cosmopolitan furniture. you have mass goods being made at the same time you're getting this much fancier material. and pushing this argument not just for clocks and chairs, i would really argue that even in terms of portraits, you're getting the same phenomena of increasingly innovative and eye tinner et modes of production to make more and month goods which have this incredibly colorful sort of cornucopia, this painted form which is called american fancy as a description of this provincial tile in the 1820s and 1830s. what's interesting here is this is annie phillips, a girl with red dress. you can see there he makes lots of girls with red dresses. and some have cats and dogs, some just have cats. and so -- or he makes some which

are actually boy on the left-hand side or he also changes the color of the garment on others or in other cases he drops the child, sort of min turizes her and drops her on to the lap of her mother. what he's really done is developed a formula. these are formulaic images which all have similar shape, similar decorative designs. he has these -- they're formulas. it's a repetition which allows him to work efficiently. and i think it's really quite striking. the girls all sit with their arms crossing their bodies die oggenaly and a kind looking dog at their feet. it really stands out. what's important here is you can see from my quotation is that john vander lin who is an academic painter points to his nephew and says this is a way in the 1820s of making a living. the people in the provincial

areas are so eager for these goods, there's a fellow moving through the countryside meeting demand. unlike an urban station where you have an academic painter in an urban student where the customer would come to him, these itinerants in a less saturated market are moving along to find commerce, holding up in a place, then passing out hand bills to attract customers. they're really cultivating a market where possibly a market didn't exist before. so they were really advertising not just their services but they are advertising the whole mode of consumption of these colorful goods. and i think that's really quite striking in this quote. because it's a way of making your living in a more fluid society where the definition of what an artist might be is up for grabs. without training, without mentorship there's a whole

contest who is an artist and i can easily claim as other folks i write about do, that i'm an artist, put my statement out there and then start painting, literally. it's the fluidity of the 1820s and 1810s and 1820s that i call it a period of eye tin rasy and innovation where the fixed identities and goods, categories of goods is really dissolving under the both cultural ambitions of the new nation as well as the very much the efforts of this host of decentralized producers and sort of air ra vooes consumers. i think you can see that a bit in this genre scene by charles bird king where he moved to d.c. and became a painter he had a stint as an itinerant in the

countryside. probably this portrait will go when it's finished. the fanciest room in the house, but on the other hand you can see -- in a very gendered scene -- the women are gathered around the mother who is being the sitter for the portrait while the men with their guns and so on are heading out for more of a activities while the grandmother may be dressed in cultural garb, i don't have the authority to question the local's opinion of my work much less be able to sell it to them. and again you can see this here with william matthew pryor. he made two kinds of portraits. he made these portraits for $2.92 which he called his flat and tasty portraits. and if you had more money and time you could move up to this

academically painted portrait. it's not that these folks can't paint -- which we've considered them primitives for a long time. in many cases, not all, they are able to choose which vocabulary, a bit like phillips which has different modes that he can use for different venues. i think that's really interesting here to think about the rooms and places where these goods went, you can see this is what pretty calls american fa y fancy. rather than restraint of the late 18th century, these are furnished homes with growing numbers of factory chairs, this watercolor interior from 1826 that she called lord charles and lady sarah, a watercolor, perhaps a couple seated at a drop leaf table facing each other. on two of the nine fancy chairs that are scattered around the room. the ample number would reflect, i would say, their relative

affluence as well as their ability to entertain. now the entertainment mode that's very important a painted window shade and wall mural and they're involved in activities. this depicts the world into which these goods will go. and then you have others like rufus porter who really is using both the producer of how-to guides to help you if you wanted to actually paint in his mode. he uses -- and this is an aas handbill that's actually in the mma boston, the new arts of the americas galleries. and what's so interesting about this handbill, is again he has a whole range of prices. you can get a silhouette in which he used a camera obscure ra to throw it on paper and can speed his production or you can

get a side view where he traces the outlines. or you can move to a full view. now full view you only get one ear per portrait. he's still using some of these speed devices but you get more detail and you also get more modeling in the face. it's really a series or the upper end moving towards the clothes here, you get at the upper end in a much more cosmopolitan way, you get salisbury field who moved back to lev receipt, massachusetts and spent his whole career between the connecticut and the hudson river painting. by the 1830s he's really painted these relatively grand manor -- really not grand manor, grand portraits. these are two sisters. some believe this might have

been boston harbor. we don't really know the design sources for this. he has a formula for women where he uses the lace collar and other devices to sort of fill out the portrait or with the men using -- this is a man with a tune book, most likely one of the cook family. then by 1839 this grand portrait of joseph moore and his family which is also in the mfa. he really drops these figures into this portrait. you can see that louisa is sort of dropped into this in the same fashion. now you can see the collection of goods. this is a hitchcock chair. these are stenciled forms. so again they're using a sort of faux painting to make them look more embellished than they might be. the carpet is sort of pushed up to really emphasize its

placement. it is not following necessarily a three dimensions perspective. it's a whole cornucopia of goods. it's a portrait just as much of the people and their goods. and joseph moore is a hatter part of the year and a dentist other parts of the year and actually the mfa has many of the family -- so many of the jewelry, the other items, the chairs are actually passed down. so these are their household objects as well as his dental tools which are in the mfa collection. interesting enough, 1839 really i argue represents the heyday, the height but also the passing of this world of sort of itinerant innovators and decentralized production and sort of fancy consumption. because, of course, in 1839 in terms of portrait yur is the invention of the daguerreotype. and i try at the end of the book

to sort of spell out how many of these innovative a differ lations throughout new england and new york are now replaced, instead of wound shelf clock, you get chauncey jerome who uses a return to brass, not imported brass any more, but this is stamped brass, much thinner and much easier to fabricate from. and he works in new haven and brooklyn. so many of these provincial places of work now begin to recentralize just like in the 18th century back into sort of urban places in more of a factory mode. or you get someone like rufus porter who moves to new york and found "scientific american." so again he finds that and then robert peckham or someone like erastus fields who uses daguerreotypes for his portraits. you don't have to sit for the portrait, he'll take the family

in a series of daguerreotype. and he'll paint from the daguerreotype. unlike the moore family, this is far more solid, far more boring and much of the exuberance and vitality of the earlier has been diminished by that particular mode. and then you get really an interesting story with daguerreotypes because you get the same process of itinerants who go out with urban training and move into the provincial areas looking for a wider, more diffused market but you get entrepreneurs like hawes and brady which try to crowd out what they call the cheap ones who are really making what they consider to be these flat portraits. but my argument, what i leave you with, i'm not so sure they're cheap. this is a plain portrait, quite similar in its mode to those earlier folk portraits.

many folks in the 1840s would have wanted their portrait to look like those earlier painted portraits, one that has sort of a more direct gaze rather than a more romantic shading and one that has sort of flatter lighting that really doesn't privilege the face or the side of the face or anything else like that. so i think what's really interesting here at the very end is that it's really these new household goods that take their place by the 1840s, 1850s in a codified parlor vocabulary that signifies taste and refinement in works of currier and ives that you see here. there really is a victorian culture that takes place as a formulaic vocabulary. it is clear what objects, where you purchase them, these tastemakers now make clear and this period of provincial eye tin rasy and fluidity which we

spent most of the evening looking at really begins to diminish and close. so thank you. [ applause ] professor jaffee will take questions. if you can come up to the microphone here to ask your question, that way we'll be able to capture the sound. >> professor, several slides back, you showed on the film a very lovely chair that had claw legs, beautiful finials and it had golden upholstery. you defined it as a chair individually made by a craftsperson. it was not a factory chair.

do you recall that chair? >> are you talking about the hitchcock chair? >> i don't think it was a hitchcock, no. it had claw legs. >> okay. so some ways. >> it's just prior to the factory chairs that you showed us. >> okay. >> go back. there you are. now, those chairs were individually made by a craftsperson. not in a factory. am i correct? is that what you -- >> yes. >> were they treated as art form by the colonials much like having a painting on a wall or were they put to use? were they used as chairs? or were they put aside on the side of the room to be admired rather than being used?

>> both. i mean, i think their primary -- i don't think someone at the time would have separated those two. they would have considered these to be -- but i would argue that's true of the hitchcock chair as well. they would have been considered objects to be looked at and enjoy and show off as well as the primary purpose which is seating furniture. >> the hitchcock chairs i understand would be used, but to make a set of these one could understand it would take an extended period of time to make a set of them. to make one, one can understand how long it would take to even make this one chair. >> right. and the one -- yeah -- >> to put it to use. >> yes, yes, yes. we know this from -- now whether they're used all the time or every day, even in wealthier families you would have used a windsor chair possibly for more everyday purposes or for lesser rooms.

would you have put furniture like this into your parlor or dining room. but they definitely, yes, they would have been used. they would often -- in some cases, the once on the right by thomas affleck for the cadweller caldon family. they go into caldon's mansion and they would go in the best room, similar to the best room that you saw in the charles bird king portrait, though that's a very different kind of family and very different kind of house. but when they're not in use, they would go around the side of the room and so they would, because of their sculpted form, would -- they would catch the light, artificial or natural when the shades are open. and so you really would see the carving. and that would have been, as you're saying, what really would catch your eye.

so someone at the time would have very much understood, wow, this is a top of the line carved chair which has all of these rich accoutrements. and when you look at a cabinetmaker's price list, you would take the different pieces. if you wanted this skirt, it would cost so much extra, if you wanted this leg versus that leg, you would pay that much more. i think people at the time very much understood how these items worked as both seating furniture but also as cultural icons. >> this is fascinating. can i just ask if you lived in a city, could you have these kind of middling level objects and portraits available to you? because not everybody in a city could afford to have these fancy, you know, high style sort of portraits or chairs or things. >> yeah, that's a really good question. and you know, yes, there are

also low end chairmakers in the city. and so they are starting to make also goods for export or not just export but for sort of -- and so what i think is really interesting, of course, by the late 18th, early 19th centurymo local. but by the 1820s, 1830s like when i used the example of hiatt, these of providence could go anywhere in the united states. hitchcock breaks down the chairs and puts them in barrels and sells them to chicago in the 1840s when chicago is a fairly small place. so i think then the provincial urban breaks down and you're getting something that's more of a sort of national or at least a regional market. i should not go too far in terms of linking up the various locales. that's why i wanted to dwrus the william matthew prior flat

portrait because he's working out of boston. we emphasize these as folk meaning rural, it's a more complicated story than that. >> dr. jaffee, i really appreciated your talk and especially the variety of things you were looking at. i was unfortunately fascinated by one of the verbal pieces you put up. but the letter from the john vanderlin sr. to jr. and that letter concluded by john vanderlin sr. saying famous little thought of money is all and everything. which is a pretty standard artist complaint. but what made me think of is there a transition in this period between fame being attached to creation to fame being attached to accumulation? because i feel now we're often famous for the stuff we have rather than the stuff we make. i wonder if you see that kind of transition in this period and if that's what artists like vanderlin are reacting to?

>> yeah, that's really complicated question. what i guess i would gesture towards would be that the self-identity or self-identification of many of these artists -- i mean somebod considering himself an artisan and entrepreneur, what you might see is one person sees himself as an artisan and the reason i stick all these things together is i really want to break apart the categories of this one's in the art world and this one's in the artisanal or this one is mechanical and this one is not. which is later in the mid-19th century romantic , vanderlin is academic artist. even though he thinks of himself in a very different world, a world of artists, he very much

recognized in the case of phillips here's the way to have one foot in one world and one foot in another world. and many of these folks, and they're men and women, operating do really have -- they're able really to straddle both of those worlds. or get someone like chester harding who starts out as a cabinetmaker and picked up painting and then, of course, becomes one of the most well established portraitists in boston, and so by then, of course, he's -- and when he writes his autobiography, he very much thinks of himself as a romantic artist. >> thank you for your lecture. was there any -- in your research have you found any evidence indicating any sort of rebellion against this kind of economic utilitarianism that is now governing the decorative

arts. if you look at the form of chairs, for example, the sheraton chair, the early 19th century chair is very pedestrian with the plank seats and turned legs. you compare those to some of the chippendale chairs, just no comparison in terms of the form and the style and the beauty of the objects. and there seems to be just a kind of deterioration of the quality of things in terms of you look at toll boxes, you look at mirrors, it's all very formulamatic as you had said. is there any sentiment looking back, i, the good old days in the 18th century when people used to put their heart and soul in these things and now these things are cranked up by the thousands. >> i think you pick that up later in the 19th century. that's more, of course, of a post-civil war where generally you're getting that lament. on the other hand, jut to be difficult, i would argue when i use the word formulaic, i don't

mean it in a negative fashion. maybe that's not clear. i think these are really ingenious means of satisfying a wider demand. i think the art market or these later laments which, you know, come out of sort of an arts and crafts or aesthetic movement feeling, we then, of course, denigrate them. but i think at the time, and that's why i showed the emory philips and i explained, i think most people would be quite happy to have exactly the same portrait as the person down the road. you and i may think, wow, i don't want my daughter depicted in exactly the same standardized form as my neighbor, but i don't think that would be true in 1820. that's why i also wanted to use that term american fancy, because, again, we think of this as an overly exuberant flattened style, but i think, again, they're quite thrilled and don't see that as a loss compared to

the 18th century mode. but thank you. i think that's really a critical point. >> is it possible to generalize about what happens to these itinerant artisans after the new system takes over? not everybody is rufus porter and moves to town and starts "scientific american." do they catch on in this new more industrialized system, or what do a lot of them end up doing? >> that's a great question. in my own exuberance i tend to pump up how wonderful -- and there are winners and losers. there are winners and losers all along the way. so, i think that's really important. there are many people who even if a lot of folks can afford six chairs but don't have but one chair. and this is the whole question, and i'll get to your answer in a second. richard buschmann talks about in the 18th century, very few

people were refined, so it wasn't so bad to the unrefined because most everyone else was unrefined and there's no shame. but by the 1850s, the middlie i classes also have adopted the new means i would argue for being refined and there's a thinner band of unrefined. in this great transformation and this is really the great transformation looked at in a different, yeah, there are losers and so someone like k maker, yes, he does move to this brass crock making, but the level now to be running the new haven crock company, the capitalization because of the machinery, the number of workers, has risen so much, unlike the workshop mode where it's relatively easy to open up a shop. the calization means in 1837 or after 1837 he loses everything. and so again entry into these

which has a lower barrier early on, really increases and so it becomes much harder and the whole clock industry to use that example consolidates in some of the towns like bristol where there were 35 crock shops. it dwindles down to two or three. and chauncey jerome ends up in cincinnati in the 1850s where he's going back to his artisan apron and working in a clock factory. he's no longer an entrepreneur or a manufacturer, even, he's sort of, quote-unquote, been demoted, at age 60 back to working the bench. just as many make it are displaced. but it's an interesting -- i mean, it's a generational story of people coming of age during the revolutionary era who set up their careers come to the mid19th century.

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book tv and american history tv programming on the road the first weekend of each month. march featured shreveport, louisiana, with book tv at the noll memorial library. >> he was a local man and was born here and lived most of his life and he started accumulating books until he w s when he was d continued until he was in his 80s. if we have a gem in the collection, it is probably going to be this one. it's one of the books we're most proud of. it's in the original binding from 1699, and it was once owned by a very famous scientist. you can see he's written his name i. newton. and we are not pulling it out so much anymore because it is starting to flake away on the title page. >> at american history tv look at civil war era medical practices at the pioneer heritage museum. >>