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 521 items.
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1800 - 1850 Pieced Quilt
- Description
- The 17-inch center block of this 18th-century quilt is appliquéd with a charming array of floral, geometric, and heart-shaped designs. It is surrounded by five pieced borders.
- Block-printed, copperplate-printed, Indian-painted, and roller-printed techniques are represented in the fabrics that were used for piecing. Plain-woven and pattern-woven white cottons are also evident. The 8 ½-inch blocks that make up the borders are pieced in a variety of patterns popular in the first half of the 19th century. It has a cotton filling and is quilted, 7 stitches/inch.
- The quilt is probably from southern New England, possibly Connecticut, where it was found. The many, many fabrics, different pieced block patterns, and appliquéd designs contribute to this sampler of 19th- century quilt making.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1800-1850
- maker
- unknown
- ID Number
- 1981.0417.04
- catalog number
- 1981.0417.04
- accession number
- 1981.0417
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
1800 - 1815 Indigo Wool Quilt
- Description
- This example of an early 19th-century whole cloth quilt has an unusual design. Four sprays of large flowers, leaves, and clusters of berries begin in each of the corners and meet in the center of the quilt. They are framed by a wide scrolling vine with a 2 ½ -inch feathered band along the outer edge.
- The fabric for this quilt 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 fabric surface.
- The motifs in the design are all outline quilted, 8-9 stitches/inch. The background, parallel diagonal lines quilted ¼-inch apart, further enhances the overall design. The lining is a tan and blue plaid wool/cotton fabric. There is no binding the front and lining are turned in and sewn with a running stitch.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1800-1815
- maker
- unknown
- ID Number
- 1981.1020.08
- catalog number
- 1981.1020.08
- accession number
- 1981.1020
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Mousetrap
- Description
- This simple wood and coil-spring trap by an unknown maker has an unusual upright mechanism. Since the U.S. Patent Office was formally established in 1838, it has granted more than forty-four hundred mousetrap peatents, more than for any other device. John Mast heeded Ralph Waldo Emerson’s advice to, “Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door” and in 1899 built the more familiar snap trap, which received its patent in 1903. Simple and effective, Mast’s trap is the best-selling mousetrap of all time. However, inventors are still attempting to improve upon Mast’s design--the Patent Office grants about 40 patents for mousetraps a year, and it receives almost ten times as many patent requests!
- The simple mousetrap is a testament to American ingenuity. Inventors and innovators have sought to deal with the mice in different ways--some traps are “beheaders,” some “imprisoners,” and some are “mashers.” No matter the design, the mousetrap has an undeniable grasp on the American imagination, with board games, gambling apparatus, and even movies being based on this pervasive mammal and the attempts to capture it.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- mid 19th century
- ID Number
- 1982.0064.03
- accession number
- 1982.0064
- catalog number
- 1982.64.03
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
1825 - 1850 Mary Hise Norton's Silk Quilt
- Description
- Mary Hise Norton of Russellville, Kentucky, owned this elaborate silk quilt in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. Each of its thirty-six 14-inch stars is pieced using 32 diamond shapes cut from velvet and striped, checked, plaid, brocaded, and warp-printed silks. The stars are set off by 4-inch and 8-inch squares and 4 x 8-inch rectangles along the edges, all of plain green silk.
- The larger silk squares and the rectangles have quilted and stuffed motifs of flowers or foliage sprays, each a different design. Their backgrounds and the smaller squares are quilted in a diagonal grid. The pieced stars are outline-quilted, all at 12 stitches per inch.
- Mary Hise Norton’s quilt has been displayed at many venues and has won prizes, among them the 1917 McCracken County (Kentucky) Fair Blue Ribbon and in 1981 the Kentucky Heritage Quilt Society Prize.
- In 1981 the donor wrote: “Our family has a rare quilt . . . the preservation of my quilt is my primary consideration. The quilt has been saved and passed down through seven generations. When my grandmother died in 1930 it was taken from her trunk and stored in a cedar chest from then until the late 70’s . . . . It is a treasure that has been added to my life. It is too rare and old to be used on a bed, I have decided to donate it to [the] Museum.” The donor noted that her great-great-grandmother, Mary Hise Norton, was known for her “artistic worth.”
- The daughter of Frederick and Nancy Hise, Mary Hise was born in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, on March 12, 1797. She moved with her family to Russellville, Kentucky, about 1810. On April 11, 1813, she married William Norton. Born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on September 2, 1781, William Norton also moved to Kentucky, settling in Russellville about 1810.The Nortons were the parents of six sons and three daughters and owned a blacksmith shop and iron store. They continued to live in Russellville, Kentucky, until William’s death in 1858 and Mary’s in 1878.
- According to David Morton, who in 1891 wrote The Nortons of Russellville, Kentucky, “William and Mary Norton journeyed together as husband and wife for nearly forty-five years, until they became so thoroughly assimilated as to think, talk, and even look alike . . . . Mrs. Norton was more robust in body and mind and more vivacious in temperament than her husband. She did her own thinking, had well-defined opinions and expressed them freely, loved to talk and talked well. A model housekeeper, she rose up while it was yet night and gave meat to her household, nor did her candle go out by night. She ate not the bread of idleness, and her children called her blessed; her husband also praised her. Much of the energy and financial skill evinced by her sons was derived by inheritance from her.”
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1825-1850
- date made
- Second quarter, 19th century
- quilter
- Norton, Mary Hise
- ID Number
- 1982.0392.01
- catalog number
- 1982.0392.01
- accession number
- 1982.0392
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Daniel Pursell Coverlet
- Description
- The patterns seen in this cotton and wool Jacquard double-woven coverlet are “Birds of Paradise,” “Penelope’s Flower Pot,” and “Boston Town." The coverlet may have been made in Ohio by Daniel Pursell in the mid-to-late 1860’s. Mr. Pursell was born in Ohio about 1815. He reportedly lived in Portsmouth, Scott County, Ohio. He is listed in the 1850 Ohio Census as a 35-year-old weaver. When the coverlet arrived at the Museum in 1982, a note was attached to it. It read: “coverlet 110 years old or more 1868 approx. Prob. Made by D.Pursell Ports O-Liberty Raised sheep for wool, Grandm helped twist flax GMa born 1848 married 1871 about 23 years old.”
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1860s
- maker (possibly)
- Pursell, Daniel
- ID Number
- 1982.0573.001
- accession number
- 1982.0573
- catalog number
- 1982.0573.001
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
1839 Frances M. Jolly's Quilt Top
- Description
- The embroidered inscription “Frances M Jolly 1839” graces the center medallion of this quilt top. This signed and dated silk-and-wool-embroidered quilt top came from an African American family, and the maker, Frances M. Jolly, was said to be an ancestor of one of the donor’s grandparents. The family, of whom little else is known, is said to have lived in Massachusetts and moved to Pinehurst, North Carolina.
- A 37½-inch black square set diagonally in the center with red corner triangles is the focal point of this quilt top. It is surrounded by three borders: a 9-inch black, a 10-inch orange, and an 11-inch black. Appliquéd flowers, leaves, and vines embellished with braid and embroidery decorate the surface.
- The edges of the appliquéd motifs are not turned under, but are held in place by buttonhole stitching in matching or near-matching thread colors. Silk or cotton threads are used for securing the appliqué motifs, stitching, and the embroidery, except for the inscription, which is chain-stitched in red wool. The quilt has both hand and machine stitching. The outer two borders are machine-stitched, indicating that they were joined after 1860 when sewing machines became common in households. Wool fabrics are used for both the pieced sections and the appliquéd motifs. Wool and silk braid and silk ribbon contribute to the overall design.
- Little is known about Frances M. Jolly. A headstone in the White Cloud Presbyterian Church Cemetery, Calloway County, Missouri bears the name “Frances M. Jolly dau of E. H. and A. M. Jolly Feb 15, 1915 and Feb. 11, 1916.” Whether this has a connection to the Frances M. Jolly that is inscribed on this quilt top is a question that remains to be answered with further research and information.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1839
- quilter
- Jolly, Frances M.
- ID Number
- 1983.0241.01
- catalog number
- 1983.0241.01
- accession number
- 1983.0241
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Meissen bowl
- Description
- This rinsing bowl is part of the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of European Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychoanalysis and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.
- The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in the German States, were the result of an intense period of empirical research. Generally associated with artistic achievement of a high order, Meissen porcelain was also a technological achievement in the development of inorganic, non-metallic materials.
- This bowl was once part of a tea and coffee service onto which were painted topographical scenes of Saxon places of interest. Featured on the bowl is the Königstein Fortress, built on the top of the rocky prominence in the center left of the image, which lies south of Dresden close to the river Elbe seen on the right. The fortress, which still exists, stands on an outcrop of sandstone sculpted over millenia by the waters of the Elbe, and it is situated in a region unique to this part of south-eastern Germany known as Saxon Switzerland, later to become a landscape fascinating to early nineteenth century painters like Caspar David Friedrich. The second painting depicts the Sonnenstein castle above the town of Pirna, which lies south-east of Dresden on the banks of the Elbe. In the sixteenth century Pirna flourished as a merchant town, and was a center for Protestant minorities seeking refuge from persecution in Catholic Central Europe. Bernardo Belotto/Caneletto (1721-1780), the nephew of Giovanni Antonio Caneletto (1697-1768), his pupil and assistant in Venice before leaving to study in Rome, painted several scenes of Pirna, but at the Meissen Manufactory both these images, painted in onglaze enamels, were after engravings executed in 1726 by Johann Alexander Thiele (1685-1752). Thiele painted many landscapes of Saxon sites, and among his pupils were artists who later developed what became known as the Dresden landscape school, active until well into the nineteenth century. The bowl is an example of Meissen’s use of sources from the work of contemporary artists, an exchange made possible through the increasing volume of prints supplied to the manufactory. (Marx, H., Die Schoensten Ansichten aus Sachsen: Johann Alexander Thiele (1685-1752) zum 250 Todestag, 2002).
- The bowl has a sea-green ground color, and the images in the reserves are painted in polychrome enamels. The interior and exterior gold scrollwork and foot ring frame the piece. The interior has another miniature landscape that remains unidentified and is probably imaginary, surrounded by elaborate scrollwork in purple and iron-red enamels and gold. When part of a tea and coffee service, the bowl was used to take the last dregs of a beverage before a cup was rinsed and refilled. It is likely that a service of this kind was not much used in a practical sense, but put on display for admiration. (See a milk pot from this service in Pietsch, U., Early Meissen Porcelain: the Wark Collection from the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, 2011, p.379).
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1735
- maker
- Meissen Manufactory
- ID Number
- 1983.0565.43
- collector/donor number
- 893
- accession number
- 1983.0565
- catalog number
- 1983.0565.43
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
1880 - 1899 Copland Family's "Log Cabin" Bedcover
- Description
- This carefully thought-out example of the pieced “Log Cabin” or “Courthouse Steps” pattern was given as a gift of friendship from the Copland Family of Johnson Creek, Wis., to Clara Foy. She in turn gave it to her stepgrand daughter, the donor, in 1942 as a gift before she was married. The quilt was exhibited at a county fair where it won a blue ribbon and possibly was exhibited at the Wisconsin State Fair and other fairs.
- The bedcover is composed of 7 ½-inch blocks made of many different late-19th-century roller-printed cottons. The blocks are framed by four rows of short printed cotton strips, with a 1 ¾-inch cotton border print on the inner edge and a different 1 ¾-inch cotton border print on the outer edge. The blocks and strips are constructed on muslin squares and rectangles. In each of the four corners of the border is a 7-inch block pieced in the “White House Steps” version of the “Log Cabin” pattern. Although the donor referred to it as a quilt, it has neither a lining nor a filling and is not quilted.
- Clara Falcy, the recipient of this bedcover from the Copland Family, was born in Wisconsin in 1887. She married a Mr. Radditz and moved to Indiana. After his death, she married George L. Foy (about 1870-1933) in 1931 and they lived in Wisconsin.
- The numerous fabrics in this version of the “Log Cabin” quilt make it an interesting contribution to the Collection.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1880-1899
- maker
- unknown
- ID Number
- 1983.0731.01
- catalog number
- 1983.0731.01
- accession number
- 1983.0731
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
1850 - 1880 Lucy Meade's "Sunburst" Pieced Quilt
- Description
- The “Sunburst” quilt was brought to Kansas from Ohio in 1904 by Emma Tracy, Lucy Meade’s mother. She had inherited it from her mother, Candus Cone Northway, whose aunt crafted it in the mid-19th century. Lucy Tracy Meade, the donor’s grandmother, exhibited the quilt in Kansas in the 1970s.
- According to Lucy Meade, it was always referred to in the family as the star pattern. Whether it is called a 14-point star, a sunburst, or a sunflower, the quilt makes a bold graphic statement.
- This carefully designed quilt is composed of five different roller-printed cottons, with a white cotton lining and cotton filling. A 23 ¾-inch red circular center is surrounded by 14 yellow triangles and 14 green diamonds. Additional piecing in blue provides contrast to the colorful sunburst. The resulting 57-inch square is framed by a border of 9 ½-inches on three sides and 17-inches on the bottom. The quilting accents the design with concentric circles ¾-inch apart in the center, echo quilting on the diamonds and triangles, clamshell quilting on the wedges between diamonds, and further concentric circles around the sunburst. The border is quilted with a diagonal grid pattern, all done at 7 stitches per inch.
- In an article in the Hays Daily News from 1979 about the “Sunburst” quilt, Lucy Meade says: “It’s been in the family for as long as I can remember. We’re even so worried about it wearing out that we don’t use it anymore, except for display purposes.” Her granddaughter, Janet Meade Komoroske agreed, and felt that the quilt belonged in a museum collection where it can be admired and studied by a wider audience.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1850-1880
- maker
- unknown
- ID Number
- 1984.0211.01
- catalog number
- 1984.0211.01
- accession number
- 1984.0211
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
1900 - 1915 Amish "Garden of Eden" Quilt
- Description
- Quilted in Mifflin County, Pennsylvania in the early twentieth century, this is an example of the “Garden of Eden” or “Economy Block” quilt pattern. A center of twenty pieced and plain 20-inch square blocks is framed by a “Chain Square” and two plain borders. Plain-colored cotton and wool fabrics and black quilting thread contribute to its quiet elegance.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1900-1915
- quilter
- unknown
- ID Number
- 1985.0029.01
- catalog number
- 1985.0029.01
- accession number
- 1985.0029
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center