Making Furniture in Preindustrial America: The Social Economy of Newtown and Woodbury, Connecticut

Abstract

A study of the furniture-makers, social structure, household possessions and surviving pieces of furniture of two neighbouring New England communities. Drawing on documentary and artifactual sources, the author explores the interplay among producer, process and style in demonstrating why and how the social economies of these two seemingly similar towns differed significantly during the late colonial and early national periods. Throughout the latter half of the 18th century, Cooke explains, the yeoman town of Newtown relied on native joiners whose work satisfied the expectations of their fellow townspeople. These traditionalists combined craftwork with farming and made relatively plain, conservative furniture. By contrast, the typical joiner in the neighbouring gentry town of Woodbury was the immigrant innovator. Born and raised elsewhere in Connecticut and serving a diverse clientele, these craftsmen were free of cultural constraints that affected their Newtown contemporaries. Relying almost entirely on furniture-making for their livelihood, they were free to pay greater attention to stylistically sensitive features than to mere function.