Domestic Furnishings - Overview
Washboards, armchairs, lamps, and pots and pans may not seem to be museum pieces. But they are invaluable evidence of how most people lived day to day, last week or three centuries ago. The Museum's collections of domestic furnishings comprise more than 40,000 artifacts from American households. Large and small, they include four houses, roughly 800 pieces of furniture, fireplace equipment, spinning wheels, ceramics and glass, family portraits, and much more.
The Arthur and Edna Greenwood Collection contains more than 2,000 objects from New England households from colonial times to mid-1800s. From kitchens of the past, the collections hold some 3,300 artifacts, ranging from refrigerators to spatulas. The lighting devices alone number roughly 3,000 lamps, candleholders, and lanterns.
"Domestic Furnishings - Overview" showing 43 items.
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A Wagon-Spring Clock
- Description
- From its invention in the fifteenth century, the coiled steel spring became the preferred power source of European clockmakers. The spring permitted clocks to be small and portable, so most small European clocks and watches employed it. But the steel spring was an expensive import to America. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, and the introduction of the Bessemer process for mass-producing steel however, coiled steel springs were not produced in the United States. American clockmakers circumvented this limitation with ingenious weight-driven shelf clocks that were accurate, reliable, and compact. These they mass-produced and offered to ever-widening markets.
- Joseph Ives, a Bristol clockmaker notable for his inventiveness but lack of business success, had first introduced wagon-spring clocks in the 1820s. They had conventional weight-driven brass movements, except for one feature: The strings that ordinarily would have held the weights were connected, through intermediary pulleys, to the free ends of what looked like a wagon-spring on the bottom of the case. This mechanism exerted a downward pull like the two weights.
- When American clockmakers began to compete abroad with European clockmakers in the 1830s and 1840s, they were reminded of the advantages of spring-driven clocks. They vigorously explored various schemes for producing spring-driven clock movements without relying on imported steel springs. When one manufacturer in Bristol, Connecticut—Brewster and Ingraham—had considerable success with coiled springs made of brass, a local competitor, Birge and Fuller, resurrected Ives's "wagon-spring" design.
- Birge and Fuller manufactured wagon-spring clocks from 1844 until 1847, when locally produced coiled-steel springs finally became available.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- ca 1845
- maker
- Birge & Fuller
- ID Number
- ME*315876
- catalog number
- 315876
- accession number
- 225120
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Eli Terry Tall Case Clock
- Description
- Between roughly 1790 and 1820, American clockmaking changed from a handicraft to an industry. The principal setting for this transformation was western Connecticut, the principal product was the wooden clock movement, and the main character was Eli Terry (1772-1852).
- Terry began his clockworking career traditionally enough. He acquired the metalworking skills to make brass movements during an apprenticeship with Daniel Burnap of East Windsor, who in turn had been apprenticed to the British immigrant clockmaker Thomas Harland. Terry's teachers for wooden movements were probably Timothy or Benjamin Cheney, clockmaking brothers from East Hartford.
- Once on his own, Terry specialized in thirty-hour wooden movements for tall case clocks, although he accepted commissions for brass movements as well. Over a period of years, he experimented with many variations of thirty-hour movements, one of which is in this clock. The town of Plymouth, Connecticut, named on the dial, was incorporated in 1795; Terry made this clock some time between 1795 and 1807. After 1807 Terry's wooden movements had different characteristics. In that year he introduced large-scale factory methods and water-powered machinery into the manufacture of wooden tall case-clock movements. His pioneering application of mass-production technology to the clock industry and his highly successful mass-produced shelf-clock won Terry a prominent place in American history.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1795
- maker
- Terry, Eli
- ID Number
- 1984.0416.006
- accession number
- 1984.0416
- catalog number
- 1984.0416.006
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
A Pillar-and-Scroll Shelf Clock
- Description
- Eli Terry began to mass-produce his austere but serviceable box clock (See Cat. 317044) in 1816 and immediately proceeded to refine it. The plain box case acquired a pair of slender pillars on the sides, scrollwork on top, and a set of graceful feet. A dial was added, and the lower portion of the glass door was reverse-painted. In the movement, Terry experimented with modifications of the escapement, revised the gear trains, and replaced the rack-and-snail striking mechanism with the more economical count wheel. The result of these efforts, patented in 1823, was another wooden, weight-driven, hour-striking, thirty-hour clock that soon became widely known as the Connecticut pillar-and-scroll clock.
- As the design of the clock was perfected, Terry set about organizing its manufacture. Production was underway in 1822. By 1825, Eli Terry, in partnership with his brother Samuel and his sons Eli, Jr., and Henry, was operating three factories, each turning out two to three thousand pillar-and-scroll clocks a year. Originally, Terry's clock cost fourteen dollars, but before long its price dropped to under ten dollars.
- Other clockmakers, notably Seth Thomas, soon produced clocks after Terry's design. The output of the new clock industry soon became too large to be absorbed by the local market. Scores of traveling salesmen were dispatched to sell clocks in the rural West and South. "As to the Yankee clocks peddler," reported an English traveler in the 1840s, " in Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and here in every dell of Arkansas and in every cabin where there was not a chair to sit on, there was sure to be a Connecticut clock."
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1825-1828
- maker
- Eli & Samuel Terry
- ID Number
- 1984.0416.033
- catalog number
- 1984.0416.033
- accession number
- 1984.0416
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
An Acorn Clock
- Description
- The acorn clock, named for the whimsical, graceful shape of its case, is coveted by collectors for its rarity. Historically it is interesting as an example of mass-produced Connecticut clocks during their transition from weight- to spring-drive. The use of the spring-drive meant that manufacturers no longer had to build elongated cases to accommodate falling weights. This new freedom, along with the technique of laminating and bending wood, made possible the characteristic acorn shape of the case.
- Jonathon Clark Brown (1807-1872) was a prominent Bristol, Connecticut manufacturer, who operated a succession of clock factories. Last and best-known of these was the Forestville Manufacturing Company, which boasted an annual output of one hundred thousand clocks shortly before its bankruptcy in 1856. A cabinetmaker by trade, Brown offered an unusually diverse and imaginative range of case styles. The Forestville Manufacturing Company made acorn clocks like this one from 1847 to 1850.
- Acorn clocks were among the first to use the locally made coiled-steel springs that had recently become available. These springs were not installed as integral parts of the movement. Instead they were attached to a conventional weight-driven movement in a notably rough-and-ready manner. Mounted at the bottom of the case, the springs exerted the same pulling force upon the clock as the falling weights had. The two springs, one for the going train and another for the hour-striking train, were each combined with a fusee, a cone-shaped pulley designed to equalize the changing force of the unwinding spring. Before long, Connecticut clockmakers dispensed with the fusees and incorporated the springs directly into the movements.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- ca 1849
- manufacturer
- Forestville Manufacturing Company
- ID Number
- ME*311601
- catalog number
- 311601
- accession number
- 148588
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Jerome Brothers Ogee Clock
- Description
- The depression of 1837 hit Connecticut wooden clock manufacturers so hard that they feared the entire industry might collapse. On a trip to Virginia to collect old bills, Chauncey Jerome—a successful clock producer from Bristol, Connecticut—had a new idea. A simple one-day clock made of brass, he thought, could be produced far more cheaply and in much greater quantities than the standard wooden clock. When he returned home, he described the idea to his brother Noble, a talented clockmaker who quickly made a prototype and received a U.S. patent on it in 1839.
- A typical factory might produce several thousand wooden clocks per year, but the Jeromes—and their principal imitators and rivals—were soon mass-producing brass clocks in the hundreds of thousands. For these brass clocks, Chauncey Jerome adopted a simple case introduced by several other New England clockmakers. The case became famous as the "Ogee," named for its characteristic S-shaped moldings.
- Unlike wooden clocks, brass movements were unaffected by humidity and could be transported by ship. The entire world, clockmakers quickly recognized, was a potential market. The reception Chauncey Jerome's clocks received in England, home of some of the world's finest clockmakers, illustrates the impact of his innovation. When the first clocks arrived in 1842, valued at an improbable $1.50 each, English customs inspectors assumed that Jerome had set the figure far below cost to avoid paying the proper duties. To teach Jerome a lesson, the inspectors bought the whole shipment at the declared price. When a similar cargo at the same valuation arrived a few days later, they did the same. Only with the third shipment did they recognize that they were unwittingly becoming distributors for Yankee clock manufacturers. Jerome was content with the prices British customs agents had been paying him and would have happily supplied them indefinitely. From then on Jerome's clocks entered the English market unimpeded.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- ca 1840
- maker
- Jerome, Chauncey
- ID Number
- ME*318998
- catalog number
- 318998
- accession number
- 236076
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Chair-Table
- Description
- More than meets the eye, this 17th-century chair-table is what its name denotes, convertible from a chair into a table. The rounded top of the table flips up to become the back of the chair. Its dual-function was especially popular in homes with limited space. The chair-table originally had a drawer that slid under the seat of the chair, allowing for extra storage space.
- The chair-table was part of the “Greenwood Gift,” a collection of over two thousand everyday household objects donated by Arthur and Edna Greenwood. Their gift is among the greatest collections of Americana that the Smithsonian has ever collected. As Edna Greenwood once said, their gift exemplifies, “what America was, that makes it what it is.”
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1675
- ID Number
- DL*388038
- catalog number
- 388038
- accession number
- 182022
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
1750 - 1800 Copp Family's Indigo Wool Quilt
- Description
- This indigo wool quilt is one of three late-eighteenth-and-early nineteenth-century quilts that were donated in the 1890s by John Brenton Copp of Stonington, Connecticut. All are part of an extensive gift of household textiles, costume items, furniture, and other objects that belonged to his family from 1750 to 1850. The Copp Collection continues to provide insights into New England family life of that period.
- Whole cloth quilts were most popular between 1775 and 1840, although before 1800 they were relatively rare and expensive. This eighteenth-century example from the Copp family is a glazed indigo wool quilt. The fabric was dyed blue with indigo, one of the oldest dyes used for textiles. Glazing, a process involving the use of a hot press on wool fabric, resulted in a smooth, lustrous surface. The lining, a butternut-colored wool, apparently was made from two different blankets.
- It is quilted with a popular motif of the period, a large pineapple, using blue wool thread, 7 stitches per inch. A quilted flowering vine extends from a basket at the bottom edge of the quilt and frames the pineapple. A family member, John Brown Copp (b. 1779), was known to have drawn designs for white counterpanes for the young ladies in the Stonington area. The quilting pattern on this indigo wool quilt is similar to the embroidery pattern of a white counterpane, from about 1800, which also belonged to the Copp family.
- An analysis of the household textile collection donated by John Brenton Copp can be found in the Copp Family Textiles by Grace Rogers Cooper (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1971). In the book the author summarizes the family background. “The first Copp to reach America was William, a 26-year-old London shoemaker who in 1635 set out for the Massachusetts Colony on the good ship Blessing. He landed east of Boston and became the first owner of Copp’s Hill in north Boston . . . . William’s son Jonathan established the Connecticut branch of the family around Stonington later in the seventeenth century. Many of his male descendents gained comfortable prosperity as merchants and businessmen, while their wives and daughters led full lives as mothers of the large families in which education and refinement were encouraged . . . . The long succession of Jonathans, Samuels, Catherines, Esters, Marys, and Sarahs makes it rather difficult to set in order the generations and their contributions to the collection.” The exact maker of this indigo wool quilt is unidentified, but it was probably made by one or more members of the Copp household.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1750-1800
- maker
- Copp Family
- ID Number
- TE*H006643
- accession number
- 28810
- catalog number
- H006643
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
1790 - 1810 Copp Family's "Nine-patch" Pieced Quilt
- Description
- This quilt is one of three late-eighteenth-and-early-nineteenth-century quilts that were donated in the 1890s by John Brenton Copp of Stonington, Connecticut. All are a part of an extensive gift of household textiles, costume items, furniture, and other objects that belonged to his family from 1750 to 1850. The Copp Collection continues to provide insights into New England family life of that period.
- The pieced blocks on this quilt, a variation of the “Nine-patch” pattern, are each made of one of nine different block-printed cottons. These are symmetrically arranged according to the particular print, and alternate with plain white blocks. The quilting pattern consists of parallel diagonal lines on the pieced blocks contrasting with 1½-inch shells on the white blocks, all quilted at 7 stitches per inch.
- An analysis of the household textile collection donated by John Brenton Copp can be found in the Copp Family Textiles by Grace Rogers Cooper (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1971). In the book the author summarizes the family background. “The first Copp to reach America was William, a 26-year-old London shoemaker who in 1635 set out for the Massachusetts Colony on the good ship Blessing. He landed east of Boston and became the first owner of Copp’s Hill in north Boston . . . . William’s son Jonathan established the Connecticut branch of the family around Stonington later in the seventeenth century. Many of his male descendents gained comfortable prosperity as merchants and businessmen, while their wives and daughters led full lives as mothers of the large families in which education and refinement were encouraged . . . . The long succession of Jonathans, Samuels, Catherines, Esters, Marys, and Sarahs makes it rather difficult to set in order the generations and their contributions to the collection.” The exact maker of this “Nine-patch” quilt is unidentified, but it was probably made by one or more members of the Copp household.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1790-1810
- maker
- Copp Family
- ID Number
- TE*H006679
- accession number
- 28810
- catalog number
- H006679
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
1790 - 1810 Copp Family's Framed Center Pieced Quilt
- Description
- This pieced-work example is one of three late-eighteenth-and-early nineteenth-century quilts that were donated in the 1890s by John Brenton Copp of Stonington, Connecticut. All are a part of an extensive gift of household textiles, costume items, furniture and other objects that belonged to his family from 1750 to 1850. The Copp Collection continues to provide insights into New England family life of that period.
- The arrangement of the pattern of this quilt is one found frequently in eighteenth-century and early-nineteenth-century quilts, a succession of borders framing a center panel of pieced work. A view of the pieced center of this quilt seen from the right side, suggests the shape of a tree, and the printed fabrics repeat in mirror fashion in each row about ninety percent of the time. Perhaps the center was erroneously placed in this direction, or it was meant to be viewed from the bedside. The lining is pieced of much-mended linen and cotton fabrics that originally were probably sheets. On one piece, the initials “HV” are cross-stitched in tan silk thread. It is quilted in an overall herringbone pattern, 5 or 6 stitches per inch.
- The clothing and furnishing fabrics used in the quilt top span a period of about forty years. This, and the fact that the Copp family was in the dry goods business, may explain why the quilt includes more than one hundred and fifty different printed, woven-patterned, and plain fabrics of cotton, linen and silk. Although the array of fabrics is extravagant, economy is evident in the use of even the smallest scraps. Many blocks in the quilt pattern are composed of several smaller, irregularly shaped pieces. Two dresses, in the Copp Collection, one from about 1800 and the other from about 1815, are made of fabrics that appear in the quilt.
- An analysis of the household textile collection donated by John Brenton Copp can be found in the Copp Family Textiles by Grace Rogers Cooper (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1971). In the book the author summarizes the family background. “The first Copp to reach America was William, a 26-year-old London shoemaker who in 1635 set out for the Massachusetts Colony on the good ship Blessing. He landed east of Boston and became the first owner of Copp’s Hill in north Boston . . . . William’s son Jonathan established the Connecticut branch of the family around Stonington later in the seventeenth century. Many of his male descendents gained comfortable prosperity as merchants and businessmen, while their wives and daughters led full lives as mothers of the large families in which education and refinement were encouraged . . . . The long succession of Jonathans, Samuels, Catherines, Esters, Marys, and Sarahs makes it rather difficult to set in order the generations and their contributions to the collection.” The exact maker of this quilt is unidentified, but it was probably made by one or more members of the Copp household.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1790-1810
- maker
- Copp Family
- ID Number
- TE*H006680
- accession number
- 28810
- catalog number
- H006680
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Abbie Corey Bracket Coverlet
- Description
- Abbie Corey Brackett is said to have woven this cotton and wool coverlet on the Corey farm in Plainfield, Connecticut, in the early 19th century. It is woven in two sections, each forty inches wide. The center seam of this single-woven coverlet is sewn with linen thread. The attached fringe is eight inches deep, and made of hand-knotted wool. In the 18th and 19th centuries, very few women were involved in weaving anything as complicated as a coverlet. However, women were involved in spinning fiber into yarn. They would take the yarn to a professional weaver and pay him to make them a coverlet. The coverlet might be used immediately or it could be put into their dowry, or hope chest, for use after marriage.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1800-1825
- owner; possible maker
- Brackett, Abbie Corey
- maker
- Brackett, Abbie Corey
- ID Number
- TE*T009125
- catalog number
- T09125.000
- accession number
- 169638
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center