William Penn's Chair and George
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WILLIAM PENN’S CHAIR AND GEORGE WASHINGTON’S HAIR: THE POLITICAL AND COMMERCIAL MEANINGS OF OBJECTS AT THE PHILADELPHIA GREAT CENTRAL FAIR, 1864 by Justina Catherine Barrett A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the University of Delaware in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Early American Culture Spring 2005 Copyright 2005 Justina Catherine Barrett All rights reserved Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 1426010 Copyright 2005 by Barrett, Justina Catherine All rights reserved. INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. ® UMI UMI Microform 1426010 Copyright 2005 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. WILLIAM PENN’S CHAIR AND GEORGE WASHINGTON’S HAIR: THE POLITICAL AND COMMERCIAL MEANINGS OF OBJECTS AT THE PHILADELPHIA GREAT CENTRAL FAIR, 1864 By Justina Catherine Barrett Approved: _______ Pauline K. Eversmann, M. Phil. Professor in charge of thesis on behalf of the Advisory Committee Approved: J. Ritchie Garrison, Ph.D. Director of the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture Approved: Conrado M. Gempesaw II, Ph.D. Interim Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Approved: Conrado M. Gempesaw II, Ph.D. Vice-Provost for Academic and International Programs Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “There is an anti-room where relics, and photographs of Penn localities and Penn celebrities, are for sale, and where the visitor has to run the gauntlet of a party of fair young saleswomen, who do their best to look becomingly demure; but whose bright eyes will twinkle with fun and mischief, despite the soberness of their calling as outer sentinels of the treasured relics of the most illustrious of Pennsylvania Friends.” Our Daily Fare, 10 June 1864, p. 21 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The completion of this project finds me indebted to many friends, colleagues, and professors. I must give primary recognition to my advisor and mentor, Pauline Eversmann, whose patience, enthusiasm, and good will empowered me to navigate the sometimes-daunting tasks the project presented. For this she has my eternal gratitude and devotion. For guidance and feedback, I thank J. Ritchie Garrison, as well as my fellow students in the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture. I am honored to be counted among such scholars. I also extend my sincere gratitude to Jay Stiefel for his interest in my project and for his supply of useful sources and citations, and I thank Linda Eaton for establishing my contact with Jay. The staff at the archives and manuscript collections were all helpful, particularly Charlene Peacock at the Library Company and Jack Gumbrecht at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Without the generosity of the late Lois F. McNeil, this project and my education at Winterthur would not be possible. I am truly grateful and humbled for the fellowship she endowed. Finally, the mind can only function when the stomach and the heart are contented. I heartily thank Leah Finnegan for the room and board she provided during weeks of research, and Jack Spangler for his relentless encouragement, support, and thesis-writing snacks. iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures..........................................................................................................vi Abstract ................................................................................................................... vii Text Introduction..................................................................................................1 The Sanitary Commission and the sanitary fair movement .................... 2 A brief tour of the Fairgrounds ..................................................................8 Relevant scholarship.................................................................................16 A close examination of the eighteenth-century objects .........................22 War in an election year: The political context....................................... 47 Philadelphia society then and now: History and the Fair’s ideological context..............................................60 A relic to heal a soldier’s wound: Consumable history and the commercial context .................................. 70 Appendix Receipts from the committees of the Great Central Fair...................... 79 Bibliography..........................................................................................................82 v Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 James Queen, Buildings of the Great Central Fair, 1864 .....................9 Figure 2a P. S. Duval & Son, Ground Plan of Buildings o f the Great Central Fair, 1864 .....................................................................10 Figure 2b Detail of Duval, Ground Plan, showing the northern half of the Fairgrounds............................................................................................ 11 Figure 3 Robert Newell, View o f Union Avenue, 1864 .......................................12 Figure 4a View of the William Penn Parlor. [1864] .............................................24 Figure 4b View of the William Penn Parlor. [1864] .............................................25 Figure 4c A. Watson, The Penn Parlor. [1864] ....................................................26 Figure 5a A. Watson, Relics and Curiosities, 1864 .............................................. 32 Figure 5b A. Watson, Arms and Relics. [1864] .....................................................33 Figure 6 A. Watson, Arms and Trophies. [1864] ................................................41 Figure 7 Oliver H. Willard, Pennsylvania Kitchen: "Grant’s Up To Schnitz, June " 1864 .........................................................................44 Figure 8 A. Watson, The Great Sanitary Fair, 1864 .......................................... 55 Figure 9 A. Watson, Union Avenue Arch. [1864] ............................................... 56 Figure 10 Quilt made for the Great Central Fair by the women of Central Presbyterian Church in Wilmington, Delaware .................................. 62 Figure 11 A. Watson, Dr. Barnum ’s Self Sewer. [1864] .......................................75 vi Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT In order to raise money for Union troops’ medical supplies, Philadelphians hosted The Great Central Fair in aid of the U.S. Sanitary Commission in June 1864. One of over a dozen such sanitary fairs held throughout the Union, this event raised funds by soliciting contributions of products from manufacturers and retailers and offering them for sale to Fairgoers. Alongside displays of manufactured goods were exhibits with antiques, such as the Department of Relics and Curiosities and the Penn Parlor, a period room installation with chairs and other objects purportedly owned by William Penn. What was the role of these antiques at the Fair? This paper explores the meaning and function of the eighteenth-century objects in the context of the Civil War. By utilizing published sources, manuscripts, scrapbooks, and photographs, a comprehensive understanding of the types of objects emerges. The objects’ political, ideological, and commercial meanings arise from an analysis employing scholarship on colonial revival and nineteenth-century exhibitions. This analysis reveals the operation of an exhibitionary complex - a technology for the ruling classes to assert cultural hegemony and gain the complicity of the public in the existing social order. The Fair organizers, many of them members of the Union League, employed the objects for the political and ideological purpose of supporting the Lincoln Administration’s continued prosecution of the war in order to preserve a cultural identity that legitimized their role as the ruling class, while serving the commercial function of fundraising. vii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. American colonial antiques gained widespread attention at centennial exhibitions and in housekeeping books of the late nineteenth century because, scholars often argue, upper middle class consumers understood them as symbols of quality craftsmanship and American heritage. The colonial revival aesthetic, paralleling the ascendancy of the Arts and Crafts movement, favored colonial furnishings as morally