Curtain Call: Drapery and Hardware of the Late Nineteenth Century
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1 CURTAIN CALL: DRAPERY AND HARDWARE OF THE LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY Erin Anderson By end of the first quarter of the nineteenth century, the number of American homes using window curtains had grown enormously, and new styles were developing rapidly.1 More easily than in any previous period, homeowners had the ability to experiment with decorative elements in their homes. In his 1890 instructional book, Practical Decorative Upholstery, Frank A. Moreland wrote, “No part of [a house’s] furnishings contributes so much to the elegance, or to the feeling of cosiness and comfort, as the drapery for windows, doors, bed, etc.; …there is always an uncomfortable sense of bareness when no drapery has been furnished, no matter how generously the apartment has been supplied with furniture and other appointments.”2 Curtains regulated light, temperature, and dirt in a room, but were costly to make or buy, because they were part of a larger constellation of choices tied to fabrics, hardware, and ornamentation. Finding a balance between the function, design, and costs when draping a home involved strategic trade-offs at a time when rapid industrialization during the second half of the nineteenth century reduced costs and expanded choices. For Victorian Americans, who saw fashionably furnished homes as a reflection of a household’s moral character, finding that balance was imperative. Modern histories of style often emphasize idealized, elite households whose furnishings are elaborate and follow the most recent style trends; however, cost alone was enough to deter most nineteenth century households Fig. 1. Curtain display in the Portsmouth Room, Winterthur from such styles. Though exact dates varied greatly in Museum. Photograph by the author. different geographical regions, Clare Jameson estimated that most rooms in American households did not include money spent on lighting a room with artificial light sources curtains until at least the mid-eighteenth century. Those such as candles, gas lighting, and fireplaces. In hotter windows which did include curtains typically used only a weather and climates, blocking the sunlight also helped to single panel of fabric which pulled to one side.3 Through keep a house cool. Opening the curtains and any glass most of the eighteenth century, the most lavish use of windows could help cool down a space by letting heat from fabrics in a home was an honor reserved for beds, not cooking fires escape and allowing cross breezes to blow windows.4 Outfitting a bed with hangings and bedclothes through the house. Conversely, closing the windows could was costly, and extremely lavish designs were a luxury used trap heat inside a home and block out wintery drafts. More only by the wealthiest who could afford to do so, though tightly sealed coverings helped to keep insects and other most households ornamented beds in ways reflecting their forms of vermin out of living spaces, though this was rarely financial status.5 Bed hangings remained commonplace a perfect solution. Additionally, curtains helped give a throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, but by household privacy from passersby.6 To a certain extent, 1800 curtains and other forms of window dressings were curtains also help reduce the amount of dirt and dust in a increasingly widespread. home, although this same grime tended to collect instead on the curtains which consequently required regular Curtains and other forms of window dressings cleaning. The types of window coverings used in a home served multiple practical functions in a household: by varied greatly according to the climate and geography of the opening and closing window draperies, people could adjust building’s location. Layering different forms of window the amount of light, heat, airflow, dirt, and pests allowed into a room. Using natural light during the day meant less 2 treatments can help better alleviate these problems when used in the right combinations. By the early nineteenth century, other types of window dressings were common also. Roller blinds were popular during the Victorian period because they were inexpensive, could be produced at home without much difficulty, and provided equal protection from the sun, insects, and prying eyes.7 They were also easier to clean than slatted venetian blinds or shutters which collected dirt much more quickly and generally couldn’t be made at home.8 A combination of “short blinds” covering only half of a sashed window and wire or mesh gauze blinds helped counteract insects and other pests, especially mosquitos which one fictional anecdote joked could be so large in the South that they could be trained to carry messages like carrier pigeons. Simple, inexpensive window screens as one might see on a modern home were invented at the very end of the nineteenth century and spread rapidly.9 “Bonnet blinds” and awnings help provide some protection from the sun and provided a pseudo-architectural design element to a building’s exterior.10 Windows treatments and other forms of drapery were and are more than simply functional objects, however; they have a high aesthetic impact on a room’s interior and, as Godey’s Lady’s Book put it, “nothing goes so far as curtains in finishing a room.”11 Curtains and draperies are Fig. 2. Detail of receipt from the Burlington Venetian Blind Co., New endlessly customizable in style no matter where they were York City, New York, December 8, 1897. Ink on paper. (Joseph placed, and designers frequently encouraged their readers Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera, Winterthur Library.) to use included illustrations as inspirations for their own spaces, not necessarily as exact patterns to be copied. Frank A. Moreland introduced Practical Decorative Upholstery by saying, “The sketches of the various draperies in the usual styles may suggest to the reader something appropriate, or assist in producing some happy combination….and by becoming familiar with the usual method of doing the work, [one] will be competent to successfully carry out any ideas one’s taste and ingenuity may dictate.”12 Consumers desired and expected to have this wide variety of design options from which to choose, and manufacturers obliged. Competition, technical innovations such as the sewing machine, and industrial production methods during the nineteenth century increased the diversity of standardized products that were available to consumers while simultaneously lowering prices. At the same time, American transportation systems developed and spread at astonishing rates: railroads, canals, and roads made the transportation of goods and people much more efficient and connected parts of the country that were previously too difficult or remote to reach. These changes coincided and influenced the expansion of the national postal service, new telecommunications systems like the telegraph, and an Fig. 3. “Decorated Parlor Windows,” from Godey’s Lady’s Book, expanding market for newspapers and magazines based on February 1854. (Internet Archive.) 3 Fig. 4. Detail of a receipt from the Masonic Hall Curtain Store, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, September 3, 1869. Ink on Paper. (Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera, Winterthur Library.) an increasingly literate population of consumers. Design were targeted at a primarily female audience and women sources in the form of advertisements, architecture style played a larger role than ever in decorating their homes. books, catalogs, and a wide variety of women’s magazines Both the receipts discussed earlier show that the curtain such as Godey’s Lady’s Book spread images, product materials were purchased by women—Mrs. J. D. Potts and descriptions, inspiration, and advice about decorating a Mrs. D. D. S. Brown—and one can imagine that they were home throughout the nation.13 Population growth in- likely also the ones selecting the fabrics and design elements creased the scale of consumer markets. By the mid would be coming into their homes.18 Architect W.W. Kent nineteenth century, manufacturers could cheaply produce explained that it was important that decorative hardware their designs in bulk and sell them through catalogues, design selections appeal “above all, to the lady of the independent retailers, and department stores newly house.”19 Nineteenth century women also played a greater prominent in America’s urban centers.14 and more direct role than ever in determining the interior design styles of their homes; advertisers consequently During the second half of the nineteenth century, placed promotional materials for curtain fabrics alongside it also became easier to get all the required pieces and dress patterns and sewing patterns in both printed materials for one’s window furnishings in the same place. advertisements and physical showroom displays. Both inside and outside city cores, other shops began to sell entire pre-fabricated window treatments as well as all the In addition to changing the fabrics and patterns materials needed to make them. An 1869 receipt from the of the curtains themselves, decorative hardware and Masonic Hall Curtain Store in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, adornments were a common and easy way to enhance the listed a portion of their broad range of fabrics, trimmings, aesthetic effect of a curtain, and by extension, the rooms in hardware, and “everything required for furnishing a home. Valences or elaborately draped “swagging” helped windows.”15 Another, an 1892 receipt from Mahony & hide and ornament rods and poles.20 Curtains could then Douglass: General Upholsterers, showed a charge “for be held back using sewn or braided tiebacks, draped over making & hanging [an] awning” and notified customers curtains pins or wall brackets, or both. Decorative poles that they sold “Window Shades Made to Order and Put and rods with ornamental end caps, under curtains (also Up”.16 Specialized stores like the Masonic Hall Curtain known as “glass curtains”), fringes, gimps, cords, tassels, Store and the C. Sidney Norris & Co. in Baltimore, curtain pins, and brackets all helped dress up a window Maryland, served the retail and wholesale trades with the treatment as well.