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American Studies 302 Syllabus Spring 1994

  • indicates a textbook available from the Grecourt Bookstore or on reserve at Neilson Library.
  • indicates a reading from the copy packet available from Paradise Copies on Crafts Avenue.
  • indicates an online reading; only required readings are listed here (Optional online readings are in the "Related Sites and Optional Readings sections.)
Week 1: Introduction to Material Culture Studies
Location: Board Room, the Memorial Libraries, then Wright House.

Week 2: Objects as Evidence
Location: Sheldon-Hawks House.

  • Fred B. Kniffen, "Folk Housing. Key to Diffusion," in Common Places, pp. 3-26;
  • Thomas Hubka, "Just Folks Designing: Vernacular Designers and the Generation of Form," in Common Places. pp. 426-432
  • Deetz, In Small Things Forgotten, pp. 2-61.
  • Related Sites and Optional Readings

Week 3: The Meanings of Space
Location: Wells-Thorn House

  • Abbott Lowell Cummings, "Inside the Massachusetts House," in Common Places, pp. 219-239
  • Robert Blair St. George, ',`Set Thine House in Order: The Domestication of the Yeomanry in Seventeenth-Century New England," in Common Places, pp. 336- 364
  • Deetz, In Small Things Forgotten pp. 92-117
  • Norman Morrison Isham and Albert F. Brown, "Early Rhode Island Houses," in Common Places. pp. 149- 158.
  • Related Sites and Optional Readings

Week 4: Textiles and Silver in Early American Life
Location: Helen Geir Flynt Textile Museum, then the Silver Shop.

  • Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, "Cloth, Clothing, and Early American Social History," in Dress vol. 18 (1991) pp. 39-48
  • Abbott Lowell Cummings, "Fabrics and Documentary Sources," pp. 1-14
  • Barbara McLean Ward, "The Most Genteel of Any in the Mechanic Way': The American Silversmith," pp. 15-22
  • Barbara McLean Ward,"Silver and Society," pp. 33-45
  • Martha Gandy Fales, "`As Good As Sterling: Art in American Silver" pp. 90-121.
  • Related Sites and Optional Readings

Week 5: Mannerism and the Baroque: Colonial Furniture
Location: Ashley House

  • Robert F. Trent, "the Concept of Mannerism," and "New England Joinery Before 1700," pp. 368-412, and 501-550
  • Naeve, Identifying American Furniture, pp. 3-13.
  • Related Sites and Optional Readings

OBJECT STUDY DUE

Week 6: Foodways in Colonial New England
Location: Hall Tavern

  • Daphne L. Derven, 'Wholesome, Toothsome, and Diverse: Eighteenth Century Foodways in Deerfield, Massachusetts,"
  • Deetz, In Small Things Forgotten, pp. 120-36
  • Carson, Ambitious Appetites, pp. 1-73.
  • Related Sites and Optional Readings

Week 7: Neoclassicism and the New Nation: Material Life in the Federal Era.
Location: Stebbins House

  • Carson. Ambitious Appetites, pp. 75-166
  • Wendy A Cooper, "The Classical Impulse: Early Nineteenth- Century Style in America, pp. 238-265
  • Naeve. Identifying American Furniture , pp. 14-17.
  • Related Sites and Optional Readings

SPRING BREAK

Week 8: Interpreting a Household in Jacksonian Deerfield.
Location: Hinsdale and Anna Williams House

  • Donald L. Fennimore, "American Neoclassical Furniture and Its European Antecedents,"pp. 49-65
  • Naeve, Identifying American Furniture, pp. 18-21.
  • Related Sites and Optional Readings

PROBATE INVENTORY ANALYSIS DUE

Week 9: Tradition and Change in Mid-Nineteenth Century Architecture
Location: Moors House

  • Catherine W. Bishir, "Jacob W. Holt: An American Builder," in Common Places, pp. 447-481
  • Naeve. Identifying American Furniture, pp. 20-33.
  • Related Sites and Optional Readings

Week 10: Social Meanings in Furniture
Location: Board Room, Memorial Libraries

  • Kenneth L. Ames, "Meaning in Artifacts: Furnishings in Victorian America," in Common Places. pp. 240-260
  • Naeve, Identifying American Furniture, pp. 22-39.
  • Related Sites and Optional Readings

Week 11: The Revival of Arts and Crafts
Location: Frary House

Week 12: Shaping the Land
Location: Meet at Memorial Libraires for walk to rock. (wear sturdy boots)

  • Stewart G. McHenry, "Eighteenth-Century Field Patterns as Vernacular Art," in Common Places, pp. 107-123
  • John Reps, "New Towns in New England," pp. 15-46.
  • Related Sites and Optional Readings
FINAL PAPER DUE.

Week 13: The New England Way of Death
Location: Old Burying Ground

  • Deetz. In Small Things Forgotten, pp. 64-90
  • Kevin M. Sweeney, "Where the Bay Meets the River: Gravestones and Stonecutters in the River Towns of Western Massachusetts, 1690-1810," pp. 1-46.
  • Related Sites and Optional Readings
Copyright © 1996 Smith College American Studies. Last edited January 25 1997 at 0:16:03.
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