SMITH COLLEGE
HISTORIC DEERFIELD, INC.
AMS 302 Spring 2015
Seminar in the Material Culture of New England, 1630-1860
Tuesdays, 2:00-4:00 p.m., Flynt Center, Historic Deerfield
Barbara Mathews
Email: bmathews@historic-deerfield.org
(413) 775-7207 (Historic Deerfield)
Office Hours: Thursdays, 2:00-4:00 (or by appointment); phone extension 3746
Office : 229 Wright
Course Description:
This seminar examines the material culture of New England from the earliest colonial settlements to the
Victorian era. It introduces students to the growing body of material culture studies and the ways in
which historic landscapes, architecture, archaeology, furniture, textiles, art, metals, ceramics, foodways
and domestic environments can be interpreted as cultural documents and as historical evidence. We will
explore with Historic Deerfield staff objects not only as finished products but also the processes by
which they were made and the makers who produced them. Utilizing the disciplines of history, art and
architectural history, anthropology, archaeology, and cultural geography we will explore the relationship
between objects to ideas and the ways in which objects both individually and as a group convey patterns
of everyday life.
NOTE: The class will meet in the Bartels Seminar Room in the Flynt Center of Early New England Life
at Historic Deerfield unless otherwise noted.
Grading and Course Requirements:
There will be no written examinations. Each student is expected to attend and participate at each class
meeting. This means keeping up with the reading and arriving prepared to contribute to class discussion.
Seminar attendance, participation and class presentation: 20%
Probate Inventory Analysis (5-7 pages) 25% Due February 24
Each student is required to select and analyze a probate inventory from a group of Deerfield, MA,
probates taken before 1820.
Object Study (5-7 pages) 25% Due March 31
Each student is required to complete a 5-7 page material culture study of an object selected from the
collections of Historic Deerfield.
Final Essay (10-12 pages) 30% Due May 5
Each student is required to investigate and interpret the broader historical and cultural significance of a
group of objects (minimum of three, maximum of four items) in a 10-12 page essay, and to summarize
their findings in a brief (5-8 minute) oral presentation on the last class meeting day (April 28.)
Readings:
The following required reading is available for purchase at Grecourt Bookshop, and copies of each title
are also on reserve at Neilson Library:
Richard L. Bushman. The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, Cities. New York: Vintage Books,
1993.
David Jaffee, A New Nation of Goods: The Material Culture of Early America. Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press, 2010.
Jane C. Nylander. Our Own Snug Fireside: Images of the New England Home, 1760-1860. New York:
Knopf, 1994.
All other listed readings are available on E-Reserve, with two exceptions: James Garvin, A Building
History of Northern New England and J. Ritchie Garrison, Landscape and Material Life in Franklin
County, Massachusetts, 1770-1860, which are on reserve at Neilson Library.
January 27:
Introduction: Historic Deerfield, Inc., its Collections, and Deerfield History.
*Visit Wells-Thorn House with Barbara Mathews; Flynt Center tour with Ned
Lazaro, Collections Manager and Associate Curator of Textiles*
Reading:
Ann Smart Martin, “Material Things and Cultural Meanings: Notes
on the Study of Early American Material Culture.” William and Mary Quarterly,
3d Series, Vol. LIII, No. i (January 1996), pp. 5-12.
Jane Nylander, Our Own Snug Fireside, Preface and chap. 1
Briann G. Greenfield, “Highboys and High Culture: Adopting an
American Aesthetic in Deerfield, Massachusetts” chap. 4, Out of the Attic:
Inventing Antiques in Twentieth-Century New England. Amherst: UMass Press,
2009.
February 3: The Material World of New England: Architecture
*Introduction to Historical Architecture with Bill Flynt, Architectural
Conservator*
Reading:
James L. Garvin, “Why a Building Looks the Way It Does: The Evolution of
Style,” chap. 3, pp. 95-122, A Building History of Northern New England.
Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England, 2001.
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Abbott Lowell Cummings, “The House Plan,” chap. 3, The Framed Houses of
Massachusetts Bay 1625-1725. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1979.
J. Ritchie Garrison, “Dwellings,” chap. 7, Landscape and Material Life in
Franklin County, Massachusetts, 1770-1860. Knoxville: University of Tennessee
Press, 1991.
February 10:
Windows on the Material World of New England: Probate Inventories
*work with probate inventories with Anne Lanning, Vice President for Museum
Affairs*
Reading:
Barbara McLean Ward, “Women’s Property and Family
Continuity in Eighteenth-Century Connecticut” and Robert F. Trent, “Matching
Inventory Terms and Period Furnishings in Peter Benes, ed., Early American
Probate Inventories: The Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife Annual
Proceedings, 1987.
Kevin M. Sweeney, “Furniture and the Domestic Environment in
Wethersfield, CT, 1639-1800,” in Robert Blair St. George, ed., Material Life in
America, 1600-1860. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1988.
February 17:
Studying Material Culture: Methods and Means
“Just because you have looked at something doesn’t mean that you
have seen it.”—Jennifer Roberts, Art Historian
*Artifact Study with Amanda Lange, Curator of Historic Interiors and Curatorial
Chair*
Reading:
E. McClung Fleming, “Artifact Study: A Proposed Model,” Winterthur Portfolio
Vol. 9 (1974), pp. 153-173.
Philip D. Zimmerman, “Workmanship as Evidence: A Model for Object Study,”
Winterthur Portfolio Vol.16, No.4 (Winter, 1981), pp. 283-307.
February 24:
The Material World of New England: Learning to Look in Context
*Probate Inventory exercise due at the beginning of class*
* Object study selection*
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Reading:
Jules Prown, “The Truth of Material Culture: History or Fiction?” ch. 1, Prown
and Haltman, eds., American Artifacts: Essays in Material Culture. Lansing:
Michigan State University Press, 2000.
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, “Hannah Barnard’s Cupboard” ch. 3, The Age of
Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth. NY:
Vintage Books, 2001.
James Deetz, ”Recalling Things Forgotten: Archaeology and the American
Artifact,” chap. 1, In Small Things Forgotten: An Archaeology of Early American
Life.
Jane Nylander, “A Comfortable Sufficiency: Food and the New England
Kitchen,” chap. 8, Our Own Snug Fireside.
March 3:
The Material World of Early New England: A Consumer Revolution
*Meet with your object*
Reading:
Neil McKendrick, “Josiah Wedgewood and the Commercialization
of the Potteries,” chap. 3, McKendrick, Brewer and Plumb, The Birth of a
Consumer Society: The Commercialization of Eighteenth-Century England.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982.
Elizabeth P. Fox, "Ceramics and Glass" in The Great River: Art & Society of the
Connecticut Valley, 1625-1820. Hartford: Wadsworth Athenaeum, 1985.
Rodris Roth, “Tea-Drinking in Eighteenth-Century America: Its Etiquette and
Equipage,” in Robert Blair St. George, ed., Material Life in America, 1600-1860,
pp. 439-462.
David Jaffee, “Painters and Patrons,” chap. 1, A New Nation of Goods.
March 10:
The Material Culture of Daily Life in New England: Pursuing Refinement
*Visit the Williams House with Anne Lanning, Vice President for
Museum Affairs *
Reading:
Richard Bushman, The Refinement of America, Intro. & chap. 3
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David Jaffee, “The Village Enlightenment,” chap. 2 pp. 47-50, A New Nation of
Goods.
Ruth Cowan, “The Invention of Housework,” chap 3, More Work for Mother: The
Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave. NY:
Basic Books, Inc.
Nylander, “Going to housekeeping” and “Clean, bright and Comfortable:
Dimensions of Housework,” chaps. 3 & 5, Our Own Snug Fireside.
Sumpter Priddy, Preface and Introduction, American Fancy: Exuberance in the
Arts, 1790-1840, Milwaukee: Chipstone Foundation, 2004.
March 17:
No Class—Spring Break
March 24:
The Material World of New England: Furniture
* Furniture study with Phil Zea, President of Historic Deerfield*
Reading:
Philip Zea, “Rural Craftsmen and Design” chap. 2, Jobe and Kaye, New England
Furniture: The Colonial Era. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984.
David Jaffee, chapter 3 pp. 103-130, A New Nation of Goods.
Katherine Grier, “Bodily Comfort and Spring-Seat Upholstery,” chap. 4, Culture
and Comfort, chap. 4 (pp. 103-128.)
Kenneth L. Ames, “First Impressions” chap. 1, Death in the Dining Room &
Other Tales of Victorian Culture, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992.
March 31:
The Material World of New England: Dress
*Object study due at beginning of class*
*Textile study with Ned Lazaro, Collections Manager and Associate Curator of
Textiles*
Reading:
Joan Severa and Merrill Horswill, “Costume as Material Culture,” Dress 15
(1989)
Marla Miller, “Clothing and Consumers in Rural New England,
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1760-1810,” chap. 1, The Needle’s Eye: Women and Work in the Age of
Revolution. Amherst: UMass Press, 2006.
Jane Nylander, “Clean and Decent: A Family’s Clothing” chap. 6,
Our Own Snug Fireside.
Mary Beaudry, Intro. and chap. 2, Findings: The Material Culture of Needlework
and Sewing. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
April 7:
*Object Study time in Museum’s Attic, Flynt Center; time at Memorial Libraries
with David Bosse, Librarian*
April 14:
The Material World of New England: Portraiture
*Due at Beginning of Class: Research Topic Statement for
Interpretive essay*
Reading:
Margaretta M. Lovell, “Painters and their Customers,” chap. 1, Art in a Season of
Revolution: Painters, Artisans and Early America. Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2005.
Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser, “’Staring Likenesses’: Portraiture in Rural New
England,” and Color Plates section of Caroline Sloat, ed., Meet Your Neighbors:
New England Portraits, Painters and Society, 1790-1850.
David Jaffee, “Provincial Portraits,” chap. 6, A New Nation of Goods.
April 21:
Early New England Landscapes
*Walk of The Street and Common*
Reading:
William Cronon, “A World of Fields and Fences,” chap. 7, Changes in the Land:
Indians, Colonists and the Ecology of New England. NY: Hill and Wang, 1983.
John R. Stilgoe, “New England,” Common Landscape of America, 1580-1845.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982, pp. 43-57
Thomas C. Hubka, “The Buildings and the Land,” chap. 3, Big House, Little
House, Back House, Barn: The Connected Farm Buildings of New England.
Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England, 1984.
Joseph Wood, Intro. and “The Village as Vernacular Form” chap. 3, The New
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England Village. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.
April 28:
*Student presentations of Final Essay topic*
May 5:
*Final Essay due by end of day*
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