the distribution and function of material goods within the antebellum cotton economy. Coupled with relevant primary source documents, the furniture reveals consistent patterns of patronage and consumption among the most wealthy southerners from the lower Mississippi delta between approximately 1828-1863. ☐ Natchez took full advantage of the vibrant furniture trade with the north and east. Woodworkers, local auction houses, and merchants realized early that as cotton was shipped out of Natchez, furniture from Boston, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and New York could be imported to appease the consumer needs of increasingly successful planters. Many of these planters were originally from the north and choose to order furniture personally or through their agents. These same planters, as well as Natchez furniture retailers, also took advantage of the growing furniture retail market in New Orleans. Distribution of the furniture depended on strong business relationships established between commission merchants, local furniture retailers, planters, and manufacturers. ☐ This study of patronage and consumption in Natchez demonstrates broader issues affecting the furniture-making industry during the antebellum period. Cities like Boston, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and New York increasingly dominated furniture design and production. They competed with each other for markets, such as the south. Marked furniture in Natchez proves that planters desired different aesthetic interpretations of the Grecian style. Both marked and unmarked objects indicate that traditional methods of furniture connoisseurship for earlier time periods needs to be modified to understand nineteenth century furniture manufacture and distribution. ☐ This study shows that while skill did not necessarily degrade in the nineteenth century, design aesthetic was redefined. Furthermore, furniture selection could no longer be considered a formula of social emulation, as availability and gender increasingly came to affect selection. Essentially furniture patronage and consumption in antebellum Natchez is significant to a study of nineteenth century economics, business history, gender history, and decorative arts.