CSM 2005 Newsletter
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The Colonial Society of Massachusetts September Volume XVII, Number Letter from the President tion, Boston Furniture of the Eighteenth Century . Fittingly, our member Brock Jobe, who as a graduate student con - Dear Members: tributed “The Boston Furniture Industry, - ,” to the earlier conference and volume, has spearheaded the his year has brought two outstanding publications March conference and the entire Four Centuries of Mass - to add to the Colonial Society’s long series— achusetts Furniture program. Tvolume two of The Papers of Francis Bernard: Gov - Sincerely, ernor of Colonial Massachusetts, - and New Views of D R. F New England: Studies in Material and Visual Culture, President - . We will salute these landmark volumes at two special events in the Society’s house at Mount Vernon Street. On Wednesday, October , from : to : p.m. we will launch New Views of New England with a : The Year of panel discussion chaired by the volume’s editors, Martha J. McNamara and Georgia B. Barnhill, with several con - Massachusetts Furniture tributors participating. On Thursday, December , our regular : p.m. Stated Meeting will feature a presenta - The next Colonial Society conference, cosponsored with tion by Colin Nicolson on Governor Bernard. On both the Winterthur Museum, will concern “New Perspec - occasions there will be refreshments, autographs, book tives on Boston Furniture, - .” It will take place sales, and lively discussion. I encourage you to join us as at Winterthur, Delaware, from March -, . Long - we explore significant aspects of early New England time CSM members will remember that our last confer - history. ence on this subject took place in and resulted, in Looking ahead, we are very pleased to cosponsor with , in Volume : Boston Furniture of the Eighteenth the Winterthur Museum a conference on Boston furni - Century, edited by Walter Whitehill, Brock Jobe, and ture from Wednesday, March to Friday, March , . Jonathan Fairbanks. The volume remains the Colonial We hope that many of our members in Delaware and Society’s all-time best seller, and if you are lucky enough surrounding areas will be with us at Winterthur for this to own an original copy, you should hold onto it, because program. Our Editor of Publications, John Tyler, and I it is now quite valuable! We hope there will be a sufficient serve on the Selection Committee for the conference and number of publishable papers given at the conference on its anticipated publication, as well as on the Executive topics within the CSM’s cut-off date ( ) to create a Committee of the parent organization, Four Centuries of similar volume, and if the contributors are prompt in Massachusetts Furniture , a collaboration of eleven institu - turning in their essays, it may well be possible to bring it tions that will present exhibitions, develop new data - out on the fortieth anniversary of Volume . bases, and plan programs throughout to focus atten - For much of its history, Boston, Massachusetts, tion on the remarkable production of furniture in ranked among the nation’s leading furniture-making cen - Massachusetts from the th century to the present. The ters. Between and , local shops generated a Colonial Society views this as a sequel to our con - staggering output, producing in total hundreds of thou - ference on Boston furniture that result in our highly re - sands of objects of every description, from lavishly up - garded, widely read, and long out-of-print publica - holstered sofas to humble kitchen chairs. Talented arti - The Colonial Society of Massachusetts sans met the furnishing needs of townspeople and also : –: pm: Welcome, Copeland Lecture Hall, Winterthur shipped furniture to customers in distant ports. Brock Jobe, Professor of American Decorative Arts, The conference is part of a much larger initiative, the Winterthur brainchild of our Fellow Member Brock Jobe, entitled : –: pm: Forty Years of Boston Furniture Scholarship: “Four Centuries of Massachusetts Furniture,” in which From “Boston Furniture of the Eighteenth Century” to he has achieved the extraordinary feat of persuading nine Today: A Reminiscence Jonathan L. Fairbanks, Director, Fuller Craft Museum, Massachusetts cultural institutions to cooperate (the Brockton, MA Concord Museum, Historic Deerfield, the Fuller Craft Museum, Historic New England, the Massachusetts : –: pm: th-Century Boston Furniture: Tools and Techniques Historical Society, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Video-Assist Demonstration North Bennet Street School, Old Sturbridge Village, and Peter Follansbee, Joiner, Plimoth Plantation, Plymouth, the Peabody Essex Museum) in addition to the Colonial MA Society and Winterthur, his home institution. : –: pm: Afternoon Break Historic Deerfield will lead the parade of events in the fall of with an exhibition on western Massachu - : –: pm: Early th-Century Boston Case Furniture Edward S. Cooke, Jr., Charles F. Montgomery Professor setts furniture opening on Saturday, September . The of American Decorative Arts, Yale University, New Massachusetts Historical Society will follow shortly after Haven, CT on October with a major exhibition of Boston furniture : –: pm: Boston Japanning: Case Studies from private collections selected by our Fellow Members Christine Thomson, Private Conservator, Salem, MA, Gerald Ward and Robert Mussey. An exhibition on cab - and Tara Cederholm, Curator, Brookfield Arts Founda - inetmaker William Munroe and Concord Federal Furni - tion, Salem, NH ture will open October at the Concord Museum. Old : –: pm: Mrs. Oliver’s Chair, Boston Design in Sturbridge Village will complete the whirlwind of fall Gregory Landrey, Division Director for Library, Collec - events on October by focusing on the work of Federal tions Management, and Academic Programs, Winterthur cabinetmakers Nathan Lombard, Ebenezer Howard, and : –: pm: Boston Furniture at Winterthur exhibition Oliver Wight. A final event will occur in June at the Winterthur Galleries Peabody Essex Museum with a major show and catalog of the work of Salem cabinetmaker Nathan Gould. THURSDAY, MARCH In addition to these exhibitions, “Four Centuries of Massachusetts Furniture” also will include compiling an : –: am: Registration, Visitor Center Internet-accessible database of five thousand records of : –: am: Introductory Remarks, Copeland Lecture Hall, documented Boston furniture, built from to , to Winterthur be housed at Winterthur as part of their Decorative Arts J. Thomas Savage, Director of Museum Affairs, Win - terthur Photographic Collection. The database is modeled on a similar project, the Rhode Island Furniture Archive, at : – : am: Boston and Its Craft Community, - the Yale University Art Gallery. Meanwhile the curator - J. Ritchie Garrison, Director, Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, University of Delaware ial staff at the Museum of Fine Arts will be working on their own on-line catalog of Massachusetts furniture of : – : am: ‘Such Ruins Were Never Seen in America,’ nearly five hundred records. The Looting of Thomas Hutchinson’s House at the Time of the Stamp Act Riots The program of the March conference on John Tyler, Editor of Publications, Colonial Society of Boston furniture follows. Registration will open on Oc - Massachusetts, Boston, MA tober at the Winterthur website www.winterthur.org. : – : am: Morning Break The Sewell C. Biggs : – : am: Boston or New York? Revisiting the Winterthur Furniture Forum Apthorp-Family and Related Sets of Queen Anne Chairs Philip Zimmerman, Museum Consultant and Indepen - New Perspectives on Boston Furniture, - dent Scholar, Lancaster, PA March -, : – : pm: A Scotsman, Thomas Chippendale, and the WEDNESDAY, MARCH Green Dragon Tavern: Connecting the Dots Kemble Widmer, Independent Scholar, Newburyport, : –: pm: Registration, Winterthur Visitor Center MA The Colonial Society of Massachusetts : –: pm: Lunch Darcy Kuronen, Pappalardo Curator of Musical Instru - ments, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA : –: pm: The Turret-Top Tea Tables and Card Tables of Boston : –: pm: Boston Furniture Makers and the New Social The Robert Francis Fileti Endowed Lecture/Video-As - Media, - sist Demonstration Kelly L’Ecuyer, Ellyn McColgan Curator of Decorative Brock Jobe, Professor of American Decorative Arts, Arts and Sculpture, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA Winterthur, and Allan Breed, Cabinet- and Chairmaker, : –: pm: Afternoon Break Rollinsford, NH : –: pm: Furniture Industry in East Cambridge, ca. - : –: pm: Afternoon Break ca. : –: pm: Pigeonholes and Patriots: Desks in Colonial Nancy Carlisle, Curator, Historic New England, Boston, Boston MA Gerald W. R. Ward, Senior Consulting Curator and the : –: pm: Boston Furniture for Public Spaces Katharine Lane Weems Senior Curator of American Caryne Eskridge, Lois F. McNeil Fellow, Winterthur Decorative Arts and Sculpture Emeritus, Museum of Program in American Material Culture, Class of Fine Arts, Boston, MA : –: pm: Framing the Interior: The Entrepreneurial Ca - : –: pm: Windsor Furniture-Making in Boston: A Late reer of John Doggett but Innovative Center of the Craft Richard Nylander, Curator Emeritus, Historic New Eng - Nancy Goyne Evans, Independent Furniture Historian, land, Boston, MA Hockessin, DE : –: pm: Concluding Remarks : –: pm: Samuel Gragg, Chairmaker: New Discoveries Brock Jobe, Professor of American Decorative Arts, Michael Podmaniczky, Private Conservator, Wilmington, Winterthur DE : –: pm: Reception Galleries Reception Area FRIDAY, MARCH An Exciting Discovery