"The ornamental upholder of the ornamental" : ǂb cabinets, etageres, and the manufacturing of a domestic ideal 1870-1890
Date
2023
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
During the twenty-year span between 1870 and 1890 in America, one class of furniture in particular soars to prominence: furniture for the display of bric-a-brac and other small art objects. This class is made up of forms like etageres, display cabinets, overmantels, and vitrines, which taken together I call display furniture. Contemporary to display furniture’s rise in popularity are growing industrial systems transforming the production and consumption of furniture, as well as changing notions of the domestic sphere. This project asks how these forms gained distinction during these two decades by examining extant objects, prescriptive literature on home decoration, industrial and institutional systems, and a piece of fiction. How did these objects transform from their ancillary role in displaying objects to the primary form of furniture in the home? What role did these prominent display furniture forms play in changing ideas of the domestic sphere? How do these forms bridge the industrializing domestic economy, new sites of consumption, and the anti-industrial sentiment the home came to represent? I follow display furniture forms from the extraction of raw materials in the forests of Pennsylvania to furniture manufacturers along the East Coast, to their sites of consumption in showrooms and Centennial model rooms, and finally, into the home. I highlight the way that these forms exemplify industrial modes of production, how they come to represent the desire for a type of home seemingly separate from these modes of production, and the role they play in the formation of a bourgeois subject during the late nineteenth century. This examination of display furniture brings transformations in industries, institutions, and ideologies to light.
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Keywords
Decorative Arts, Design, Furniture, Industrial design, Material Culture